When Capt. America Throws His Mighty Shield...

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER-2011-Marvel' s famous WW 2 hero is finally given the big budget Hollywood treatment.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans from THE LOSERS) is a patriotic wimpy guy who tries several times to join the army but always comes up 4-F. His best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) makes it easily and goes off to war. Eventually a German doctor (Stanley Tucci) picks Rogers to be the US army's test subject in their "Super Soldier" experiment. Hugh Weaving is fine as Johan Schmidt aka The Red Skull who with his Nazi based group Hydra plans to destroy the world. He's assisted by Dr. Armin Zola (Toby Jones from HARRY POTTER AND THE DEADLY GALLOWS) looking a lot like Truman Capote.

Tommy Lee Jones is the skeptical Colonel Phillips and Hayley Atwill (the recent THE PRISONER remake) is the out of place English female officer Peggy Carter. Dominic Cooper is Howard Stark. Cap also gets help from the un-named Howlin' Commandos (Timothy McDonough as Dum Dum, Derek Luke as Gabe Jones, Kenneth Choi, JJ Feild and Bruno Ricci).

Of course it's a great action film and Evans is good in the lead role especially in his handling of the pre-super soldier Rogers. The weird twist ending features Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury. Co-executive producer Stan Lee has a cameo. Great closing credits!

Strange that this well done adaptation was made by director Joe Johnson (HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS, JUMANJI) after the overly gory THE WOLFMAN. Whoa! I can't wait for THE AVENGERS!

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Make Mine Marvel?-Part 2

FANTASTIC FOUR 2: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER-2007-The mostly miscast four (Ioan Grufford as Reed Richards, Jennifer Alba as Sue Richards, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm) returns to save the Earth from the high-flying Silver Surfer (voice of Lawrence Fishburne), herald to the planet devouring Galactus (unseen here). Director Tim Story injects a little more humor this time (and still delivers on the action scenes) but the over all story is not very good.

Andre Baugher is a cardboard army officer who decides it’s better to trust Doctor Doom than the FF. This means the film really takes a downward spiral as Julian McMahon returns to chew the scenery. Kerry Washington is back as Alicia Masters and Stan Lee has a cameo.

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Make Mine Marvel?

FANTASTIC FOUR-2005-The future super team (plus Victor Von Doom who is engaged to Sue Storm) goes into space and gets bombarded by cosmic rays. They begin to exhibit strange powers. Wow! This is kind of similar to a comic book Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created in the early ‘60’s!

Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd; Lancelot in KING ARTHUR) gets insulted a lot for being a detached egghead. Human Torch Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) is a wise-ass moron who makes you wish he'd really go up in flames. (well at least there's no Herbie the robot) Sue Storm (miscast Jennifer Alba) mostly walks around naked (but she’s invisible of course). The future Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon) likes to whisper and chew the scenery. In this version he doesn’t wear a suit of armor. He becomes one instead! Only Michael Chiklis’ Ben Grimm (aka The Ever Lovin’ Blue Eyed Thing) captures any spirit of the original comic. He needed funnier lines though. The action scenes and SFX are well done though except maybe for Mr. Fantastic’s stretching power. Director Tim Story had previously made BARBERSHOP and TAXI.

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