I kinda love the sepia-spirited movie that Joe Johnston made out of Captain America, one of my favorite Marvel characters growing up.

I kinda hate the commercial for Avengers that Marvel wrapped the film in and for me, pretty close to ruins the last 15-20 minutes of the film for me.

So where does that leave me?

The movie opens with the discovery by modern means of Cap’s shield under a load of ice. So any movie fan now knows what is inevitably coming. What scared me and excited me about the moment was that it suggested all kinds of interesting possibilities for how we would get back to the opening moment (and/or its result). But they didn’t make that movie. They made a wonderfully spirited Joe Johnston movie.

You’ve gotten all the basics in the ads. Steve Rogers is a little guy. The Benjamin Button effects, shrinking Chris Evans down to a puny guy, notably smaller than Stanley Tucci, are brilliantly executed here. If you didn’t know what was coming, they would be 100% convincing. It never felt like they were shooting to adjust for the effect or not shooting something to avoid an expensive effects shot. Great.

Tucci does what he was brought in to do perfectly. He is the conscience of the piece and he defines who Steve Rogers is without ever giving you the feeling he is telling the audience how to feel.

Evans, by the way, is excellent in this performance, s bit of a surprise. He is known for his bravado as an actor, but he really acts in this movie. Honestly, there is a point at which I kind of wish we saw him allow himself one of his killer smiles… but truth is, the screenplay didn’t let him do it. More on that to come.

Tommy Lee Jones is not really given enough to do to ever get rolling towards anything but a paycheck. He’s really the only one in the movie who felt like he was saying the lines he was given. There were a couple of moments, acting dyads where there was a glimpse of what could have been, but they don’t go that way.

Dominic Cooper, playing Robert Downey, Jr’s dad here, is terrific and perfectly cast… but I could have used a bit more of him. Dominic should be nominated for an Oscar for The Devil’s Double, but may not be because of the way the film is being released/dumped. Here and in that film, it is finally clear that he has arrived as a serious actor. He’s not just a pretty boy who can run lines and lean into his light well. But again, not quite enough of him.

The wild card here is Hayley Atwell, who is pretty much making an “And Introducing” debut in Hollywood with this performance. Marvel didn’t go its normal route of hiring a beauty whose career has slipped a little (Portman being the obvious exception) to team with The Hero. And Atwell doesn’t disappoint. She has a great entrance, she manages the very difficult job of keeping the audience from feeling like her interest in Steve Rogers is not just because he has a really big, uh, pairs of pecs now, and she has the kind of beauty that becomes more interesting as you see more of her.

But now, my second BIG complaint. I saw this movie in 3D. With shutter glasses. BLECH!!!

As regular readers know, I am not a 3D hater. I am comfortable with the glasses when there is a payoff, even in post-shoot conversions that are well done. But in the case of this movie, like X-Men: First Class, 3D is antithetical to the film that was made. I suppose you could do a period film that would be enhanced by 3D. But this was not it.

Moreover, as the movie looks into Ms Atwell’s eyes with a passion usually reserved for Douglas Sirk movies, I was squinting behind my glasses to get a good look, even though her head was in a close-up 30 feet high. And when I pulled off my glasses… WOW!… look at that girl!

If you want to go see Transformers 3 or Green Lantern or maybe even Potter (which I saw in 2D, but have heard some 3D raves for), go see the 3D if you like 3D. But for my money, if you pay to see Captain America in 3D, you are a sucker. I would love to see the movie in 2D and may go this weekend. I bet my bottom dollar that it will be a much happier experience without the freakin’ glasses or the darkness. (And about the darkness… I am convinced that some 3D formats are a bigger problem than others and that all of them can be better if the projector light is cared for. But this was a studio screening in a quality, new-ish theater… and it was too dark except in the brightest scenes.)

Getting back to the movie itself… old fashioned fun. Really, it was a WWII action movie with comic book elements, perfect for this comic. Even the lazer guns were basic looking old guns with a little glowing blue light strip on the bottom. Perfect!

The first big action sequence for Cap… conceptually brilliant… not weighed down with explanations… funny… relatively realistic… great ending… so good.

I could quibble with this or that throughout the film, but really, most of the time that something I would consider a minor misstep occurred, the movie just kept moving forward and got past it quickly. Few films are perfect, but the ones that can keep you in even at moments they threaten to pull you out are almost as rare.

