Escape to the Movies: Captain America

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Rooster Cogburn

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May 24, 2008
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This movie was OK, but there is no way it deserves this level of praise. This is almost as bizarre as the X-Men: First Class review. It's like we're watching two different movies. The Captain America character is great, but the plot and some of the other characters like Red Skull seemed like nobody put even a moment's thought into them. I don't want to spoil anything, but the structure of the plot is missing some crucial and obvious elements to make the story work. This movie bridges the gap between Captain America's origin and his involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D. They obviously just neglected to make it work as a story in it's own right.

I actually enjoyed this film. It just seems like anything that achieves higher quality than Phantom Menace is being lavished with praise these days.

P.S. Thor was underwhelming and boring, too.
 

MorganL4

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May 1, 2008
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Aiddon said:
meh, still not interested. Marvel's films have been painfully lackluster ever since Iron Man 2 was revealed to be a directionless bore due to Marvel being far too much in love with the Avengers.

And no Bob, the Avengers is not working. Hate to break it to ya, but not explaining something in a movie with the hand-waving of "oh, it was explained in ANOTHER movie!" is unacceptable. Films will never be comics and your love of comics refuses to admit that. Here's an analogy: this is like if they had a vitally important scene for a comic mini-series explained in a tie-in issue without TELLING YOU.
"Films will never be comics" Okay fine I can see that, however when the film and in this case film(s) are completely based on comic book lore, ( which have a history of expecting you to know, at least to some extent what happened in other comic books existing within the same universe)then I and many others feel that this is perfectly logical becuase it is adhearing to the format established by the original medium for the telling of these tales.

Now if you plan on going to this ( I know you said you won't) actively knowing you did not see the tie in film and that within that film are plot points that are referenced in this film, and then become agitated due to you lack of comprehension....... That is not the fault of the screen writers or Directors, that fault lies with you.

This exists in other mediums as well....television for instance, If I watch Star Trek Voyager before having seen Star Treks TNG and DS9, there will be episodes and characters that I do not know or cannot comprehend due to a lack of prior knowledge. three completely separate television shows, existing within the same universe, thus trying to create some continuity, I should also mention that if you decide to watch Voyager WATCH Wrath of Khan FIRST, you will be very confused for a while but it is made clear later on.........If you decide not to watch Voyager watch Wrath of Khan anyway, but before that watch Season 1 episode 9 of the original series ( Space Seed, is the episode name) or Wrath of Khan won't make too much sense.

See continuity across fictional universes has existed for A LONG TIME.... to understand a character in a 90's-2000's TV show you must have seen a film from the 80's and to understand that film you must have seen an episode of a TV show from the sixties. This just happens to be in movie form instead of show form ( yes I know that Wrath of Khan was a film) but you get my point.

And whats more, we are dealing with under a decade of continuity as opposed to 40 years... so this should be easy.
 

WolfThomas

Man must have a code.
Dec 21, 2007
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Sober Thal said:
So I have to see Thor before I see Captain America?

EDIT: Okay, magic exists, I can deal with that.
It's more like incomprehensible alien tech exists. If that's easier.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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MorganL4 said:
"Films will never be comics" Okay fine I can see that, however when the film and in this case film(s) are completely based on comic book lore, ( which have a history of expecting you to know, at least to some extent what happened in other comic books existing within the same universe)then I and many others feel that this is perfectly logical becuase it is adhearing to the format established by the original medium for the telling of these tales.

Now if you plan on going to this ( I know you said you won't) actively knowing you did not see the tie in film and that within that film are plot points that are referenced in this film, and then become agitated due to you lack of comprehension....... That is not the fault of the screen writers or Directors, that fault lies with you.

This exists in other mediums as well....television for instance, If I watch Star Trek Voyager before having seen Star Treks TNG and DS9, there will be episodes and characters that I do not know or cannot comprehend due to a lack of prior knowledge. three completely separate television shows, existing within the same universe, thus trying to create some continuity, I should also mention that if you decide to watch Voyager WATCH Wrath of Khan FIRST, you will be very confused for a while but it is made clear later on.........If you decide not to watch Voyager watch Wrath of Khan anyway, but before that watch Season 1 episode 9 of the original series ( Space Seed, is the episode name) or Wrath of Khan won't make too much sense.

See continuity across fictional universes has existed for A LONG TIME.... to understand a character in a 90's-2000's TV show you must have seen a film from the 80's and to understand that film you must have seen an episode of a TV show from the sixties. This just happens to be in movie form instead of show form ( yes I know that Wrath of Khan was a film) but you get my point.

And whats more, we are dealing with under a decade of continuity as opposed to 40 years... so this should be easy.
There's a reason Tom Bombadil is not in Lord of the Rings. There's a reason that Tales of the Black Freighter was a STUPID idea for the film version of Watchmen (which, quite frankly, wasn't that good anyway). And there's most certainly a reason that the whole crossover thing is probably not going to make anything really worthwhile. You can never tell a film like you do a comic book. That's just the nature of the beast, any first-year writing student can tell you that. Even if it is based on a comic.
 

