Captain America: The First Avenger

Running Time: 124 minutes.
Media: DVD.

When I first heard the news that Captain America: The First Avenger was going to appear on the big screen, I threw punches of joy into the air. Never had I ever been so excited to see a comic book hero come to life on the Hollywood scene... If anything, it would certainly rival the brain-sucking attempt of a superhero feature that its 1990 counterpart of Captain America that went out, and was quickly distributed as a "straight to video" release...

What surprised me more, is that Marvel Studios had decided to cast Chris Evans, the actor who had previously been cast as the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies. As to whether this would mean that he may be cast in the third Fantastic Four movie, is still currently a mystery. I'd love to find the answer to that!

We follow the adventures of a young Steven Rogers, American patriot and soldier wannabe, who has the heart of a soldier, but apparently not the body... He's plucked up by the likes of a German-talking Stanley Tucci, and with the marvels of technology back then, converted into the ultimate weapon against evil! With the thanks of some brilliant CGI pre-Captain America to give Steve that wimpy look, and an amazingly built Chris Evans after the transformation, the film starts building up on realization that evil forces are upon the globe with the advent of HYDRA, led by the charismatic and yet villainous Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull, whose German accent isn't all that bad if I do say so myself, albeit a little overstated... rather much like his "Mr Anderson" quip from the Matrix films!

Marvel Studios has taken the storyline and tied it up in so many ways with other adjoining films in the Marvel universe that it defies belief, but in a very satisfying way. There's references of a "super-soldier" formula which links it to the Hulk movies, which also connects with The Avengers movie which I will be reviewing shortly, there's the use of Howard Stark, linking us to Iron Man, and we have the ever inspiring Nick Fury who appears in a number of these Marvel films of late, played by the only person who could pull it off, Samuel L. Jackson.

The wardrobe design is perfectly set for the time period that it's all set in, with a funny little homage to the original Captain America costume earlier in the movie, looking very much like the original costume from the Marvel comics that I grew up on when I was a kid, including the old 1960's Marvel Comic Group cartoons that used to play on TV back in the 80's, featuring either Sandy Becker or Arthur Pierce as Steve Rogers aka Captain America... You weren't a comic fan back then if you didn't sit in front of the TV on a Monday morning and didn't sing along to the Captain America cartoon theme song. But I digress... The new uniform for Captain America is post-war modern and yet present-day modern too, invoking the military vibe it was meant to then, as well as it does today... I have got to give the costume designers credit for this outstanding piece of work, I love it!

Throw in the ever-expected cameo of Stan Lee and you have a wonderful movie. Having seen this on DVD has made it just that special as I also got to see some in depth documentaries about the costume design and the re-make of the character that is Captain America. I have given this movie the highest rating of five stars.

12 Monkeys

Running Time: 127 minutes.

Media: DVD.

This is by far one of the weirdest films out... one of the few time-travel films that still requires me to view over and over again just to make some semblance of sense of it.

12 Monkeys is one of the types of movies that requires maybe one or two viewings to finally get a hang of what's going on. I say this as it seems the film kinda combines a number of time frames and as a result one needs to focus carefully on where and where Bruce Willis' character, James Cole is in... Madeline Stowe plays a somewhat paranoid psychiatrist, Kathryn Railly who gets embroiled with James' time travel adventures, much against her want... Add the zany antics of Brad Pitt as a fanatical animal rights activist and mental patient and you have all the chemistry you need to get a film that kinda loses the audience... And the plot...

To give you a quick run-down on the basic premise of the film - a super duper virus has been released back in 1996, resulting in deaths of pandemic proportions. As a result, the human race has been forced to venture underground to survive... Fast toward some forty, maybe fifty years onwards and the world as we know it seems to have taken on a cross between steampunk, UFC fighting stadiums and New York sewers... James Cole has been given the task to travel back in time, find out what caused the virus and stop it from ever spreading to begin with... James keeps having these dreams of witnessing a guy get shot at an airport as a child, which are apparently repressed childhood memories...