The uber-villain is Hugo Weaving, who must be getting tired of doing these roles. But he’s awfully good at them and entertaining himself as he does them. In this case, he seems to be Doing The Depp by channeling Werner Herzog’s voice for his German baddie. It’s not a Werner imitation, flying off into parody, but the cadences are right there and Weaving hits certain syllables just the way Werner does.

Again, as with the Li’l Steve Rogers, the Red Skull effect is pretty much perfect. It never feels like latex or CG or something other than someone’s head.

The film spins on the Nazi thing by making Red Skull a Nazi who doesn’t much care for Nazi’s either. His troops are masked, like Lucas’ Stormtroopers. So the violence feels comic bookish. A punch is more exciting than an array of men being gunned down.

The movie charges forward. Our hero is super. Fun fun fun.

And then, the big final showdown and the end and the coda, which is usually at the end, after the credits (don’t bother staying… nothing there this time), but is now in the movie.

DAMN!

Some have argued to me that this ending is sophisticated. But, “Bollocks” I say. It’s a 90% turn for only one reason… to sell the next movie.

Marvel has made, by my count, 5 movies in-house in this era. 2 Iron Man, a Hulk, A Thor, and now this.

Captain America is the first time they have hired a really good film director to make one of their movies. It’s the first time they didn’t try to shove a box office star into the mix to support the opening. It’s their first period movie (because you could have unfrozen Cap at the top and put him in modern America).

These were all really good decisions and make this the most accomplished of the 5 films produced in-house so far.

SPOILER

But then, instead of going with that and bringing all the Captain America pieces together at the end for a classic movie climax, they strip the movie of the elements that were so enjoyable until then and close with a take-away, which unlike, say, Casablanca, is not connected to the theme of the film or a natural outgrowth of the characters.

Everything is fine until Cap gets into the flying fortress. Then he is alone, no longer connected to his team, his girl, or the war… there is really nothing specific to being in flight, aside from one autopilot gag… Red Skull is dispatched with little real drama… and then, “I’m going to kill myself in order to save NY.”

Don’t even get me started on the issue that killing Hydra off only helps Hitler, who was one of Red Skull’s targets… so the war isn’t over and Captain America is already being shelved.

You can practically feel like you are sitting in the meeting, listening to everyone trying to rationalize why the ending isn’t The Dance with The Girl before Cap heads off to the help with “The Japs” in the sequel that should have been. “See… we need to get him to 2010 so we don’t need to spend time explaining it in Avengers. And we still want him to be a virgin, cause maybe we can make that funny. What a great laugh when he gets his first blowjob from Scarlett! Do you think we can make it work in an elevator in the Chateau Marmont?!?!”

Thing is, one part of this film that is a little off-putting is that Cap, honorable as he is, is kind of a boring guy. He really needs a good woman to help him understand the rest of his powers.  He has one in this film… but instead of the climax movies like this have, literally and figuratively, because audiences love them and have since Valentino, we get the loss from a distance gambit.  I can embrace loss as an ending in a film in which it fits.  Here… no way, Jose.  If they don’t dance, the Red Skull wins!

And I wonder what Avengers will do with him. He’s not a right winger or spouting Bible verse. He is kind of a goody-two-shoes, but it’s not really an established character thing, like Superman’s “aw shucks.”  So like Thor, he’s a man out of his element. I don’t see that being the schtick for two characters, so… I guess we’ll see.

x

x

xx

END SPOILER

I guess where I am is that I really enjoyed most of Captain America and i was profoundly frustrated by the last 15 minutes or so. A great ending can save a mediocre movie and a bad ending can sink a pretty good movie. For me, this was a bit more than a pretty good movie and if it had ended as it seemed to be intended to, it might have been on par with the better Hellboy, Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman movies, creating a universe of its own, bigger than the details you walked into the theater anticipating.

For me, that misstep is more frustrating than outright mediocrity.

At the same time, I will be happy to sit through a 2D screening of this movie again… soon.

If you’re a movie lover, you pretty much need to go see this film. And you might pray, as I do, that a version without the Avengers product placement (or with it after credits, where it belongs) turns up on Blu-ray someday.