4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, we pay tribute to a very special breed of monster with….
4 Shots From 4 Werewolf Films
Werewolf of London (1935, dir by Stuart Walker)
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961, dir by Terence Fisher)
Werewolf Woman (1976, dir by Rino Di Silvestro)
The Wolfman (2010, dir by Joe Johnston)
I have to admit that I’m always a little bit surprised to discover how many people really don’t like the 2010 film, The Wolfman.
I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that it may not have been the greatest film ever made but the amount of negative feelings that this film has managed to generate over the years seems, to me, to be a bit out of proportion. Essentially, it’s just a silly film about a werewolf.
Yes, it is a remake of The Wolf Man and we’re all honor-bound to dislike remakes but, if we’re going to be absolutely honest, the original Wolf Man was sometimes pretty silly too. If anything, the original’s success is largely due to the heartfelt work of Claude Rains in the role of the Wolf Man’s father. Yes, the original Wolf Man is a classic but remaking it is not exactly sacrilege.
In the remake, Benicio Del Toro takes over the role of Larry Talbot, who is reimagined as a Shakespearean actor who has a history of mental instability. Del Toro is not exactly convincing as an Englishman, though the same could be said of Lon Chaney, Jr. However, nobody broods with quite the panache of Benicio Del Toro and that’s what was needed for the remake’s version of Larry Talbot. If Lon Chaney, Jr. played Larry as being a dumb lug, Del Toro plays Larry as being a tortured artist.
Anthony Hopkins takes over the old Claude Rains role. Just as it’s difficult to imagine Del Toro as being English, it’s next to impossible to imagine him sharing any DNA with Anthony Hopkins. And yet, I’m really glad that Hopkins was cast in the role. Of course, in the remake, the character of John Talbot has been totally reimagined. He’s now something of a bitter and sarcastic alcoholic, a negligent father who always seem to be amused at some mean-spirited joke that only he can understand. I imagine that if I asked Hopkins, he’d say that he did this role for the money but there’s nothing wrong with that. Some of Hopkins’s best performances have been the ones that he subsequently claimed to have done only for the money. Freed from any obligation to give a nuanced or subtle performance, Hopkins goes totally over-the-top and it’s actually a lot of fun to watch. In The Wolfman, Hopkins turns the delivery of bitter bon mots and erduite insults into an art form.
Watching the film’s first half, we all know what’s going to happen. Gypsies are going to show up in the woods near Talbot Hall and paranoid villagers are going to blame them for everything that happens. Larry is going to get bitten by a werewolf and transform every night when the moon is full. Larry is going to fall in love with Gwen (Emily Blunt) but, for her own protection, will try to send her away. An arrogant but clever inspector, Francis Abberline (Hugo Weaving, playing a version of the real-life detective who inspired the role played by Johnny Depp in From Hell), is going to arrive from London to investigate all the recent deaths…
About halfway through, The Wolfman takes a totally unexpected turn. I won’t spoil it here, just in case you haven’t seen the movie. I know a lot of people don’t care much for the big twist but I happened to love it. Yes, it doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense and it’s all a bit overdone but so what? It’s exactly the type of weird twist that a movie like this needs. It all leads to a final confrontation, one that is as exuberantly silly as the original’s conclusion was somber and tragic.
The key to enjoying The Wolfman is to accept it for what it is, an occasionally dumb and definitely not-to-be-taken-seriously movie that features some appropriately atmospheric cinematography, gorgeously gothic production design, and some very talented actors. (I especially enjoyed Weaving’s performance as Abberline.) A classic it may not be, but it’s still a fun little movie if you’re in the right mood for it.
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we begin our current decade!
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Wolfman (2010, dir by Joe Johnston)
Insidious (2010, dir by James Wan)
Let Me In (2011, dir by Matt Reeves)
The Cabin In The Woods (2012, dir by Drew Goddard)
So one year later we returned to Endor to see the continuing saga of Wicket (Warwick Davis) and the family from The Ewok Adventure. What were those words Burl Ives left us with at the end of The Ewok Adventure again?
“Reunited, the families enjoy the simple pleasures of being together. Having learned something they already knew. That courage, loyalty, and love are the strongest forces in the universe.”
Well, those forces are apparently not that strong because this movie opens up with Cindel’s (Aubree Miller) family getting murdered. That’s nice!
I love that apparently Kilink’s ultimate weapon from Kilink vs. The Flying Man made it all the way from Turkey to the moon of Endor.
