My name is Scott Smith and, like the rest of you, I am an avid Comic fan. I am also a member of the United States Navy. I listen to every comic podcast I can get my hands on, especially The ComicVine Podcast, and I read a lot of articles about comics, but no one has been able to relate comics to the military mind. So that is what I endeavor to do with this blog.
So let’s get right to it shall we. I thought it best to start with the ultimate soldier, Captain America: The First Avenger. I went to see this movie a couple of weeks ago and was a little skeptical, especially where Chris Evans was concerned. I personally can’t stand it when one actor plays multiple superheroes because they tend to play the characters exactly the same. Chris Evans has changed my perception. There was not a trace of the Human Torch anywhere in his performance and he embodied the role of Steve Rogers perfectly.
The rest of the cast held up just as well. I love Stanley Tucci in everything and his role as Dr. Erskine was amazing. I thought the casting of Sebastian Stan as Bucky was awesome. You could tell that he has a dark side to him so I hope at some point he comes back to portray The Winter Soldier. I am also looking forward to seeing the character development of Dum Dum Dugan.
Tommy Lee Jones plays the perfect Army Colonel. Granted he has had some experience, but watching this movie I saw, in his portrayal of Colonel Philips, every Marine Colonel and Navy Captain I have ever worked for.
The portrayal of The Red Skull was amazing. He wasn’t just evil for the sake of being evil. He had the keen military mind combined with the ton of crazy that The Red Skull is famous for. Also, the makeup job was spot on.
This movie relates to the military the most through the Howling Commandos. Most military movies focus on the training aspect that servicemen go through or focus on the strict adherence to order and discipline that you see in the military. What most civilians don’t ever see is how a military unit learns how to work together. We also got to see a pretty accurate portrayal of not just how we fight but also how we decompress after a fight. The scenes in the bar, where they’re just sitting around having a few drinks and talking about what happened, is not just good writing but its real. When I was in Iraq at the end of the day my friends and I would sit around and play poker and talk about what was going on. Sometimes the days were quiet other times we were getting hit with mortars, but at the end of the day we would sit around playing cards and decompressing. So this was good to see. And I’m really glad they didn’t just through in a bar fight.
So to sum it all up, Captain America: The First Avenger was executed perfectly. The comic book continuity was there and as a military movie it was very accurate. I think this movie has definitely raised the bar for Superhero movies.
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