A top-dollar movie carried by ultra-cheap plot twists. It’s okay, I guess. The pre-Avengers Marvel movies built these characters up and now they’re tearing them down for drama—and they’re also laying down story threads for the next seventeen years of blockbusters. I’ll be there because I’m as big a sucker as anyone. These Marvel movies are such commercial gold because they rope in almost everybody, from young people to old fuckfaces like me who read these comics as kids and now get a kick out of seeing the characters in competently made films.
Hollywood has finally figured out how to make a costume as stupid as Captain America’s not look idiotic onscreen. What they do is make the costume just realistic and weathered enough and they make the world around him just cartoonish enough, but in a CGI sort of way, and then mute all of the bright colors. They treat the costume like a girl who’s good with make-up treats a pimple on her face. It’s all about blending and matching—and not just treating the blemish, but treating the area around it.
Anyway, in this movie super-patriot Captain America learns a stern lesson in how a superhero should trust no one, especially not those secretive snakes at SHIELD. Along the way, we get some cool action scenes (I like the one in the elevator) and the comic book nerds and ex-nerds get an intriguing reference to Stephen Strange (aka, Dr. Strange) and a closing credits bit that sets up Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch.