8!
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
'Breaking Bad'
breaks the mold
"No, the 'A' does not stand for asshole!"
Aye, aye 'Captain'
Marvel infuses heart
and soul into 'The
First Avenger'
By KAVI SHEKHAR PANDEY
Senior Arts Editor
Captain America shouldn't
work in the 21st century, neither
as a comic book character nor
as an action
movie hero.*
Alongside his
superhuman C
abilities, he's
super demure, America: Te
super whole- First Avenger
some and
idealistic to At Quality16
the point of and Rave
naivety - a
propagandis- Patamoant
tic product of
the 1940s that doesn't fit in today's
jaded, post-ironic, post-everything
world. But look around at America
nowadays - embroiled in three
unpopular wars and facing a debt
crisis machinated by politicians
more concerned with their own
futures than the country's - and
the entrance of Captain America
and his unsullied righteousness
into the public's consciousness
has never been more appropriate.
And that's just the character - in
our grim cinematic climate, where
summer blockbusters are defined
by CGI running reckless with
abandon, the old-school filmmak-
ing of "Captain America: The First
Avenger" is exactlywhatthe indus-
try needs right now.
The great, creative victory of
"Captain America," brought to you
by the quality-cognizant execu-
tives at Marvel Studios, was stick-
ing to the character's true origins
and setting the film in the midst of
World War II. It was a time when
bad was bad, good was good, and
the best of them was Steve Rogers
(Chris Evans, "Push"), a scrawny
kid from Brooklyn with the eye of
the tiger, the heart of a lion and the
physical prowess of a 12-year-old
child. For his intangibles, Rogers
is chosen as the prototype for the
government's "Super-Soldier" pro-
gram, which transforms him into,
well, a super soldier destined to lay
the smackdown on those damn,
dirty Germans.
Yes, those dastardly Nazis are
at it again (technically an uber-
evil faction of them), making this
a retro story in the best sense of
the word, filmed in an exception-
ally retro way. Director Joe John-
ston, who was the art director for
"Raiders of the Lost Ark," per-
missibly cribs from Indy's great-
est adventure with minimal use
of CGI, elaborate sets and grandly
choreographed action sequences
that graciously subvert the trend of
shooting action like a chimpanzee-
on-crack-with-a-camera would.
When Captain America thwaks
fools with his star-spangled shield,
every millisecond of the combat is
seenin all of its full-throttled glory.
Old-fashioned action has never felt
so refreshing.
Marvel movies have an uncanny
ability to fill out its cast with Hol-
lywood's finest character actors,
and for the first time, the pres-
ence feels justifiable. "Captain
America" struts out Tommy Lee
Jones ("The Fugitive") and Stan-
ley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones"),
who bring their standard gravitas
to pivotal roles, peppering the film
with quality quips. Hugo Weaving
("The Matrix") plays the Red Skull
of every neck-bearded comic book
fan's dreams, seething menace, but
creating a whole new monster than
his iconic Agent Smith.
The Red Skull's quest for global
dominance with his secret weapon
is where the film notably falters.
It's a fairly nonsensical plot device
that is never acceptably explained,
severely diminishing the stakes
throughout the movie. But the
stakes are stabilized by the ter-
rific love story between Rogers
and Peggy Carter (Hayley Altwell,
"The Pillars of the Earth") the va-
va-voom British soldier who does
her part to make the phrase "dam-
sel in distress" obsolete. Evans
brings a lot to what is essentially
a perfect depiction of Captain
America, and his earnest relation-
ship with Peggy is one of the best.
among all comic book adaptations.
As the final tile in the Marvel
movie mosaic, and though it clear-
ly sets up for next year's team-up
"The Avengers," "Captain Ameri-
ca" stands on its own. As enjoyable
as "Iron Man" and "Thor" were,
"Captain America" is the only one
of the lot with the heart and soul
characteristic of the Avengers'
leader.
When asked why he wants to
fight, Steve Rogers responds, "I
don't like bullies," reflecting the
unequivocal steadfastness of the
United States in the '40s. Now,
70 years later, global perception
is clear that we've become those
bullies. If we want to change as a
country, we're all going to have to
find a little captain inside of us.
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By DAVID TAO himhe sends Pinkman his replace-
Daily Film Editor ment's home with a handgun.
The new premier gives us most-
ou a fan of petty wish-ful- ly falling action. We see White,
? Do you like your televi- ever the "I'm-smarter-than-you"
otic and inconsequential? educator, lecturing his captors on
watch why - now that his replacement
CBS, has a hole where his brain used to
"Two be - he's as indispensable as ever.
Half We see White's family, wonder-
has Breaking Bad ing where he is and why his car is
as the Season Four parked in the driveway. And we
rough Premier see Pinkman, scarred after his
ld's of first murder, stumbling around in
omfort Sundays at10 p.m shock, eyes red, face numb.
n for AMC Still, it all bubbles along, slowly
easons but surely, due mainly to Crans-
if you ton's sheer thespian brilliance. As
r stuff a little edgier, get Pinkman also is found by White's
umor has it that "Entou- captors, we can almost see the
d "True Blood" are turn- inside of Walt's mind, as Crans-
things you might like. If ton conveys a mixture of surprise,
nds like you, what you're disbelief and pragmatic calcula-
y not looking for is "Break- tion. As the minutes tick by slowly,
," a show that, while as White's protests become louder,
as "The Sopranos" and as more frequent and more desperate,
ambiguous as "Mad Men," tempering his pretentious chemist
ages to kick like a mule. fagade with increasing quantities
h school chemistry teach- . of "please, please, please don't kill
nosed with terminal can- us." It's realistically understated,
ns cooking sweet, sweet, yet simultaneously ominous. It's
illy pure meth to support not entirely surprising when the
ly and pay for the chemo- show finally decides to tear open
he can't afford. The show's a sickening gash into a character's
Southern expression refer- throat with a box-cutter, but it has
person going bad, and true the same cinematic intensity as a
colloquialism, the fateful hammer to the nuts.
decision to cook transforms for-
mer teacher Walter White (Bryan
Cranston, "Malcolm in the Mid-
dle") into a criminal mastermind,
a walking id and a wannabe Scar-
face. He turns down his friends'
charity in favor of his jury-rigged
meth lab, lies to his wife and son,
hides in plain site from his DEA
agent brother-in-law and misses
the birth of his daughter due to his
newfound fondness for criminal
enterprise.
Over the course of three seasons,
White's life takes deeper, darker
turns, as he and his accomplice,
Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul, "Big
Love"), ride their wave of crystal
through multiple drug lord clients.
White chillingly deflects the col-
lateral damage of his actions, such
as a wife who wants a divorce and
a brother-in-law targeted by the
cartel, with cheap excuses ("I'm a
manufacturer, not a dealer!"). And
when his boss decides to replace
Four seasons,
so much meth.
There's no show without White,
so it's not really a spoiler to say that
the dead body isn't him, though he6
and Pinkman are stuck cleaningup
the mess. But these aren't the same
starry-eyed entrepreneurs we saw
years ago. They've broken bad for
good, and disposing of bodies is
becoming routine. As the show's
latest corpse dissolves in a barrel ofO
hydrofluoric acid, a throwback to
an earlier, fatal mishap, they brush
off their employer's concern about
the acid's effectiveness with some
of the most disturbing words of the
episode.
"Trust us."