During all this killing we meet the two main villains of this movie.
This guy (Carel Struycken) who looks like every generic bad guy from ever fantasy adventure movie ever made. He wants some sort of device from a spaceship that he thinks will make him powerful.
And this lady (Siân Phillips) who looks like she belongs in He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe.
After getting captured, then escaping, Cindel and Wicket do battle with something I’m pretty sure I once hit a golf ball into when I used to play miniature golf.
While trying to escape that dragon via a hang glider, they crash. Then they meet this guy who is quite annoying throughout this film.
I guess they figured since Wicket now speaks English, they needed something else small that doesn’t. That thing takes them to a house in the woods, but soon the owner comes home.
Yep, it’s Wilford Brimley. According to IMDb, he and the Wheats didn’t get along, so the production designer Joe Johnston directed all the scenes with Brimley. How did that work considering Brimley is in the majority of this film. Well, unfortunately Brimley did not bring Remo and Chiun with him. That would have made for a very short film.
A large chunk of this movie can now be described as Brimley talks to Cindel, the bad guys talk amongst themselves, and Brimley and crew decide to seek out the bad guys. Oh, and this happens.
Unfortunately, Chewbacca from The Star Wars Holiday Special isn’t around to tell little Cindel that something about this doesn’t smell right. Of course she pulls a switcharoo and kidnaps the kid.
Now we get the annoying little creature, Wicket, and Brimley walking. For some reason we bump into a rock and get this shot of it.
Looks like a slot machine to me. They finally reach the evil castle, and after girl talk…
Brimley and crew scale the wall of the castle. Meanwhile, stuff is happening inside. Remember that whole Han and Greedo thing. Who shot first and all that. We can stop arguing about that. It’s time to start arguing over which one of these guys shot first.
There really isn’t much to talk about now because after they break the good guys (other Ewoks and Cindel) out of the castle, the rest of the film is a run and gun battle. At least this time Endor doesn’t scream Northern California like it did in The Ewok Adventure. Now shots like this just scream EBMUD watershed lands and Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland hills.
Eventually it all comes down to a battle between Brimley and the bad guy.
If you strike him down, he will become a more powerful spokesman for diabetes testing supplies then you can possibly imagine. But before that can happen, Wicket throws something that hits a thing on the bad guy’s chest and this happens to him.
With that done, it’s time for goodbyes and Brimley and Cindel leave the moon of Endor.
The question is whether this is any better than The Ewok Adventure. I would say no. Sure Wicket can talk, it feels more like we are on a foreign world, and there’s a lot more action to it, but that doesn’t make it better. The Ewok Adventure was a serviceable, but forgettable children’s sci-fi/fantasy adventure movie. This feels like they were contractually obligated to make a sequel so they threw together as generic a fantasy plot as possible and paid Brimley a few bucks to be in it. It’s super forgettable.
Now I just need to rewatch my childhood favorite Warwick Davis movie Willow (1988) and hope that The Force Awakens opens with Wicket pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky using the force.
Today the film world received news that legendary actor Omar Sharif passed away at the age of 83. The acclaimed Egyptian actor would make quite an entrance with his very first English-language film: David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia.
Omar Sharif would go on to star in such film as Dr. Zhivago, MacKenna’s Gold, Funny Girl and Behold a Pale Horse to name a few. He might be recognized by the younger generation in such films as The 13th Warrior and Hidalgo. He would be the vision of the noble romantic whether it was as a warrior, a poet or a leader. He would bring a bearing on-screen that exuded steadfast nobility yet still with a streak of roguish charm.
With each passing year we lose more and more of our classic performers. Now Omar Sharif joins the others who have gone before him but will always live on in our memories of him up on the screen.
4 SHOTS FROM 4 FILMS
Lawrence of Arabia (dir. by David Lean)
Dr. Zhivago (dir. by David Lean)
MacKenna’s Gold (dir. by J. Lee Thompson)
Hidalgo (dir. by Joe Johnston)
2011 was a year that wasn’t spectacular by any stretch of the imagination. From January right up to December there were not many films which I would consider event films. This is surprising considering all the superhero blockbusters which arrived during the summer and the final film in the Harry Potter film franchise. Even the prestige films which came out during the holidays never truly captured everyone’s imagination (though one film was very close to achieving it due to one Michael Fassbender).
What 2011 did have was a solid slate of titles which ranged from the pulpy to the cerebral. We even got films which were able to combine the two to come up with something very special. Not every film resonated with everyone and some even split audiences down the extreme middle with half hating it and the other half loving it.
The list below catalogs the films which I consider my favorites of 2011. Some titles on this list I consider some of the best of 2011 while some didn’t make that particular list but were entertaining enough for me to make this favorite list. Once again, the list is not ranked from top to bottom, but only numbered to keep things organized….
Honorable Mentions: Warrior, Super 8, Batman: Year One, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Sucker Punch, A Dangerous Method, The Adventures of TinTin, The Skin I Live In, Bunraku, The Guard, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Hugo, Tyrannosaur, Thor, The Interrupters, X-Men: First Class, Contagion, Battle: Los Angeles, Project Nim
It is called the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” and it’s a world-building program that’s been in the making for almost half a decade. It first began when Kevin Feige and the powers-that-be at Marvel Entertainment decided to forgo licensing out the rest of their comic book characters to other studios to play with (Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, etc.). Marvel Entertainment was getting rich off of these films without having to help finance any of the films, but the results of these films where hit-or-miss and recently they’ve been really misses (X-Men: Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider to name a few). So, the decision was made for Marvel to open up their own film studio, Marvel Studios, and use money from those licensed films to adapt the remaining characters in the Marvel Universe the Marvel way.
The first film to come out with Marvel Studios as the primary company was 2008’s Iron Man which was followed very closely with a reboot of the Hulk with The Incredible Hulk later that same summer. Iron Man 2 arrived in 2010 (though it was a mixed bagged depending on who one asks about this sequel) and in 2011 two more Marvel Studio films arrived to continue building this so-called “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. In early May 2011, the first one was Kenneth Branagh’s Thor hitting the big-screen which was widely-acclaimed to be a good and fun entry to this cinematic universe. The final piece and the second Marvel Studio film to arrive in 2011 is the Joe Johnston-helmed film adaptation of one of Marvel Comics’ most iconic characters. The “Marvel Cinematic Universe” finally finds it’s last piece before 2012’s arrival of Marvel Studios’ superhero team film, The Avengers.
Captain America: The First Avenger was being predicted as a film that could fail because of the character itself. Steve Rogers aka Captain America is the All-American G.I. who was straight-laced and never morally ambiguous. This was a character sure of himself and saw the world through a moral prism of black and white. The film that came out of the work by Joe Johnston and his capable film crew was one which surprised most everyone by it’s retro and nostalgic look at action serials of the past but without becoming to beholden to those tropes and losing all the fun in the story. This film played out like a throwback to those very serial action films of the 40’s and 50’s before cynicism and snark took over Hollywood and most of the entertainment industry.
Joe Johnston and his screenwriters, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (and an uncredited Joss Whedon whose strength with dialogue could be seen in this film), were able to make an origin tale which didn’t seem too rushed in laying out just who Captain America was and his early adventures during World War II. It was a great decision to keep most of the film set in World War II since Captain America’s origins would be the hardest to pull off and even harder to convince audiences too used to conflicted and unsure superheroes in their superhero films.
The film begins in current Marvel times as an expedition finds Captain America’s shield in the frozen ice floes of Greenland in what looks to be the wreck of a giant flying wing-type aircraft. Once the shield’s discovery was made the film quickly transitions back in time to 1942 where we get to see first-hand the evil mastermind Johann Schmitt aka the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) whose obsession and search for ultimate power finally garners him the Tesseract from Odin’s weapon’s vault (the Cosmic Cube last scene in Thor). He would use this cosmic power to power the superweapons being developed by his Nazi-funded splinter group, HYDRA, and it’s lead scientist in Dr. Armin Zola (Toby Jones).
Both Markus and McFeely actually wrote the film to be two storylines running concurrently with Red Skull and HYDRA running in one storyline and the other with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) as the 90-lbs Brooklyn-native weakling whose attempt to enlist in the Army gets shotdown each and every time he tries. Rogers is just not the type of man the US Army requires no matter how much courage and heart his asthmatic and weak body may hold within. But this very non-physical quality of Rogers is what gets the attention of the US Army’s own research division headed by German scientist and expatriate, Dr. Abraham Erskine, who believes Rogers is the perfect candidate for his super-soldier serum program.
Much of the Roger’s storyline in the early-going brings much comedic dialogue and scenes which made Captain America such a fun film. While Roger’s appearance and situation was never played off for laughs, it was how those around him outside of a few people whose reaction never get past the weakling standing in front of them. Once Rogers does become Captain America the film continued to have fun with the character as he’s drafted by politicians who sees him as the perfect pitchman for the government’s program to sell war bonds. This entire part of the character’s arc even got the full Busby Berkeley musical dance number reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s musical number to start off Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (this won’t be the first time Johnston would pay homage to the Indiana Jones series).
Once Captain America moves past his war bond selling phase the film’s two concurrent running storylines of the Captain and the Red Skull converge to begin the second-half of Captain America. While the comedic dialogue and sequences take a back seat the film still remains very fun as Johnston ramps up the action. He begins with the Rogers disobeying orders and attacking a HYDRA base to rescue not just his boyhood friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) from the clutches of HYDRA, but all the prisoners held in the same weapons manufacturing base. The action sequences were filmed in an almost old-school fashion. There’s no tricks of fast editing and quick cuts to make the battles and action chaotic and real, but brought to mind more the action scenes from the Indiana Jones films of the 80’s which Johnston was a part of. All the action sequences in this film were choreographed to be seen and understood, but at the same time with a sense of fun energy that most action films seem to have lost in the last decade.
Captain America was also the first film in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” which added to the fun by creating a genuine romantic subplot for it’s main lead. The relationship between Steve Rogers and British agent Peggy Carter was written quite beautifully as one between two people who saw each other as equals. This relationship unfolded very organically and not forced onto the two characters and to the audience. There was no manipulation to create a false couple. Steve Rogers gradually grew to not just admire Peggy Carter as a strong-willed, capable, but still feminine woman who saw beyond his initial weakling appearance, but by film’s end as a person who he truly had feelings for. It wouldn’t have worked if the Peggy Carter was just written to be a damsel in distress which she wasn’t and this character’s own journey to admiring Roger’s courage and tenacity in the face of impossible odds to mutual admiration once he became Captain to full-blown love by the end really added the emotional punch to the film. It’s no wonder that the bittersweet ending to the film between these two characters had such an emotional impact. The audience followed these two characters’ in their growing relationship from sweet beginnings to the tragic and bittersweet climactic finish.
It’s that very writing which made Captain America: The First Avenger more than just another superhero film. This was a film that went beyond just superhero action sequences, but a film which brought to mind not just the retro film of such films as Johnston’s own 1991 retro-futurist superhero film, The Rocketeer, but also the fun inherent in the serialized action films of the 40’s and 50’s which Spielberg did paid homage to with Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark. The action, explosions and witty (though without the snark and cynicism) dialogue didn’t dominate the film but became supports for the well-written characters. Characters that were well-played by it’s cast of exceptional actors.
This film, like any other superhero film of the past quarter century, lives and dies by how it’s hero and villain were played. It’s a great thing to have not just Hugo Weaving playing the Red Skull with such relish (with a voice that sounded like a mash-up of Werner herzog and Klaus Kinski), but the surprise was Chris Evans as Captain America himself. Evans had the tougher role since he was the titular character. He was an actor who was more well-known as playing wiseass and jokester roles, but in this film he plays Steve Rogers straight with a sense of unabashed goodness and confidence that he became Captain America without having to be unsure of his abilities, conflicted about his new role as a hero. Evans showed depth and range that was only hinted at in films such as Sunshine.
Another delight in the film would be Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter. She could’ve been the weak-link in this film and no one would’ve noticed, but she became the moral anchor and strength for the film as she became not just Steve Rogers’ eventual love interest but also his sounding board whenever doubts creeped in. She kept not just him, but the film on course and it helped that she was just as much as kickass as Captain America. Also, to say that Atwell as Peggy Carter was gorgeous to the point of blinding would be an understatement. It’s no wonder Captain America fell for her.
The rest of the supporting cast were up to the challenge no matter the size of the role. Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones were great as the compassionate mentor and grizzled commanding officer respectively. Jones’ Col. Phillips actually got some of the best one-liners in the film. When Tommy Lee Jones plays such a character as well as he does it’s no wonder he’s the go-to-guy for such roles. He just lives the part and pulls off the lines with such great comedic timing. Dominic Cooper as the young Howard Stark (father of Tony Stark/Iron Man) brought images of the suave and debonair Howard Hughes while Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes did a great job in making the character not just a sidekick, but also show hints of why he would become the Winter Soldier later on in the Captain America stories. It’s Stan’s role as Bucky which gives me hope that future Captain America sequels would tap and mine this character’s own journey from sidekick to potential rival as the Winter Soldier.
Captain America: The First Avenger is Marvel Studios’ last puzzle piece in what would transition into 2012’s The Avengers by Joss Whedon and it more than delivers the goods which was a testament to the creative forces led by Joe Johnston, Chris Evans and everyone involved. This was a fun, rollicking good time which brought back the concept that films were ultimately started as a form of mass entertainment. Not every film had to explore the meaning of life and existence. Not every film had to be a journey into the light and dark of existential themes. Films could be a couple hours spent entertaining and allowing it’s audiences to have a fun and good time. Captain America: The First Avenger was able to deliver this type of experience and do so with not a cynical gene in its code. It’s definitely Marvel Studios’ best film to date and one of the best films of the summer.
(Leonard Wilson’s review of Captain America)
As an added bonus below are some of the character and propaganda-type posters released for the film.
This won’t be the only review for Captain America: The First Avenger here on the Shattered Lens. This may
very well be considered an editorial on the film, depending on whether I can stay on topic (I gush a lot in this one). Once they see it, both Arleigh and Lisa Marie will probably make their own posts. Either way, you’ll have more than one perspective on the film.
Addendum: Arleigh’s review is up.
Many years ago, Marvel Comics decided that with all of it’s key franchises spaced around various film production companies, they’d create a series of films that would culminate to one big “Team Up” story. That team is known as The Avengers and it’s members (for the sake of the films, anyway) are Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Scarlett Witch, Hawkeye and Captain America. The project really went into high gear when Marvel Studios was born and Disney purchased Marvel.
I didn’t have a lot of hope for Captain America: The First Avenger. I know very little about the character save for the comics my older brother used to read. He was an army guy given something to make him super and he had a really cool shield that he’d throw and have return to him.. That was basically the bulk of my knowledge. When taken into account the announcement that Joe Johnston was directing the film, after his somewhat disappointing turn in The Wolfman and that Chris Evans was playing the role, I was certain the film was going to fail. I mean, wasn’t he just playing the Human Torch in The Fantastic Four?
Now, you need to understand that hearing Joe Johnston’s name attached to this left a mixture of feelings. I absolutely love The Rocketeer (1991) and period pieces in general. He was able to give it a nice ‘30s feel, right down to the old war serials that used to be shown before films. Hell, even the poster to that film was something grand. My little brother had a Rocketeer toy and I used to film home movies with it, holding the character just in front of the camera and running around the house as if it were flying. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out as well for Johnston or Disney then – but that’s another story.
As for Captain America, the movie floored me. The story isn’t as complex as say, The Dark Knight or as full of itself as Green Lantern, but it’s hands down the best story in the whole Avengers arc that Marvel’s worked on. From my viewpoint, only Iron Man comes close to competing with this film.
The premise of the story is pretty straightforward. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a frail man with just about every problem you can think of. He’s short, he’s asthmatic, and he can’t do a pull up to save his life. Yet, as his parents were in the Army, he felt it was right that he do his part. Every time he tries to enlist, however, he’s told he can’t. This doesn’t sway him from the belief that he can do it, it just forces him to find other ways in. When a scientist overhears Steve’s reasoning behind wanting to join, he gives him a big chance to become the first of many Super Soldiers. The process does indeed work, but a mishap leaves Steve as the only Super Soldier the Allies have, and thus, Captain America is born.
Now, I’m kind of summarizing things there as the story’s just a little bigger than that, but it really needs to be noted just how great a job Chris Evans did in this. He portrays Steve Rogers as one of the most noble characters I’ve seen since Superman. The character never loses that drive or passion, and it came across so well that on reflection, I can’t recall ever thinking once about the Human Torch (something I fully expected to do here). I found myself really wanting this character to succeed, which is more than I could say about Hal Jordan in Green Lantern despite loving the comic. Evans truly was the right person for this film, in my opinion. Again, die hard Captain America fans that have grown up with the character may disagree.
Captain America also has a rich supporting cast. Hayley Atwell, coming over off a great role in the Starz Miniseries The Pillars of the Earth plays Peggy Carter, a tough as nails Army Officer that helps to motivate Rogers toward the path he’s destined to take. Atwell is beautiful, demure at times and responsive at others, every bit as she was when playing Alienna. Also from Pillars of the Earth is Anatole Taubman as one of Johan Schmidtt’s (Hugo Weaving’s) Officers. Tommy Lee Jones’ Colonel has some of the funnier lines in the film. Weaving does a great job as always at playing the villian. There’s really very little I can say on that other than the make up job they gave Weaving’s Red Skull was nice, right down to the visible seams just under his ears. Sebastian Stan has a good role in Rogers’ best friend, Bucky, but I think he could have used a little more. Even Natalie Dormer (Cassanova, The Tudors) and Amanda Righetti (Friday the 13th) have cameos. If the film has two supporting anchors other than Atwell, it would be Stanley Tucci (Easy A) and Dominic Cooper (The Devil’s Double). As Abraham Erskine and Howard Stark, respectively, they both almost steal the show from Evans. They both have a few key moments in the film.
If Captain America suffers from any problems, it may be that it gets from Point A to Point B a little quicker than I’d have liked it to. Some of the pacing is done in Montages, which is okay for showing the audience that the Captain is making progress, but I would have liked to have seen another mission or two before the finale. The buildup to Steve Rogers becoming the Captain is fast, and everything else moves pretty quickly from there on in. The last battle sequence could have been stronger – I’m reminded of the tank sequence in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – but considering the era in which the story was told, I wasn’t really expecting lightsabers or anything along those lines. It wasn’t bad, but it was over sooner than I expected. I should also point out that it really does help to have seen the other Avenger related movies. It’s not really a requirement, but the larger puzzle really comes into view on seeing this film.
Visually, the film is great. Johnston really catches that sense of old New York, though it may not be as nuanced as Jackson’s in King Kong. The colors are a little muted in some places, but I’m thinking that’s part of the tone that was set. There’s even a musical number that’s somewhat cute. The 3D effects in this are okay for some scenes. The end credits in particular were nice, but over all it’s really nothing to write home about. I’m still of the notion that 3D should really be restricted to animated features.
Overall, Captain America was a fun film in the vein of Joe Johnston’s earlier film, The Rocketeer and is easily the best of the Marvel Studios Avenger prequels. I’ll be heading back to see it again on Sunday.
And remember, when the movie is done, don’t leave. After the credits comes something definitely worth seeing (at least the yelling and cheers from my audience seemed to deem it so).
The summer of 2011 has been called the Summer of Superhero Films. In early May we had Marvel Studios’ Thor film premiere to good reviews and it has had a certain level of success (though not the level of The Dark Knight success rabid fanboys and jaded film bloggers think every comic book-based film should be doing). Then next up was the fourth X-Men film from Twentieth Century Fox by Matthew Vaughn that seem to reboot the franchise from it’s downward spiral begun by the third film and the Wolverine origins film. This film garnered even higher praise than Thor and many saw it as equaling or surpassing the X2. While it’s box-office success has been good it didn’t make the sort of money previous films in the franchise have made in years past. Then we come to the recently released Green Lantern from Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment.
This film was to be the next crown jewel to join DC’s successful Batman film franchise and iconic Superman series which seems to be the only DC properties to have had a successful live-action adaptation. While the film did very good in it’s first weekend the reviews of the film range from “ok and fun” at best to “downright awful” at its worst. All three films have huge budgets and, most likely, all three will be a profit for their studios, but not runaway hits.
Maybe the public has begun to tire of superhero films as a cause for the less than cosmic box-office returns. One other reason could be that too many people have been blinded by the massive box-office success of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight that every superhero film must now be compared to that one fair or not. This makes the job much harder for Marvel Studios’ second film of the summer, Captain America: The First Avenger, as that film looks to cement the foundation for next summer’s major blockbuster ensemble superhero film, The Avengers.
I don’t see Captain America doing TDK level money, but early screenings of the film has earned it some major positive buzz that had been missing from Thor. That early positive buzz and this latest trailer which really showcases the action of this period piece of a superhero film should help push Captain America to be a success no matter if it makes 200million dollars domestic or more.
One thing I’m sure of is that this latest trailer should be more people excited for Captain America: The First Avenger when it comes out on July 22, 2011.
We already have the first full trailer for the upcoming Thor film this coming summer season. Fans have been eagerly awaiting the next big trailer from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios. While a teaser trailer was shown during the Super Bowl there still hasn’t been an official trailer for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger. Now that wait is over as Paramount Pictures have finally unleashed the first official trailer.
Captain America: The First Avenger is still set for a July 22, 2010 release.
Through the Shattered Lens 