I finally got around to seeing Captain America: The First Avenger the other night (by "finally" I mean that I didn't see it on opening weekend like seemingly everyone else; I waited a week). Overall I have to say that it was a lot of fun, sort of a WWII-era action movie on steroids that features a likably straight-laced hero with a big heart. It's not the best movie from Marvel Entertainment (that title still goes to the first Iron Man), but it's still a great time at the movies.
It did have me thinking about where the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" is heading and about a practice that Hollywood has that I like to call "franchise filmmaking." Some of the snobbier, more cynical film critics who have reviewed Captain America have absolutely loved to point out the fact that the movie allegedly only exists as a setup to next summer's The Avengers, which will team Captain America up with fellow Marvel superheroes Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk. For the record, that's not entirely true. Most of Captain America works just fine as a stand-alone film. There are some fun shout-outs and Easter eggs to be found (Iron Man's father plays a major role), but for the most part viewers who have never picked up a comic book or seen any other Marvel movies will still be sufficiently entertained.
Then again, the critics aren't entirely wrong about this movie being a setup to The Avengers. The movie is bookended by a prologue and epilogue that set up the Captain's role in that film. These bookends are really what got me thinking about mainstream Hollywood movies these days and how they are all too often used not as standalone films, but teasers for a bunch of sequels, spin-offs, and crossovers.
(From here on in I will talk a lot about what happens in Captain America: The First Avenger, including how it ends. If you haven't seen Captain America yet and want to, stop reading now. If you stumbled across this blog looking for a simple review, here it is: Captain America was good. Go see it.)
Once the film covers the hero's origin and turns skinny Steve Rogers into the super soldier Captain America, the main plot involves Cap leading an elite military unit as they destroy the military bases of Hydra, which begins as Adolf Hitler's deep science division during World War II but becomes its own independent entity when its leader hatches his own plot for world domination. The climax of the movie has Captain America taking control of a war plane armed with weapons of mass destruction that are intended to destroy every major city in the US, including Cap's home town in New York. He doesn't know how to land the plane safely, and he would end up killing millions of people if he were to keep it on course, so he makes the ultimate sacrifice. He crashes the plane somewhere in the Arctic and is apparently killed...sort of. Thanks to a prologue and an epilogue showing the Captain's frozen body being discovered in the Arctic and revived in 21st Century New York, we know that he will live on to fight in The Avengers next summer.
Anyone who knows about the Avengers of the Marvel Comics universe probably figures that Captain America's fate at the end of the movie is a foregone conclusion. After all, he's been the flagship member of the group since the 1960s. Still, the way it is presented on film is very typical of Hollywood's tendency to make movies not as standalone films but as lead-ins to multi-movie (and multi-million dollar) franchises. This practice has always both fascinated and infuriated me. On one hand, I like the idea of telling a story over multiple chapters, and it can be fun to watch part of a story unfold and anticipate what is going to happen next. On the other hand, Hollywood tends to go overboard with this concept. A story told in multiple chapters is all well and good, but a good movie should be able to stand on its own. I've seen way too many movies that simply do not work because the studios that are releasing them are obsessed with turning them into franchises with no less than two sequels. Plot lines are left unresolved, climaxes are unsatisfying and don't resolve the main conflict, and the most egregious examples of these movies actually end in cliffhangers. When I sit down to watch a movie, I want to see it end in a logical and satisfying way; I don't want to watch what boils down to a glorified television pilot.
I have to admit to being excited about The Avengers. I grew up reading Marvel comic books, and I think the fact that someone is making an earnest attempt to recreate the Marvel Universe on film is great. Still, I'm left wondering what would've happened had Captain America not featured the bookends showing its hero being revived in the 21st Century. We would've essentially had a big-budget summer action movie that looks to all the world like the latest in a long line of superhero movies meant to set up another franchise, but in the end it would've appeared to pull a fast one on everyone by killing off the hero. The last we would've seen of him would be him saying goodbye to his would-be girlfriend and heroically sacrificing his life to save his country. Everyone would remember him as a great hero, the legendary super soldier who fought and died for the good of the world. It would've been a neat way to end the movie, and one that casual moviegoer wouldn't expect. Cap would of course come back for The Avengers, but it would come as a nice surprise to anyone who doesn't know the character's comic book history.
Sadly, I don't think Hollywood would have the guts to do something like that. In the end they will always follow the money and set up the almighty franchise. The revelation that Captain America lives on in the 21st Century in no way invalidates or cheapens the experience of seeing him onscreen, but I think it would've had more of an impact if it came as a surprise next summer instead of a taste of what the public should be getting excited about next.
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