irishda said:
He calls them out for being bad...unless they're Marvel.
You know, except for the part where he just pointed out the rather serious flaws with Iron-Man 1 and 2 at the start of this review.
irishda said:
Very well, let's look at Captain America.
Here's Bob's video for it. Now, right off the bat, he says he's tempted to call this the perfect movie. That right there should set off some warning bells that a critic can't find any fault with any movie,
Yes, and if you had actually listened at all beyond those words you would have heard the bit where he immediately tempers that statement by saying "at least as perfect of a Captain America movie I can conceive anyone having made". He is not calling it a perfect movie he is calling it a perfect CAPTAIN AMERICA movie. A subtle but important difference.
irishda said:
but let's dig deeper. There's no mention that the entire third act once Captain actually starts fighting the Nazis completely devolves into a series of rapid-fire montages (which is exactly how they manage to cram this into a "history-spanning epic" that covers the length of the war).
Except for the part where he outmaneuvers the guy with the flamethrower-armor, and the chase scene where he boards a gigantic plane about to take off from a jeep, and the midair scene where he fights the Nazis IN their bomber-planes. No, nothing but rapid-fire montages at all.
irishda said:
There's no criticism that Captain inexplicably has four random guys following him around now. I'm pretty sure they never even said their names, much less got anything remotely close to characterization for them. But Bob undoubtedly loves them, because, as Bob says in the review, he grew up reading about them, so he knows exactly who they are.
Ok, first of all it is not "inexplicable" that they follow him around. He saw them in action when he broke them out of that facility and later recruited them during the Bar-scene. Paying attention helps sometimes.
Second of all, as characters they are not important to the plot. They are just the background characters who help Cap out during his missions. Aside from Bucky none of them contribute very much to the plot of this movie so why would it be necessary to make a big deal out of them? Because they have distinctive looks and therefore you assume that they should be important? If they were all wearing generic soldier uniforms and were all American I doubt you would have even mentioned this as a problem because then you would have seen them for what they are, a group that acts as a plot-device of sorts, not important characters who need to be explored. In the comics these team-members are important and therefore they are explored there, but for this movie they are not. I thought you were the one who was against the comics bleeding into movies BTW. Guess that only applies when it gives you something to complain about.
irishda said:
But the biggest tell is his highest praise for the movie. In his words, it's a "lack of irony and cynicism". The movie is perfect because it doesn't make fun of his precious source material. In Bob's own words, it's so great because it doesn't try to have complex characters or subvert the source material in order to try to have depth. It's so great because it keeps exactly with the source material for flat, uninteresting characters. "An uncompromisingly good guy versus an evil with a capital 'e' guy." Normally, movies with flat, 1D characters get a word or too about how boring the characters are. But it's okay in this case because they're based on characters Bob likes.
Has it ever occurred to you that Bob simply doesn't agree with you that Cap and Skull are 1-dimensional? That he thinks it is a good thing that they don't treat the source material with irony because he thinks treating it with respect actually gives it all the depth it needs? The movie doesn't put Cap in the seemingly ridiculous costume because he is just so gosh-darn patriotic, they play it smart and come up with a reason for why it works. And that reason turns out to be the very same reason the original creator of the character designed him that way, to be a crowd-pleaser in an era where fighting for your country and old-school heroics were all the public cared about. I'd say that is plenty subversive without resorting to ironic mockery of the character and the way he dresses.
Cap is an all around good guy but that does not necessarily make him boring. "Good" has several dimension to it as well. He is a likable guy who inspires people to be their best, and Skull is a Nazi who truly believes himself to be the Ubermench. For this movie that is all they need because the movie knows how to do "pure good" and "pure evil" WELL and make it seem like something that could very well exist in the era which the movie takes place in. I think Bob made all of that pretty clear around 4:40 so maybe you should consider that simply not agreeing with you on whether or not a movie is good doesn't make someone biased. Bob has never been an advocate for fidelity to the source-material at all costs, especially not when it hurts the movie AS A MOVIE. A fact he has made clear repeatedly in both Escape to the Movies and his Intermissions. You can see a prime example of it in this weeks review in particular.
Still, I appreciate that you took the time to at least explain why you thought the movie Bob praised was bad.
