Private, You're a Queen
Captain America (2011)
directed by Joe Johnston
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at AMC Waterfront 22
Critics were patient with Captain America in a way that they weren't for a blockbuster like Dark of the Moon. Is this really the sort of superhero franchise people want? Bland, virtuous nostalgia? A hero too shy to kiss the girl?
"Old-fashioned yarns" shouldn't play out like the "under God" section of the Pledge of Allegiance. Prince Valiant was old-fashioned. Val made time for the ladies and was a bit of an asshole to boot. He sat at the Round Table when he wasn't arguing with Arthur or chasing plunder with Gawain. Prince Valiant got away with behavior that no one would get away with today: careless and vain, he cut a reckless swath across continents. Val was the Clarke Gable of the chain-mail set.
Captain America isn't old-fashioned; he's a square, and his nemesis is a faceless goofball who sounds like Werner Herzog (I love you, Hugo Weaving). No, the hero of this gray little film is Private Lorraine, an impertinent blonde secretary who pulls the Captain aside to plant her red lips on his wax mouth and remind me, for a moment, what that multi-cultural strike force is fighting for. Not LBJ-eared Tommy Lee Jones and not this!
directed by Joe Johnston
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at AMC Waterfront 22
Critics were patient with Captain America in a way that they weren't for a blockbuster like Dark of the Moon. Is this really the sort of superhero franchise people want? Bland, virtuous nostalgia? A hero too shy to kiss the girl?
"Old-fashioned yarns" shouldn't play out like the "under God" section of the Pledge of Allegiance. Prince Valiant was old-fashioned. Val made time for the ladies and was a bit of an asshole to boot. He sat at the Round Table when he wasn't arguing with Arthur or chasing plunder with Gawain. Prince Valiant got away with behavior that no one would get away with today: careless and vain, he cut a reckless swath across continents. Val was the Clarke Gable of the chain-mail set.
Captain America isn't old-fashioned; he's a square, and his nemesis is a faceless goofball who sounds like Werner Herzog (I love you, Hugo Weaving). No, the hero of this gray little film is Private Lorraine, an impertinent blonde secretary who pulls the Captain aside to plant her red lips on his wax mouth and remind me, for a moment, what that multi-cultural strike force is fighting for. Not LBJ-eared Tommy Lee Jones and not this!
posted by NPK at 3:55 PM
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