Having Chosen to Oppose His Shield, I Yield
A long, LONG time ago, I complained that the Captain America movie was doing it wrong based on trailers and without having seen it. I come before you, lo these many months later and just before the Avengers movie drops, to recant...sorta.
Why am I taking an entire blog post to say I was wrong? Because once I think an opinion through, I rarely change it. Only time and eroding the original core thesis can typically change my mind. When I do change my mind, it only feels right to point it out.
I'll sum up my previous post stating my usual thesis thusly: "Superhero origins are really boring if used for anything other than a quick (emphasis on quick) vehicle to get them into costume and punching bad guys in garish costumes." I stand by this with a few exceptions, Captain America not being one of them.
But this movie managed to keep me engaged even through the relentlessly slow origin build-up. And, my friends, it is relentlessly slow. However, it is never, ever boring.
I think that's the key. Probably the same with Batman Begins and the opposite with Green Lantern. BB absolutely belabors every little damn thing about the Nolan Batman's painful and small origin, but it's so fraught with all the emotions that we're never bored while we wait for the cape and cowl to show up.
Similarly, in Captain America everything is absolutely fraught with idealism that we're able to overlook how damn long it takes for the guy to punch super-Nazis.
In Green Lantern, however, we have a painfully long amount of time where Hal Jordan is a douche followed by a painfully long amount of time learning how to make a gun with his magic wish-ring while on Planet CGI. Nothing is fraught here.
Just to show this is not a new problem, Superman The Motion Picture suffers from a lot (45 MINUTES!) of Planet NobodyCares and living on the NobodyCares farm before he gets in the costume. Interestingly, very similar problems to GL just in a different order.
Anyway, the bottom line is, I was wrongish. You can, with the right origin, the right take, and the right attention to craft make even the most boring, three-line origin story into compelling cinema.
I still wish they'd knock it off, though.
