So it seemed like 2011 was the make-or-break summer for superhero movies. You had four major releases in three months, including two run-ups to next year's The Avengers, a reboot of an old franchise and the first film in a potential new one. A lot of people felt like audiences might finally reach their breaking point this year and that one or more of these movies would tank.
With all four having been finally released, this does not seem to be the case. Kenneth Branagh's Thor has been the biggest success thus far, enjoying solid critical acclaim and a huge global box-office. Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class had the lowest opening of any X-Men film yet, but still did well and enjoyed critical comparisons to Mad Men. Martin Campbell's Green Lantern was a critical disaster, but it still may break even at the global box office. And now, finally, Captain America seems to be on track to equal Thor, both critically and commercially. Three out of four ain't bad. And with three very promising tent-poles slated for next summer (Joss Whedon's The Avengers, Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises), I don't think superhero movies are going anywhere anytime soon.
If you're curious about my personal thoughts, I would rank these four films as follows: X-Men, Captain America, Thor and Green Lantern, with the first three being very, very close and Green Lantern being a distant, distant fourth. Sadly, I could have more or less predicted this before I saw any of the four. I can chalk this up to two major factors: a) the fact that Marvel has pretty much got the formula for their movies down to a predictable, but highly enjoyable science and b) the fact that (other than hiring Christopher Nolan to save Batman) DC has no goddamn idea what they're doing when it comes to turning their properties into films. It's unfortunate that Green Lantern sucked so hard, but if I had to pick one company to be firing on all cylinders, it would be Marvel. And hey, we're still getting good Batman movies.
So I'll try to provide some relatively quick hits on what I thought of the first three flicks and then talk about Captain America and how it sets up for next summer.
I came into Thor with a slight bias. I was never that invested in the character as a whole. I enjoy what he brings to The Avengers, but I was never that invested in the cosmic/mystical side of the Marvel Universe, and conveying that aspect to a movie-going audience was always the biggest obstacle this film had facing it. Kenneth Branagh wisely (if somewhat awkwardly) treats the film as two parts of a whole, combining a goofy fish-out-of-water story on Earth with magical Shakespearian action in Asgard. The story jumps between the two locals well, but for a film trying to convey such an epic scope, both worlds feel weirdly empty. The Earth story never leaves the sparsely populated town that Thor is banished to, and Asgard seems to consist of three rooms in a palace and one giant bridge.
The cast assembled for the film is impressive to the point of seeming like overkill. Chris Hemsworth is a hell of a find, imbuing Thor with the necessary gravitas and arrogance while also finding the humor and pathos in the character that make him work so well as part of an ensemble. Natalie Portman is charming as ever, but their relationship felt like more of a function of plot than any real chemistry between the two. Kat Dennings character was cute comic relief, but I feel as thought the movie would have been better served by more time spent between Hemsworth and Portman, since Thor's character arc (from arrogant god to humble human warrior) felt rushed and perfunctory. It was also fun to see Titus Pullo and Stringer Bell as Norse Gods.
X-Men: First Class, despite some glaring flaws, managed to be the best of the bunch on the basis of its style, ambition and the performances of the two leads. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender perfectly capture the spirit and presence of two iconic characters who have already been portrayed by extremely talented actors. It's a tough act to follow, but they pulled it off, all while being incredibly dashing and well dressed (seriously, the costume and set design in this movie is amazing). For a comic book movie, this film places a surprising amount of faith in the intelligence of its audience. Large portions of the film are subtitled, as the characters always speak the language they would logically be speaking, rather than accented English. The film is heavily steeped in international affairs that occurred forty years before its target audience was born. And the grey morality between Xavier's manipulative idealism and Magneto's righteous hatred plays out far better than it did in any of the previous X-films.
In addition to the two leads, the always reliable Kevin Bacon portrays villain Sebastian Shaw (who's nebulous powers they managed to convey very effectively) and Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult generate an effective relationship as Mystique and Beast, despite the script giving them little to work with. Less effective were some of the characters selected to be in the film (I'm looking at you Havok and Angel), and January Jones does a terrible disservice to the wonderful character that is Emma Frost by choosing to play her as a stony ice queen and ignoring the wit and passion she displays in the comics. I guess that's also the writer's fault. Nonetheless, the film is sharply directed and completely commits to its vision of a past that manages to feel authentic and stylized at the same time (Captain America boasts a similar achievement).
