Captain America: The First Avenger [DVD]

The Selfless HeroMarvel is a comic publisher that has enthusiastic fans and respect for their creations. The comic book logo beginning that flashes across the screen of every Marvel masterpiece initiates a sensation of excitement and suspense among the audience due to their reputation of stellar superhero films. Captain America: The First Avenger was directed by Joe Johnston. A man known for his interest and expertise in special effects and fantasy department, making him the ideal candidate for this superhero film. Throughout the film, Captain America: The First Avenger, Joe Johnston was the captain of incorporating symbols of color within characters and settings.Captain America: The First Avenger begins with a very mysterious and cold glacier setting with very dark lighting and unrevealed characters. The music by Alan Silvestri is very intense, suspenseful, and mystifying. The setting is quickly represented in 1942, the time of World War Two, when Captain America is introduced during the enlisting process. An enlistee announces, “Boy a lot of guys getting killed over there. Kinda makes you think twice about enlisting, huh?” Steve Rogers, later identified as Captain America, replies with a firm “Nope.” Steve Rogers is portrayed as a scrawny, driven, and desperate man who wants nothing more than to serve his country. Doctor Abraham Erskine is introduced into the movie by being intrigued by Steve Rogers’ intensified eager to join the army. Also, at this time in the movie, Stark industries is thrown into the mix when Tony Starks father, Howard Stark, speaks about a flying car and his new technology he is inventing. This uniquely foreshadows that Doctor Abraham Erskine, Steve Rogers, and Howard Stark will eventually be together again in another situation of experimentation when Steve Rogers is transformed into Captain America. When Captain America is transformed in the lab, he brings to life the American red, white and blue uniform that becomes his icon. His iconic outfit purposely stands out from the other soldiers because he has become their respected leader, their captain. As the scenes shuffle, we eventually come face-to-face with the lair of Nazi officer Johann Schmidt. His cold, dark, uninviting, yet modern room incorporates mainly dark colors with seamless highlights of fluorescent blue. The hints of fluorescent blue generate the connection to the Tesseract and how it has the power connect to the out of the world forces that exist. This is tied with Schmidt because he desperate searches for greater power and does this through rage. Joe Johnston used this technique to hint to the audience about Schmidt use of the Tesseract as an alternative power source and how the Tesseract drives Schmidt’s evil mentality. Schmidt reveals his true face for the first time when Captain America invades the Hydra site. He throws his fake human skin face into the fire below to show that the war between Captain America and him has begun and he is officially ready to fight. Schmidt’s true boiling red face explains the constant rage that is exemplified through his want for greater power. The music at the end of the film proves to be accurate to the audiences and the character’s emotions during the scene. Alan Silvestri incorporated slow, intense, and heroic music while Captain America drove the plane into the water. This exemplified the intensity of the sacrifice he made. Then, it almost immediately switched to cheers to reassure the audience that the Captain did the heroic job of ending the war and truly saving all Americans.Joe Johnston uses symbols throughout the film in a simple way. He does this by zooming in and drawing attention for the sole purpose of forcing the audience to notice and remember the symbol for a reason. The first symbol is shown to the audience during Joe Johnston’s technique of a flash-forward scene as the first scene of the movie. The audience is presented with Captain America’s red, white, and blue shield cemented underneath the ice. This initiates the audience’s thoughts that this movie revolves around American values and gives the suspenseful feeling of what could’ve occurred that lead to the hero’s symbol being inaccessible. The following symbol that the camera zooms up on is the octopus as the emblem on the front of the car that shows the obvious enemy side: Hydra. The last main symbol of importance that immediately comes to the audience’s attention is the Tesseract; the fluorescent, blue, and glowing cube that connects to extraterrestrial life. It is clearly depicted as a instance of importance because it was introduced with high interest from the villain character, Johann Schmidt, and was secretly hidden in the dark and dusty tomb.One main genre that was incorporated throughout the entire film was romance. The primary aspect of romance was between Steve Rogers and Agent Carter. Agent Carter was introduced as division supervisor and was consistently intrigued and impressed by Steve Rogers heroic qualities. Agent Carter never failed to have a glimpse of red on her at all times portraying her aspects of intimacy and female sexuality. Along with Agent Carter’s constant quality of red, she also has the typical outfit of red, white, and blue which tied her and Captain America together throughout the whole movie. Another genre that was illustrated was science fiction. The clips involving the Tesseract incorporate large amounts of science fiction because of its computer-generated qualities and capabilities. A majority of the weapons and soldiers that were under control of Johann Schmidt portray science fiction because they are futuristic and utilize the Tesseract as a power source. The genre of action is constantly displayed during battles between Captain America and the army against Hydra. This constant fight continues until it is finalized with a fight between Captain America and Johann Schmidt. The action on the American side is less advanced compared to Hydra due to the time period and lack of intelligence with futuristic materials versus Hydra has the brain of Schmidt’s extreme scientist that allowed Hydra to take their weapons quality and quantity to the next level making the fight harder to achieve for the Americans, but not impossible. The last, most important genre that was depicted in the film was the comic genre. The film’s comic qualities constantly make an appearance through the hero, villain, and storyline. The typical comic book plot shows through by having a hero that was introduced from the start and slowly found his duty to the world. Eventually, the hero developed an arch-nemesis to battle against until the end when the hero is forced to make a drastic sacrifice that gives him the ultimate hero reputation.Captain America: The First Avenger was a film created as an idealistic hero movie. Joe Johnston effectively incorporated different settings, lighting, special effects, and genres in order to give this film the spark it needed to be rated as a successful superhero movie. As a viewer in the audience, I believe Johnston worked hard to integrate scenes that truly depicted Steve Roger’s mental dedication to saving lives. In my opinion, the most crucial scene, was when the commanding officer of Roger’s division threw a grenade at the men to test their response and while every man ran away for their safety, Rogers ran and jumped on top of the grenade to sacrifice himself. This scene sparked my interest because I feel like it became a turning point for the audience to notice that Rogers was the clear candidate to be Captain America: America’s fighting hero. This scene goes to show that there are many undiscovered individuals out there that are willing to put forth the effort that is required in order to contribute to the greater good of society.