Terry Gilliam directs this film, which kinda explains the costume and stage design for the post-apocalyptic world, and possibly the scripting of Brad Pitt's lines... The film had my head scratching, wondering why the world supposedly seemed to regress in terms of technology, fashion and I'd have to add, intellect...

The film is great in the way it twists and turns, eventually closing the loop in the end... There are a few areas that seemed a bit on the fake side, like the color in David Morse's hair in the film. I guess, the delivery of Stowe's performance seemed a little unbelievable as well... However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel; what with Brad Pitt's performance which resulted in Pitt being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he also won a Golden Globe for his role in the film. Real comic geeks may recognize one of Kathryn Railly's colleagues as being played by Frank Gorshin, who played the role of the Riddler in the 1960's TV series of Batman.

Would I watch this film again? Yes, though not terribly soon... Although it's a great film, the movie seems to get caught up in itself so much, the audience is left wondering what the hell is happening, and you find yourself a little cheated in the end, especially with not having seen the ending in your mind sooner... Bear in mind, this movie is a re-write of the French film La Jetée, a film made in 1962, of which I've yet to see, but will in the near future... 12 Monkeys borrows a number of components from its predecessor and makes it a worthy film, even though it does go over the top at times... I'm giving this film four stars as a result.

Jaws

Running Time: 124 minutes.

Media: DVD.

This was made the year before I was born... And who would have thought that a movie slightly older than the Movie Madman would still shock him enough to still have a fear of open water... I kid you not, it is partially due to Jaws that I hate going into the open water... swimming pools, not too bad; the bathtub, no problem... Bondi Beach, jet-skiing, rubber dinghies... hell no!

On the lighter side of things, Jaws, which has been cited as one of the greatest movies of all time is still a bloody great movie... A fantastic soundtrack (including one very enthusiastic cellist who obviously relished the opportunity to put his abilities to the ultimate test and make themselves immortal!)

So where do we begin? We have the quiet little town of Amity Island, whose police chief Martin Brody becomes involved in a series of not-so-quiet series of shark attacks... He joins forces with Robert Shaw, who plays professional shark hunter Quint, and marine biologist Matthew Hooper, played by a bearded Richard Dreyfuss to hunt down the mammoth of a great white shark that's decided that Amity Island is their idea of a summer smorgasbord... 

I won't give too much of the plot away, as I'm not one for spoilers, but given that there were three sequels made to the original film, which ultimately kinda went in a downhill direction, (and I will prove this statement in later reviews when I can get around to viewing these sequels) that it's safe to say that more shark hijinks are set to be seen as the sequels progress!

Enthusiasts of the book Moby Dick will appreciate some peculiar similarities with respect to Quint and his literary counterpart of Captain Ahab, which pepper themselves throughout the movie. There is also the notable theme of the political imbecile that doesn't want to endanger the town's economic health and so lets things continue to escalate until it's almost too late... I hate these token characters as they are so formulaic that I could solve them for x, the unknown quantity... Well, I can't call it an unknown quantity... in the case of such token political comedy relief characters, it's sheer ignorance and stupidity... this is by no means a fault of the writers, it's something that's essential to carry the storyline through to its inevitable conclusion and when you think about it, if these political characters didn't act the way they did, the story would be cut dramatically short... 

Observe, this is by no means the actual plot, so no spoilers here, folks:

Hero: There's sharks attacking people, we need to close the beaches to stop more people getting killed.

Politician: You're absolutely right, close the beaches, we need to think about the townspeople.

[Hero closes beach, everyone lives, movie ends 75 minutes prematurely ]

Like I said, these political imbecile token characters are a necessary evil, but it is these same characters that make us want to throw a shoe at the TV screen in the vain hope that it will scone the idiot on the head... What can I say? This aside, the effects are fantastic, including the final scene, which I cannot divulge (even though most people will see it coming!), the acting is fairly spot-on for the kind of movie that it is, and it is for this reason I am awarding Jaws 4½ stars...