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After 3 Iron Mans, 2 Thors, 1 Captain America and The Avengers in between, I would have thought that I would be used to Marvel’s MacGuffins, dues ex machinas, one-vs-many action scenes, villains with shite aim, and of course, the rampant plot holes.
Instead, I am bored beyond measure by the latest installment of Captain America, which can largely be summed up as ‘formulaic’.
Captain America falls far short of the lofty standards set by recent science fiction and fantasy films. Inception easily comes to mind as the best of the lot. Captain America seems to take great pleasure at being predictable and frolicking from one logical fallacy to another, without bothering to explain anything in detail, as if daring the viewer to believe the rubbish it sprouts at face value.
In Inception, Christopher Nolan made genuine attempts to explain the science fiction constructs behind the story, so that even when some matters seemed to lack continuity, they were accepted as open-ended conclusions.
The Marvel Universe, however, delights in leaving things unexplained or giving silly explanations. While Captain America was relatively free from any MacGuffins like the Tessaract/Aether/magical artefacts, its various plot holes still managed to make me feel stupid, or let me wonder if the filmmaker is so stupid as to believe the audience would be that stupid. (I am generally very capable of avoiding stupid films)
Case in point: Captain America’s main combat weapon - a shield. A fucking shield that is not only made of vibratium (an apparently indestructible metal from the Marvel Universe, full stop), but apparently also magicked to draw enemy fire as if it was a target at a firing range!
Captain America’s enemies NEVER seem to realize that no matter how much Chris Evan tries to crouch, turn, jump, duck, it is anatomically impossible to fit his entire muscular torso behind the shield. Continuous fire AT his shield accomplishes nothing but sparks and sound effects. Unfortunately, this combat style was employed throughout the film, right from the first action scene, 15 minutes into the film, up to and including the Marvel-Cinematic-Universe-obligatory-final battle, an hour and 45 minutes later.
Our Captain America is also one invincible dude. He leaps off a plane in midair to dive into the ocean sans-parachute, survives a 10-men ambush in a packed elevator, leapfrogs a hovercraft, disables it by just tossing his shield at it, and even honorably puts away his shield to fight a shield-less villian. How noble.
On the other end of this Marvel human specimen spectrum, we have faceless soldiers who throw themselves bravely at Captain America, only to collapse a second later from a single stunning blow. Having just watched Lone Survivor two days ago, I would be forgiven for viewing this whole portrayal with abject skepticism.
The Marvel superhero franchise has been lauded for its ingenious attempt at cinematic continuity. Stringing together all the Thors, Iron Mans and Captain Americas is no simple task, but Nicky Fury’s Eye-Patch plays its part to perfection. Eye Patch’s presence reminds us that though the major characters have been holding their own private parties after The Avengers, they are still parties held within the same house.
Marvel knows it, Samuel L Jackson knows it, and I know of the 9 picture deal they signed around the time of Iron Man.
You see, my reaction to the first act was, “Surely not? Wow, would they really defy my expectations?”
I should have known better than to hope.
When the third act rolled around, whatever tiny, tiny emotional response the film has managed to elicit in the first act was completed negated with a, “Yup, that went totally as expected.”
The most ridiculous setup easily goes to be the final act, where Captain America was required to access the mainframes of a helio-carriers to stop the helio-carriers’ main programming from activating by swapping some hardware.
If there was any such engineer who designed the keystone mainframe of a carrier to be
1) Obviously located within a huge glass bubble at the belly of the ship
2) Accessible as just pressing a few control buttons
3) Easily structurally compromised by swapping out a few pieces of hardware
He deserves to be shot.
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| Cobie Smulders.... completely wasted in this film |
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| This one too. Emily VanCamp |
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| Scarlett Johansson's makeup in this film is horrible. |
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