Road To Infinity War: Ten Years of Marvel
Part Five
Captain America: The First Avenger
Our next film in this look back at the Marvel
Cinematic Universe takes a look at “Captain America: The First Avenger.”
I remember spending many days wondering who Marvel
would pick to play Thor, and like I said the last time we were together, even
trying to find somebody to play Captain America was even more difficult to
figure out. For Thor, you need a tall guy who doesn’t mind speaking like he’s
known William Shakespeare in person mixed with a professional wrestler, and
they got to make that language believable. For Captain America, you need a
wholesome man who can act like he doesn’t have a shade of deception, manipulation,
greed, evil or jealously in their heart. They had to act like leader, a good
man no matter what decision they made. Plus, they had to have blonde hair and
blue eyes, the all-American look. These were the two tough gigs, the ones
Marvel absolutely had to nail, otherwise this experiment of a cinematic universe
would fall like a house of cards.
I had some hope, as they got Thor right. It didn’t
matter that Chris Hemsworth was a complete unknown at the time, for the most
part. Who on Earth would play the Captain? Joe Johnston was hired to direct,
and if you’ve seen “The Rocketeer,” then you know how perfect the match between
director and material would be. Captain America’s first movie was to be set in
World War II, Marvel was really going to do the origin story correct. So, who
would be Johnston’s Captain?
Above all other casting decision, this was the one
that had the most attention on the internet. I used to read tons and tons and tons
of movie forums in that day, I belonged and discussed in many of them too.
There was a good handful of people who thought the role would fall between two
people, Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio, both nice choices in their own right,
but the other half of fandom seemed to give the excuse that both actors were
too old. You see, Steve Rogers was in his twenty’s when he was doused with the
Super Soldier serum, and while Damon and DiCaprio were both talented men, they were
getting really close to 40, how could they play mid twenty’s in a believable manner?
Channing Tatum was suggested by fans, and so was Matthew Fox. Maximonline
suggested Josh Duhamel. No matter what you think of those choices, I think all
of them were way better suggestions than the 2008 rumor that Matthew
McConaughey was going to play the role. Yep, glad that turned out to be just a
rumor.
Around 2010, Marvel finally stopped keeping fandom in
the dark. We knew Marvel was looking at actors in their mid to late twenty’s,
the oldest they were looking at was 31. So okay, Marvel was playing things
pretty close to the source material. We knew John Krasinski was an early
favorite for the part, then Ryan Phillipe came up and confirmed he auditioned.
Garrett Hedlund, Chace Crawford, Mike Vogel and Sebastian Stan (who ironically
ended up being cast as Bucky Barnes) were all in the mix too. I had to be
honest, at the time I really wanted to see Garrett Hedlund get the part, out of
all the men they were circling. Even Alexander Skarsgaard auditioned for the
role. But eventually they landed on someone else, someone who never came up in
any sort of news story or press release, someone who turned down the role three
times before finally accepting it. In 2010, we found out that Chris Evans would
play Captain America.
I was pissed at the time. The guy from those cheesy “Fantastic
Four” movies. The guy from “Not Another Teen Movie.” The guy from “Cellular”
and a host of other mediocre to bad movies, a guy who had not proven any sort
of range as an actor, and got stuck playing the same character in all his
movies? Marvel was convincing me that he was going to play the Captain? I
thought the franchise was fucked. I thought the studio shot themselves in the
foot. I thought the movie was going to be failure way before I had even seen a
trailer. I mean, casting for the film was rounding out well. Hugo Weaving may
have been a save, obvious choice to play Red Skull, but that doesn’t mean it
was a bad choice. Weaving is one of those rare actors who can play a villain
well, and also make them feel different with each new performance. There is a
reason why in 2016 that Weaving was in the mix to play Pennywise in the recent “IT”
movie, the guy does bad guys well and I was excited to see his Red Skull. But
Chris Evans as Captain America? What were they thinking on that?
