Marvel Movie Marathon: Captain America: The First Avenger

Someone on The Internets pointed out, late last year, that if a person was to watch a Marvel movie every week in the new year, they would wrap up just in time for Avengers: Infinity War, which is out (here, at least) on April 28th. Ted and I thought that was a great idea and set out to do so, with the thought in mind that we would watch them all chronologically, starting, clearly, with Captain America: The First Avenger.

(Here’s a full chronological list of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the TV shows.)

But then my dad saw the Black Panther trailer this weekend and was STUNNED and EXCITED (“I’ve never seen anything like it!”) and, since he’s only seen Iron Man and Thor: Ragnarok, we decided our *real* priority had to be getting him up to speed on everything leading into that movie, so we’re doing:

Captain America
Iron Man 2 (to get Black Widow introduced)
Thor (maybe; Dad’s seen Ragnarok so he knows the characters, but OTOH, it’s Loki’s introduction too and he LOVED Loki & Loki’s obviously a very large part of Avengers, so…)
Avengers Assemble
Winter Soldier
Age of Ultron
Civil War

With Thor added in there we’ll have to do a double-header some week, but if we skip it, that puts Civil War on the 12th (we’re watching ’em on Monday nights) and that’s perfect.

Ted and I are a bit tempted to throw Agent Carter into the mix for our own selves, since we have the DVDs, but it would constitute a proper binge to get it all watched this week and apparently binge-tv is something I dream of doing rather than actually doing. (I can’t. I have too much other work to do.) So we might add it in IN BETWEEN THE REST OF OUR SUPERHERO TV (the gifted, runaways, arrow, legends of tomorrow, the flash, supergirl, BLACK LIGHTNING OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG, seriously, SO MUCH SUPERHERO. VERY COSTUMES. I LOVE IT) and also s4 of Brooklyn-99 which I haven’t even started yet, and Star Trek: Discovery and The Good Place and Grace and Frankie and…shit, man, I really wish I was the kind of person who could convince herself it was okay to blow off work a couple days and binge a show. :p

(I just said that to Ted, who said, “HAH!” derisively. :( Then I said, “I don’t know how people actually allow themselves to TAKE a couple days off work and do th…I guess it’s because they’re not self-employed,” which he agreed with. :))

(This has been a very long introduction to what is nominally a picoreview…)

ANYWAY, so Captain America stands up to a rewatch. Which I knew, because I’ve rewatched it before, but I still find it a really satisfying movie. I noticed CGI seams a bit more this time than I remember doing previously, but since I tend to notice those quite a lot I probably noticed them before and forgot about them. Other than that, though, it’s…just a swell movie. It’s well written and so *damn* well cast. Chris Evans apparently turned the role down repeatedly because he was terrified of screwing it up, but he’s so perfect for it. Stalwart and true, as I said to Dad, who was looking for the words to describe him after the movie, and Dad said, “Yes!”

I particularly enjoyed Tommy Lee Jones this time around. I always do, of course, but I’d forgotten how funny he is in this movie. And honestly, I knew Hayley Atwell was wonderful, of course, but I’d forgotten just how much of a badass Agent Carter was even in that first film. And it’s lovely watching her fall for Little Steve, because she does. She really likes him, not because he’s Captain America, but because he’s Steve Rogers. I also feel like I’d never *really* appreciated the absolute rage in her expression when she shoots the shield the first time. *laughs* Poor Steve. :)

Furthermore, Sebastian Stan is…I think he’s more heartbreaking as Bucky every time I see the movie. I didn’t notice, when I saw it on the big screen, all the anguish and complex emotion that’s going on in his face and voice when he calls, “Let’s hear it for Captain America!”, but gif sets pointed it out to me and honestly I still don’t even know what all is happening with him emotionally in that scene, but holy crap he’s a mess. Also, I don’t think I ever fully grasped the link between the Red’s Skull’s experiments ON BUCKY and the eventual creation of the Winter Soldier, but this time I was like “OH HEY WAIT!” about that. So that was cool.

And it was great fun to watch it with Dad, who enjoyed it a great deal. Every once in a while I’d peek over to see what he thought, but he never caught my eye because he was too busy watching the film. :) He laughed for about five minutes at the bit where somebody (is it Jim Morita?) rolls under a Nazi truck, attaches a bomb as it drives over him, and blows it up, just because it’s such outrageous heroics. :) So we’re looking forward to watching the whole shebang, up to and including Black Panther and Infinity War. :)