Urh

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NicolasMarinus said:
P.S. Alan Silvestri underrated? The man who brought us the theme from Predator?
I believe Bob meant to say "under-appreciated". Despite Silvestri's undeniable talent, the poor bugger still hasn't won an Oscar, or even a Golden Globe.
 

Boba Frag

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Dec 11, 2009
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This review basically sums up why I can't take Bob's word too far as a film reviewer.
He knows what he's talking about, he deeply cares about the medium of film but when it comes to superhero movies, he walks that knife edge of geek bias a bit too close for my liking.

It's clear he's a lover of the comic world, as am I, and he really, *really* knows his stuff.
But he's blinded by it at times.

Personally, Batman and Robin will forever be the painful horrifying spectre of how truly awful superhero movies can be, not Green Lantern.
Personally, I am sick to death of hearing him harp on about a movie which was nowhere a disaster as the afore mentioned was. GL was disappointing and didn't do Hal Jordan or the Corps justice. But that's all it was, a misfire, not the great unspeakable calamity Bob manages to harp on about nearly every single week. Sadly, there probably won't be much of an improvement there if Warners continues to cock up its franchises other than Batman.

Also- what the hell was Bob talking about when referring to Batman being unable to move in his costume? The Begins suit was far more maneouverable than the previous incarnations, but TDK suit was even more agile and mobile. Bale himself is on record as saying this.

Anyway, Bob's gross misrepresentation aside, I'd like to point out that I'm not a long time Marvel fan like Bob, but at least I make no secret of the fact that I'm a DC head.
To each their own.

I'm very much looking forward to Captain America and cannot wait to see the big Avengers project come to fruition.

What I'm not looking forward to is Bob's childish crowing of it as the greatest thing in motion picture history.
We get it, Bob. You prefer this, so whatever else is on the market is obviously shit and anyone who disagrees is clearly an airhead.

I haven't forgotten the less than impressive felatio as Comic Con news you delivered last year. Yes, it's awesome and being excited and eager about this whole thing is perfectly fine, but I think Bob goes to far and becomes the implacable fanboy far too much for me to take his reviews very seriously anymore.

That's just me. After all, I don't actually watch Yahtzee to hear his opinions on games so much as I do for entertainment.
Sadly, I haven't been entertained by Escape to the Movies in a while.

Thankfully, The Big Picture is a far, far better show where Bob succeeds far better at extolling the tales of geekdom.
Think I'll watch that next.
 

Mstrswrd

Always playing Touhou. Always.
Mar 2, 2008
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Aiddon said:
meh, still not interested. Marvel's films have been painfully lackluster ever since Iron Man 2 was revealed to be a directionless bore due to Marvel being far too much in love with the Avengers.

And no Bob, the Avengers is not working. Hate to break it to ya, but not explaining something in a movie with the hand-waving of "oh, it was explained in ANOTHER movie!" is unacceptable. Films will never be comics and your love of comics refuses to admit that. Here's an analogy: this is like if they had a vitally important scene for a comic mini-series explained in a tie-in issue without TELLING YOU.
But, in the movies, this is more prequel/sequel then "Massive crossover." In the beginning of The Two Towers, did they sit down and explain everything from the first movie, or did they just kind of expect you to remember it (they expected you to remember it). Yeah, a couple of things were re-explained, or explained better, but for the most part, the simple things, even if they were of moderate importance, were not re-explained.

The same can be said about any prequel/sequel franchise in movies; Star Wars does not re-explain the concept of the force in every single movie. They explain it one time in episode 4, and then expand upon that info in episodes 5 and 6, without ever really repeating what they've said before. Basically, they would explain points A, B, and C about, say, the force, in episode 4, then, in episode 5, they explained points D, E, and F without reviewing the old points, because they expected you to have both seen and to have remembered the last movie. More than that, when we get to the prequels, sucky as they may be, they give a tiny recap of certain points about the force even though it's been nearly 30 years since the original movie came out, and then just move on with extrapolations about the Force that we haven't heard before. Again, they expect you to know that stuff already. And for all the things that people complain about concerning the prequels, the fact that they didn't do a proper recap is not one of them (no, they just complain about other things, like making the force more along the lines of science instead of purely mystical).

Now, the Marvel movies may be a massive crossover, but they are also in a timeline of sequels and prequels; Captain America, then Iron Man, then Iron Man 2, then Thor, and somewhere in there is Hulk. Like most prequel/sequel things, they knd of expect you to know the back story already; don't go to see the sequel if you haven't seen what comes before, and vice-versa, because people who start halfway through will always be missing stuff, and trying to cater to those people is the mistake that the author Terry Goodkind made in The Sword of Truth series. These are my favorite books, but they spend way too much time recapping the events of the last books for newcomers, who should have really just gone and read the damn books.

Note: I think Hulk is after Thor, just because Tony Stark was directly involved with the Avengers at that point, and in Iron Man 2 he wasn't, so it probably was not between Iron man and Iron Man 2, which is the only other possible time it could be, really, unless it and Thor were at the same time. That is a place they dropped the ball; they didn't clearly define when the Hulk movie took place.