Well, when the movie finally came out, I instantly
shut up. I don’t know what it was about the character or the script or just an
actor maturing into something better than they were before, but the Chris Evans
who went to play Captain America was NOT the same Chris Evans prior. Everything,
no matter how major or minor the detail that makes Captain America who he is
was beautifully and brilliantly brought to life by Evans. There was a genuine
sweetness, innocence and elegance to Evans’ Steve Rogers, but he was a good man
with determined moral compass. He wasn’t afraid to be a realist, not afraid to
confront problems or know his flaws, he was a man to look up to a born leader
who was stuck in a frail, sick body. Not only was it a flawless, surprising
performance by Evans, but the script absolutely nailed the character too. They
didn’t make him cheesy. They didn’t make him overly comedic. They didn’t sex
the character up. They didn’t give him several stupid one-liners to spew. The
writers really did their homework to get Steve Rogers/Captain America just
right. Apparently, Chris Evans did his homework too, because he made the
character believable, he made somebody we could all strive to live up to. I can’t
believe how perfect he got it. It’s one of those moments that left me shocked
as a film fan, but the best possible kind of shocked.
I will also let you in on a little secret. In 2002, I
was obsessed with HBO’s “Band of Brothers,” a mini-series detailing a company
during World War II who were instrumental in winning that war. The series
starred Neal McDonough. For many years, I was hoping and praying that somebody
would make a Captain America movie within the release of that mini-series, and
I always believed Neal McDonough would be the perfect Captain America. So, it always
made me laugh that McDonough was eventually cast in the film as Dum Dum Dugan,
one of the soldiers who would help Cap fight HYDRA, as apart of a group of
soldiers called The Howling Commandos. It always made me laugh that McDonough got
cast in the movie, and its one of those small world things that dawns on you as
a film geek who reads comic books. I absolutely loved that The Howling
Commandos got a much-needed nod in the movie, and I only wished that they
introduced the Infinity Formula so that Dum Dum’s aging would slowdown, I would
have loved to see McDonough’s Dum Dum Dugan as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, whom Dugan
eventually became in the comics. I guess, never say never though.
The rest of the cast rounded out very well. Hayley
Atwell was an actress I knew nothing about before seeing the movie, and I
absolutely fell in love with her as Peggy Carter. Stanley Tucci was perfect as
Dr. Erkstine, Tommy Lee Jones was equally perfect as Chester Phillips. It would
take a few years, but I would end up laughing that Richard Armitage would end
up playing Thorin in “The Hobbit” movies, since he appears as a villain in this
movie. It’s also funny to see Natalie Dormer show up in a small appearance,
since she seems to play seductive women in everything she’s in. Toby Jones was
also very good as Armin Zola, a character we will talk about in the future. I
also have to say that even early on, Sebastian Stan was really great as Bucky,
and Dominic Cooper was really good as a young Tony Stark.
As I stated above, every detail of personality with
Captain America was spot-on, but the other details of the movie were strong too.
The movie kind of feels like a time machine while your watching it. Like you
got a glimpse of a World War II America that just happened to have a super
soldier in it for some reason. The costumes, the cars, the sets, how everything
is stylized, its amazing the attention to detail that was present in this
movie. But at the same time, despite all the grounding of realism from a real
time, it still felt like a comic book. There is a crackjack quality to the
movie. It feels like a swashbuckling adventure movie. I remember reading that
Kevin Feige and Joe Johnston mentioned that one of the inspirations for “Captain
America: The Winter Soldier” was “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” After watching the
movie over the weekend, I can totally see that connection. It definitely did
feel like an Indiana Jones movie in some aspects. For the time and place of the
movie, and what they were hoping to accomplish with the movie, that tone is
totally appropriate.
I also need to point out that Alan Silvestri wrote one
of the best scores in any superhero movie with his music in this first film. If
you’ve got eagle ears like me, then you’ll notice that they never used Silvestri’s
score again in any of the other Captain America movies, that to me is a shame.
I think and believe all things Captain America when that song comes in on a
scene or plays out. I cannot, cannot believe this is the only movie where we
heard that score, that should have been the heroes definitive score. It’s one
of the most glaring mistakes that these Marvel movies make time and time again,
and we will get into more detail on that in my piece tomorrow. But I have to
single out that gracious, powerful piece of music here for good reason.
I remember seeing this movie for the first time in a
packed theater on a hot evening in July 2011. My girlfriend and I had gone to
my hometown to see my mom for her birthday and it felt like a movie that
everyone would like. I was glad to see that was just the case. As the credits
rolled and we saw that quick glimpse of what we would expect from The Avengers
movie, my heart stopped, I was out of breath. I was so giddy that I couldn’t
handle it. We talked Avengers all night long when we got back, and I was glad
to know that no matter how old you were or how much knowledge you had with
superheroes and comic books, these movies could still inspire and bring the
best out of people. That will always be what I treasure most.
Tomorrow, as I catch up on this countdown, I will discuss
“The Avengers!” That should be a fun one.
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