And so endeth our summer of superheroes, not with a bang but with a bit of a whimper.
I've had the pleasure of having a few days off after that Colossal Comics Incident, and I've spent a couple of them at the movies. Let me rephrase that: at a couple of disappointing movies.
This summer has seen a plethora (well...five) comic book movies debut in our nation's multiplexes. I guess technically it's only four, since Cowboys & Aliens was originally put out by a company which specialized in making movie deals on non-existent comic book properties. And--as an added bonus--if it actually got optioned, suddenly the owner of said company became the creator and a comics version mystically appeared after the fact. To be honest, C&A is a major disappointment, a long and tedious affair that boils down to its rather succinct title. There are aliens in the Old West. And there are cowboys. That's all you need to know. High concept, indeed.
Despite the pedigree of this action adventure sci-fi western (Jon Favreau directing, Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard producing, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman writing, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford--along with the witchy-looking Olivia Wilde, this summer's it-girl at the movies,--starring), I found the whole thing barely one step removed from "meh." It's pretty to watch, there's some great action, the aliens are scary and butt-ugly, but the whole thing boils down to this (slight SPOILER ALERT): They're here after gold. Yes, they're extra-terrestrial pawnbrokers, melting down every piece of gold they can get their spooky little hands on. And man, is it a LONNNNNNNNNG process.
I'm not even sure cutting 20 minutes out of C&A would help it. It's just kind of boring. And the kicker of the whole thing is it looks like earth's own brand of blue-skinned "aliens," The Smurfs, is going to kick Favreau and company's butt at the box office, at least this weekend. Who knew?
The other superhero movie I saw this week was the end of Marvel's trifecta at the box office, Captain America: The First Avenger. (Thor and X-Men: First Class preceded it this summer). This was probably the one superhero film I was looking forward to the most all year. I love the comics exploits of Cap, particularly from the sixties, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby revived the character, bringing the original Captain back from the dead with a far-fetched--but slightly plausible--plot device (he's been frozen in suspended animation in ice, a side effect of the super soldier serum he was injected with) and he becomes a literal "man out of time." The movie captures that in bookend pieces that show Cap (Chris Evans) being discovered and ultimately thawed out in the modern world. But the bulk of the movie takes place during World War II, recounting Cap's origin as a scrawny 4F reject who volunteers for a radical procedure, which succeeds, turning him into a super solider. The movie cleverly turns on the PR aspect of such a creation to sell bonds, make personal appearances, and be a symbol for America, until Cap finds out his best friend, James "Bucky" Barnes, is missing in action and goes on a mission behind the lines to find him. Then America's symbol becomes America's not-so-secret weapon and goes into battle with his Nazi equivalent (played down to be the head of Hydra, because it will always be too soon to have Nazi bad guys in a fiction film), the Red Skull (portrayed with appropriate meanace by Hugo Weaving).
And to be honest, those action scenes are kind of disappointing. Despite great faithfulness to the Cap comics legend (even the Howling Commandos--minus Nick Fury--are present, as is the Cosmic Cube as the Macguffin of the story), there's no sense of urgency to Captain America, the movie. It's interesting but not compelling, action-packed but somehow lacking in thrills, and there's no big payoff. Even the climactic battle with the Red Skull seems lackadasical, like just something to get us to the finish (and it's not even a big finish). Perhaps it's because the real story of Captain America doesn't get started until he wakes up in the 21st Century and the past is just prologue.
I'm not sure why, but I found the whole film disappointing. I love director Joe Johnston's other period films, The Rocketeer (an under-rated gem) and The Wolfman, which tanked at the box office, but is a beautifully atmospheric film that makes great use of it's Victorian England setting. Maybe it's Chris Evans as a walking mannequin in a movie version Capt. America suit. The other performances are excellent, including Tommy Lee Jones as General Chester Phillips, in charge of the Cap project, Weaving as the Red Skull, Toby Jones as Arnim Zola, Haley Atwell as Agent Carter, and Stanley Tucci in the role of Cap creator Dr. Abraham Reinstein, doomed to die and leave us with only one super soldier. There is a happy medium in this film that appeals to the comics fans (the Howlers, Hydra, the triangular shield), without beating the regular movigoers over the head with arcane comics stuff (like the Guardians and the Corps in Green Lantern). In that sense, it's a much better comics-oriented film. But in the end, I definitely liked the very stylish X-Men: First Class better and I think I would rank Thor over Cap. And that makes me kind of sad.