Oh, Green Lantern. Where do I even start? Can this segment be entirely questions? How do you spend $200 million on a movie (that's pre-marketing costs) and have the effects not look awesome and the action scenes be completely uninventive and uninspiring? How can you have unimaginative action scenes when your main character possesses a ring that allows him to turn his imagination into reality? How do you justify casting Mark Strong as Sinestro, a part which he knocks out of the park, and only allow him to be in the movie for about 8 minutes? How do you cast the admittedly-more-attractive-as-a-brunette Blake Lively as the feisty love interest when she seems to be clinically incapable of emoting? Sigh...I'm getting depressed. It was bad. Let's move on.
Captain America. For a movie that I enjoyed as much as I did, there's very little about this that stands out. The acting is serviceable, but not captivating. The characters are effective, but broad. The action is competent, but not incredible. But despite all this, it was the most fun I've had at the movies all summer (even more than X-Men; it never quite reached the same highs, but its flaws were much less upsetting). Like its main character, the film is very much a meat and potatoes kind of affair. Satisfying without being particularly remarkable.
Chris Evans was an interesting choice for Captain America, and not one I would have made. Having already played a Marvel hero (as the Human Torch in both Fantastic Four films), I kind of discounted him from the get-go, and would have been more excited to see Chris Pine or Jensen Ackles in the role. Evans seemed too snarky to me, too modern to embody the quiet, earnest determination necessary to portray Steve Rogers. Sometimes it's nice to be proved wrong. Not only does Evans look the part (both as a real-life slab of post-super-soldier muscle and as a CGI assisted pre-super-soldier weakling), he imbues Rogers with a boyish charm that the character has grown past in his modern comic book incarnation, but is totally appropriate when playing the character as a newly-minted hero. So good job casting directors and Chris Evans.
Joe Johnston also deserves some serious props for this movie. Showing early promise as a student of the Spielberg school of directing, with films like Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and The Rocketeer (which shares it's tone and setting with Captain America), he declined pretty sharply in the last decade or so with movies like Jurassic Park III and the completely awful Wolfman remake that came out last year. Here, Johnston shows an eye for detail makes the film seem like it was ripped from a World War II propaganda poster, but rather than giving the film a the stylized, modern sheen that Matthew Vaughn gave X-Men, Johnston utilizes practical effects and an even-handed tone to evoke both Raiders-era Spielberg as well as war films of the 1940's.
In terms of story, this film feels much truer to itself than Thor or even Iron Man 2, in that it can stand on its own without using its status as an Avengers prequel to fill out its universe. Despite the presence of the Cosmic Cube (as seen in the post-credits scene for Thor), Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark (Iron Man's father) and the modern day scenes that bookend the film, this movie very much feels as though it could stand on its own if none of these other films existed, which was both unexpected and impressive.
True to form, Marvel has put together a solid ensemble for this film, with an sharp eye toward potentially recurring characters. Tommy Lee Jones gets some of the best lines as the extremely familiar, but always welcome crusty old general who actually cares about his men. Sebastian Stan makes for a great Bucky, quickly establishing the necessary relationship between his character and Evans', to the point where I wished that the film had been more about their relationship than the one that Steve has with Peggy Carter. Hayley Atwell wears her costumes well and gets a few badass moments, but she's mostly sidelined in the latter half of the film (at least she never needs to be saved). Hugo Weaving was pretty much born to play the Red Skull. His absurd commitment to being so evil that even the Nazis don't want to associate with him, combined with some pretty effective make-up effects made me wish he'd had more screen time as well. Considering that it's just over two hours, this movie moves like clockwork. I'd be interested to see if there are any deleted scenes on the DVD.
It pleases more than I can say that I'm living through an era where movie studios are devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to recreate my childhood fantasies on screen. If anything, Captain America and Thor have allowed me to remain unabashedly optimistic about the enormous financial and critical risk that is The Avengers. I'd also very much enjoy a new trilogy of X-Men films with the sequels set in equally stylized versions of the 70's and 80's. And Green Lantern... Well, Warner Brothers seems set on a sequel. And the next logical story to cover would be The Sinestro Corps War. It really can't be that much worse.
