Sentinel of Liberty

This? This I did not expect during the Super Bowl.  

Not really impressive, right?

First, Cap's uniform might be too corny for a movie. Second, in telling the Cap origin story, you have to do more than make a good comic-book movie. You have to make a good World War II movie. And the standards for that are much, much higher.

If Spidey looks halfway cool swinging across Manhattan, and can pass as a believable young adult, excellent -- you've pulled off a Spider-Man translation. But the backdrop for Captain America is, shall we say, a weighty subject. One that's inspired a lot of iconic movies. And John Ford didn't have to worry about placing a guy in a flag costume with little white wings over his temples in The Longest Day.

Maybe the filmmakers will pivot into reviving Cap in the present day and finding drama in the man-out-of-time angle. Of course, that's a trap, too, because you risk falling into a tone where either a) everything today is frivolous in comparison or b) today's challenges rival those of the second World War, and neither of those statements is true. Maybe you've got to go the route of saying that in dark and trying times, we need a living symbol of the greatness of America, one who can also punch out Baron Strucker and throw a vibranium shield into the nape of Kang the Conqueror's neck. I will see that movie.

On the other hand, the longer the movie spends in the '40s, the more it has to be a World War II movie, and that just sets it up for failure.

Of course, perhaps I'm overthinking this, since whatever movie Marvel Studios produces will be better than this, faint praise as that might be:

 

 

 

Comments

[Rob]

I think you maybe overthinking it a bit. Raiders of the Lost Ark/Last Crusade both have Nazis as the main villians.

And you're also ignoring the whole slew of WWII comedies of the 1950s and 1960s. Hell, I was a Male War Bride came out in 1949.

[Doctor Memory]

The Captain America movie is, sadly, set entirely in the WW2 era; I presume that fishing him out of cryogenic storage will be the opening hook of the Avengers movie...

...except that I'm willing to bet money that one or both of Captain America and Thor will tank badly, Marvel will get cold feet and the Avengers movie won't get made.

(And I'd consider an outside bet that Green Lantern fails badly enough to actually kill off superhero movies entirely for a while, save of course for the inevitable third Nolan bat-film.)

[Brainz]

I agree with Rob -- you can't make a Captain America movie that's a good WWII movie. If you dropped Cap into Band of Brothers, it would be a travesty. Is Cap supposed to liberate Belsen? I think the movie will work if it makes a good comic book version of WWII. Or rather, a well-done version of a bad comic book version of WWII. Joe Kubert would be great. Bernie Krigstein might be a bit too much.

[Lauryn Purtee]

It seems that the recent Captain America movie gave justice to the original comic book pages. For some, it could be considered as one of the best superhero movies of today.