Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Steve Rogers has a dream.  All he wants to do is serve his country.  World War II is in full swing and he’s not going to let something like a medical deferment stop him.  You see, Rogers is small, weak and has a few health issues.  He can’t serve, as much as he wants to and as many times as he tries.  That’s where Dr. Abraham Erskine comes in.  He’s interested in using Rogers as a test subject.  Rogers agrees.  Even if it’s not for sure, it might get him into the armed forces.

Dr. Erskine has developed this serum that will turn an ordinary man into a super soldier.  He knows that Rogers is the right man for the job, despite the military’s skepticism.  Rogers is turned into a super-soldier.  The drawback is that the formula is lost, leaving Rogers as the only positive result.  This is useless to the military, as they were promised an entire army of super-soldiers.  But, they could always use him as a poster boy to sell war bonds…

This isn’t what Rogers signed up for.  Yes, he is serving his country, at least more so than when he started off.  The problem is that he’s going around in a silly costume that pleases civilians, but is seen as a joke by those on actual active duty.   When the opportunity presents itself, Rogers goes and saves his friend and many other soldiers, thus earning him the right to defend his country.  Rogers also brings back some good intelligence, giving him several more missions to go on.

HYDRA is the main group of bad guys.  They’re the Nazis' research wing and they’re developing some pretty nasty weapons.  If Rogers can take out the remaining factories, all will be saved.  HYDRA is led by Johann Schmidt.  He’s an earlier, failed attempt at the super-soldier.  To say he has issues is an understatement.  It’s not going to be easy to defeat Schmidt and HYDRA, but it is possible.

At this point, if you’ve been reading my reviews, you should have figured out that I’m going to watch the Avengers movie one of these days.  Of all the movies that feed into that movie, this one seems to be the most obvious in terms of setup.  It even has “The First Avenger” in the title.  (The only one that comes close is Thor.)  You even get a tie in or two.  In the beginning of the movie, Rogers and his friend are visiting the Stark Expo, hosted by Tony Stark’s father, Howard.  Howard Stark even plays an important role in the movie.  I don’t think that the references were too much.  It wasn’t really forced at all.

The movie took a while to get going.  There was a bit of setup and a while where we got to see what kind of person Rogers was.  I didn’t think it dragged, but the action doesn’t start immediately.  Rogers spends a good deal of time getting ready to be made into Captain America and spends a good deal of time before seeing action.  If you’re in it for the action, I don’t know that you’ll be disappointed, but you will have to wait for it.

Right now, the only movie I would want to see before seeing The Avengers is The Incredible Hulk.  I’ve seen Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Thor.  (I don’t think there are any other movies I need to see.  Please leave a comment if I’m mistaken.)  Of all the movies that I’d have to see, The Incredible Hulk is the one I’m not too crazy about.  If I hadn’t wanted to see The Avengers, I’d probably have watched this and the two Iron Man movies and maybe gotten around to watching Thor if it came on TV.  Since I don’t read comics, I don’t know how well it holds up to the comics, but it is definitely worth renting.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I am going to give away major details about the movie.  Most of these major details are ones that you should see coming, as the movie follows actually history to a certain degree.  However, if you don’t want to have all the details before seeing the movie, you might want to hold off on reading this review.

There seemed to be a lot of interest in Abraham Lincoln at once.  Daniel Day-Lewis starred in a movie called Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg, about the President’s final months in office.  I’ve also seen a few Time special publications about him.  One movie that I found interesting was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  The movie roughly follows history.  It seems that many of the major characters were real people, although the move claims that Lincoln hunted and killed vampires around the time he first moved to Springfield, Illinois.

The story goes that his mother was killed by a vampire.  Young Abraham witnesses the murder and seeks revenge as soon as he’s old enough to get a gun and some bullets.  Problem is that it’s not so easy to kill a vampire.  All he does is enrage his mother’s killer, who now turns on her son.  Fortunately, Henry Sturgess saves Lincoln.  Lincoln convinces Sturgess to train him to kill vampires, which he reluctantly does.

He makes Lincoln understand that hunting vampires has to be his only pursuit.  He can’t have friends.  He can’t have family.  He can’t have a life outside of doing what Sturgess tells him to do.  This suits Lincoln just fine until he meets Mary Todd.  He’s able to hunt and kill vampires for a while longer, but eventually proposes to her and they marry.

It turns out that Sturgess has a secret.  Once revealed to Lincoln, he abandons his hunt and goes into politics.  He wants to abolish slavery, but it might come at a price.  The South is home to a lot of vampires and those vampires use slaves as a source of food.  Take away slavery and they may revolt.  When Lincoln becomes president, the South splits, eventually leading to the Civil War.

Vampires don’t hold political office, but they do contribute money to make sure their interests are protected.  They even enlist in the war, as they have a better survival rate than normal humans.  Lincoln does have a few tricks up his sleeve and is able to defeat the vampires and win the war.

As I said in the warning, the movie uses history as a guide.  The movie is not meant to be historically accurate to the last sentence.  It’s more like different motives are assigned to historical characters.  It should come as no surprise that the South goes to war with the North.  It should come as no surprise that the North wins.  The surprise comes in how the North does it.  There is some suspense in how.  These are the details I don’t want to give away.  (In the last few minutes of the movie, Mary Todd Lincoln is calling to her husband that they’re going to be late to the play.)

I figured that the movie was going to be one of those stories about how you didn’t know all these things about our 16th president.  It was more of an alternate history where vampires exist.  Yes, they’re kept hidden from people and use large amounts of sunscreen to go out in daylight.  Still, the main draw of the movie is the action sequences.  There’s one where Lincoln is fighting a vampire in the middle of a horse stampede.   In another, Lincoln and his allies are fighting many vampires.  Both sequences are very well done.  I’d say both are worth renting the movie for if you’re into action movies.

The movie is definitely worth watching.  This was one of those movies I wanted to see, but not enough to pay full price for it.  The movie was released in 3D, which would probably have been worth it.  It’s just that I’m not working full time right now and have to make choices.  I’d rather get the 2D version from Redbox with a free code than pay to see it in 3D.  I just wish that more movies would release the 3D version on DVD.  (I guess it’s too difficult to distribute special glasses with the movie.) 

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Official Trailer (HD) Benjamin Walker