Cap-tain Americaaaaa!
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Perhaps the rarest specimen in cinema is a thing called wholesome entertainment. It's a movie that is essentially made for adults but can be enjoyed by all (as opposed to The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, which are movies made for children that can be enjoyed by all).
Wholesome entertainment used to be all around: The Sound of Music, The Great Race, even something like Doctor Zhivago. But the 1970s brought gritty realism to film, the 1980s brought cussing to genre films, and the 1990s brought the raunch comedy, all of which are great in their own right. The sad thing wasn't that these films existed, but that wholesome entertainment virtually ceased to exist.
That's why it was such a treat to see Captain America this weekend. The story of a scrawny kid with heart, it harkened back to the 1940s in style and attitude. There's not a single curse word. Not a single flash of nudity or moment of raunch. The sets are subtly stylized to give a light feel of fantasy. The dialogue is beautifully simple. Remember John McClane and all his snappy comebacks? When the villain in Captain America says to our young hero, "You don't give up, do you?" you know how he responds? With the brilliant rejoinder: "Nope!" The filmmakers even resurrect the old WWI trope of a gang made up off one American, one Brit, one Frenchman, etc. And when the gang needs to get into the villain's super-secure, mile-deep-in-the-Alps fortress headquarters, do they spend hours poring over blueprints and planning an elaborate entrance? No---there's no hanging from the ceiling, Mission-Impossible-style. No turning off the power grid and slipping through the metal doors using a quantum magnet. Captain America shoots his way in, and then his friends ride a zipline down to a big window. Which isn't even made of a tempered glass, because they go right through it.
There was humor, sentiment, and action. And, rarest of all, the movie had an identity, a sense of itself and the kind of story it was telling. It wasn't generic and still managed to be fun and even artistic.Go ahead---watch it with your 8-year-old. You'll like it too.
-
Perhaps the rarest specimen in cinema is a thing called wholesome entertainment. It's a movie that is essentially made for adults but can be enjoyed by all (as opposed to The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, which are movies made for children that can be enjoyed by all).
Wholesome entertainment used to be all around: The Sound of Music, The Great Race, even something like Doctor Zhivago. But the 1970s brought gritty realism to film, the 1980s brought cussing to genre films, and the 1990s brought the raunch comedy, all of which are great in their own right. The sad thing wasn't that these films existed, but that wholesome entertainment virtually ceased to exist.
That's why it was such a treat to see Captain America this weekend. The story of a scrawny kid with heart, it harkened back to the 1940s in style and attitude. There's not a single curse word. Not a single flash of nudity or moment of raunch. The sets are subtly stylized to give a light feel of fantasy. The dialogue is beautifully simple. Remember John McClane and all his snappy comebacks? When the villain in Captain America says to our young hero, "You don't give up, do you?" you know how he responds? With the brilliant rejoinder: "Nope!" The filmmakers even resurrect the old WWI trope of a gang made up off one American, one Brit, one Frenchman, etc. And when the gang needs to get into the villain's super-secure, mile-deep-in-the-Alps fortress headquarters, do they spend hours poring over blueprints and planning an elaborate entrance? No---there's no hanging from the ceiling, Mission-Impossible-style. No turning off the power grid and slipping through the metal doors using a quantum magnet. Captain America shoots his way in, and then his friends ride a zipline down to a big window. Which isn't even made of a tempered glass, because they go right through it.
There was humor, sentiment, and action. And, rarest of all, the movie had an identity, a sense of itself and the kind of story it was telling. It wasn't generic and still managed to be fun and even artistic.Go ahead---watch it with your 8-year-old. You'll like it too.
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posted by Anonymous at
5:59 PM
3 Comments:
oh, what a lovely, promising review! g wanted to see it when it first came out, but i quietly demurred. you may have just convinced me to have saturday night date night with my one true . . .
QUESTION: i can't remember, but have you seen the rise of the planet of the apes? and, if so, did you like it?
I have seen the apes yet, but really want to. I know you liked it, and you have higher standards than I do. So I think I will too.
i really do. when i hear you express a preference for something, i'm all, "dreck, dreck, DREEEEEEEEEEEEECK." thank god i have such elevated tastes.
—H. Simpson
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