Another Marvel adaptation for 2011's comic fans, this time with extra-bad baddies.
America is at war, governments are falling, and Marvel Studios has another movie out. Craftily concealed in this hilarious analogy between the WWII setting of Captain America and today is a serious point: we get that the story of the struggle between good and evil has 'universal, timeless relevance'. But you know what, we've heard it before.
Let's start with the goodies. Captain America is Chris Evans, AKA the guy with cream and glacé cherries on his nipples in Not Another Teen Movie. He plays weedy New Yorker Steve Rogers, who implausibly is desperate to sign up for the US army. Cue eccentric German scientist, an experiment gone right, and lo, a superhero. Evans, to his credit, does all that is asked of him in the role: shooting baddies, falling in love, and looking great in a tight t-shirt. The romantic female lead (Hayley Atwell), astonishingly for a Marvel, isn't at all irritating. In fact, she kinda kicks arse, and all in a standard issue army pencil skirt.
As for the baddies, no one can deny Nazis make the baddest baddies, and this bunch, led by the ever-scary Hugo Weaving, are even worser than the Nazis. They are super-nasty to a wicked orchestral soundtrack, and everyone does everything in sexy-as-hell 1940s outfits. Loads of long, black leather studded creations for the ones we hate, nipped in waists for the pretty girls, and a totally ridiculous superhero costume. The attempts at humour from both sides are not just successful, but also rather sweet, it's gripping, it's fun, and lots of things go bang. So far, so super.
Until we get on to the superbly crap. Weaving's accent sucks. Was he going for German? For the sake of German-Australian relations, we hope not. The CGI boys didn't do a great job on 'pre-op' skinny Evans: his proportions are all wrong, and creepily he has the same deep big-dude voice throughout. 3D was done post-production, and it shows. The plot had a few embarrassing holes, for example the baddies' motivation, and the ending is boring. Minor points, but unimpressive on a big budget.
But most disappointing was the lack of originality. 'You don't give up, do you?' says Red Skull (Weaving) to Captain America. And that's how Itchy feels about samey superhero movies. Red Skull looks like Voldemort, the Captain has an amazing Enchanted (Disney princess film) moment, and the plot is almost indistinguishable from Iron Man. It is a good Marvel comic adaption, a classic good v. bad yarn, with lots of explosions, and as long as that's definitely what you're looking for, you'll have a great time.
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