Anyway, I know that I repeat myself like 27 times, and for that, I apologize. I'm having a bit of trouble slimming this down, as I'm currently running on no sleep for around 31 hours, which isn't that bad, but it makes it a tad hard to think straight.

Also, if I was rude, I apologize, as that was not my intent.
 

rileyrulesu

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Jun 15, 2009
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See, I never saw Thor, and I never read any Captain America comics, so what you call no non-sense and straight to the plot, I call rushed and confusing. Some things I didn't like about it is how rushed everything seemed about it.

The only thing he has against red skull is that they fought for about 5 seconds once. He made out with some chick other than the love interest, and neither the scene or the chick is mentioned again. His best friend dies and he grieves about it for all of 12 seconds. He is the face of the entire American army nationwide for killing 1 evil guy. He picks 4 random guys he saved out of hundreds as his elite squad. I guess if the whole magical power source was explained in Thor, that's okay if you've seen Thor. I haven't, so I was very confused.

This seems to be completely pandered to fans, which might not be bad, but I was able to watch spider man, and batman, and iron man movies without getting confused and having no previous knowledge of the hero or anything.
 

rokkolpo

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Aug 29, 2009
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Bob saw a movie and he

JIZZED.
IN.
HIS.
PANTS.

Sounds good, I know nothing of Captain America but we'll see where this goes.
 

CharlesBronson

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Jun 12, 2010
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Harlief said:
I wonder if it's gonna be cheesy for the non-American audiences. I remember going to see one of the spiderman movies, and there was a scene where spiderman leaps into the roof of a building and lands in front of a US flag which took up the whole screen... Everyone in the theatre groaned.
I am from the U.S. and the theater I was in during that scene all gasped too. I can't speak for the rest of the audience, although their reaction seemed the same as mine, but I thought it was offensive to blatantly push that kind of ridiculous propaganda-like imagery on their audience like we wouldn't notice.

It didn't reassure me about the "establishment" in America, but it did reassure me of the people in that theater and that we are not all easily susceptible to such foolish attempts, and to be honest a little embarrassed...
 

Namewithheld

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Apr 30, 2008
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Steve Rodger's patriotism in the movie is very laid back. He's less of a "RAR, AMERICA" guy and more of...just a nice guy. He's brave, loyal and optimistic and self sacrificing. He's an all around awesome person.
 

Primus1985

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Dec 24, 2009
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I had a friend at work give an exact opposite opinion. She said she liked most of Marvels movies and she liked the comics but she thought the movie was kinda slow and drawn out.

So im kinda torn. Though Bob is like right on the money with most of his reviews so ive come to trust his views.

What I was/still am concerned with was the whole "Lets make a musical spectacle out of Cap because he's the only Super Soldier" angle. That sounded stupid when I heard about it months ago, and it still sounds stupid. Hello they didnt put him on a self they rushed Cap into combat in the books.



On a lighter note Im both surprised and glad that the movie has international support. I had heard Cap wasnt so popular in other countries, probably for obvious reasons. Maybe this movie will show the world the Captian America I see: A true embodiment of the American Ideal(not the american government, he's gone against the goverment several times) Truth, Liberty, and Justice.
 

Primus1985

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Dak_N_Jaxter said:
MovieBob said:
Captain America

Pretty much perfect in every way.

Watch Video
What specifically did you find disconcerting about the Spider-man trailer?
Maybe the fact that they changed Peter from a geek to a loner emo douche? And they mangled his costume, it looks more like The Scarlet Spiders than Spider-Man's.
 
May 29, 2011
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Zeitgeist1983 said:
Sounds interesting... But will anyone care outside America?
Of course. Like moviebob allready said, anyone who thinks about captain america for more than a minute will understand that he is not about america.
 

Marowit

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Nov 7, 2006
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Just saw it, and it was great. It was really refreshing to see a good guy stopping a bad guy, without all the obligatory crap that goes along with movies these days.
 

TimeLord

For the Emperor!
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Aug 15, 2008
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This may seem like a stupid question but does this mean I need to see Thor before Cpt America? Because I haven't seen Thor but want to see this.
 

starwarsgeek

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TimeLord said:
This may seem like a stupid question but does this mean I need to see Thor before Cpt America? Because I haven't seen Thor but want to see this.
Not really. There's a connection between Thor and the central plot device of Captain America, but I don't think it'd be hard to follow.

Basically, Norse gods are real, Yggdrasil (the world tree) connects the different worlds (I'm pretty sure Yggdrasil is basically Asgardian understanding of space), and they are using Clarke's Third Law ("magic" is just advanced science). That should cover all the Thor references.


I would recommend seeing Thor before the Avengers though. ; )
 

Mister Linton

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Mar 11, 2011
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Saw the movie last night and really enjoyed it. I have to vehemently disagree about the connected universe thing in so much as how it relates to the MacGuffin of C.A. A little more explaination would have been well advised and made this movie better. I get that they are essentially making sequels in a franchise, but each film still needs to stand on it's own merits.