This is the best comic book movie to be released this summer. That is what it is, a comic book movie. It does not surpass that level but nobody ever said it had to. While not a Spider-man 2 or Dark Knight it fits in well as a first entry in an inevitable series. Perhaps not the fun, turn the formula on its head, film that Iron Man was, it is still an excellent comic book film that manages to have developed characters and a story actually propelled by plot rather than CG sequences (I'm looking at you Transformers 2 and 3). Still, even with all its positive attributes the film might've been largely a one time viewing for me, that is, if it hadn't been for Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter.My personal, and largest, issue with comic book movies has been their seeming inability to cast memorable and talented women in the leading lady spot. While the leading lady role has frequently been nothing more than a damsel in distress (other than perhaps in team up movies such as X-men), something unfortunately true even of Nolan's gritty Dark Knight films, here we find that is not the case. Peggy Carter is a female character who stands out amongst the many comic book movie female characters. She is strong willed, independent, can handle herself, never asks for help, doesn't take any crap and does it all in a period where women were undeniably treated as less than men. She does all these things yet she can still walk into a bar in the middle of the film wearing a red dress that leaves everyone at a loss for words.Even better than Peggy Carter's character, and the reason I named the actress rather than the character in my review title, was the casting of Hayley Atwell in the role. The character could have become something much different without a capable actress to play the balance of tough yet feminine. Worse it could have been filled by some less capable big name actress for box office draw. For years in comic book movies I have either dreaded or at best barely stomached the casting of female leading roles.Kirsten Dunst had her moments in the Spidey films but then would come the time when she had to be kidnapped and scream and holler for help, she also always needed a man in her life, if not Peter then another stand in to take his place. Batman Begins casting of Katie Holmes always seemed strange to me, why in a film full of lower status but credible actors would Nolan cast a more household name with much less credibility? Whatever the reason, she played the part but it is not the role anyone remembers from that film. The same goes for the sequel, in which I had high hopes Maggie Gyllenhaal would make welcome changes to the previously pitchy character, unfortunately I dare say that Rachel Dawes only became more helpless and became the one negative to be found in The Dark Knight.More recently I was disappointed to find Gwenyth and Natalie both playing supposed strong women but one (Pepper Potts) who is subordinate to a man who treats her badly and still needs to be saved in the end and the other (Jane Foster) fairly shallow and school girlish overall.While Jane only likes Thor at first because of his muscles, Peggy meets Steve Rogers/The Cap when he is a ninety pound weakling. We see her first tinge of interest in him when he is still this small, all based on his philosophies on fighting and dating. It is this established connection before he becomes a perfect male specimen that cements the story and keeps us truly engaged. Peggy and Steve truly bring out the best in eachother and actually share a common bond of struggling to break free from their respective stereotypes that allows the audience to believe in their relationship, one that is actually formed out of friendship first. The film is great and a wonderful starting point for a series, the ending is unique if only a plot device required for the Avengers tie in and I truly can't wait to see where they take Captain America in his sequel. He has by the end of the film, especially thanks to Peggy Carter, become quite a different hero with quite a different chip on his shoulders than any we have yet to see.So I have wondered why comic book movies don't cast relatively unknown actresses to play these parts and allow them to really create a character. Finally Captain America has done just that with the lovely Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter and I hope we see much more of it in future comic book films. The saddest part of Captain America and perhaps the thing that compells me to want to see it again Repeated times is that based on the ending it is very unlikely we will see the fantastic Peggy Carter/Hayley Atwell in all her glory in any of the sequels. They have some big shoes to fill when they inevitably try to create a Sharon Carter character, let's hope they take cues from however it was that they came to choose Hayley.**By the way, I would like it if Hayley or someone like her played Wonder Woman for DC, brits are already playing supes and batman might as well fill in the big three with a third, and let's not only have a more obscure actress with talent but one who can fill out the costume properly, no stick thing actresses such as when people were rallying for Megan Fox to play WW.