Re: We can relax - Roger Ebert likes Captain America!

On Thu, 21 Jul 2011, Johne Cook wrote:
> ...and Thor. (I kind of like the meta linkage.)

I wouldn't call what (most of) these films do "meta".  Intertextuality is 
not the same thing as metatextuality.

And it's "worse" in Captain America than it was in the previous films, 
because Captain America is *almost* its own film, but then the last reel 
or so tugs everything into the modern era and The Avengers ... but there 
is still unfinished business from the main story, and so the very last 
line of the film refers to that main story even as it takes place in this 
proto-Avengers setting.  This is a far cry from Iron Man, which really 
*was* its own movie until Nick Fury showed up *after* the end credits, or 
The Incredible Hulk, which was pretty much its own movie (despite subtle 
verbal and visual allusions to Captain America) until Tony Stark showed up 
*during* the end credits; and it's different from Iron Man 2 and Thor, 
which basically existed for no other reason than to set up The Avengers. 
Captain America feels like it really could have been *its own* movie 
(notwithstanding the fact that a key plot device comes from Asgard), and 
the fact that Captain America gets yanked out of the main story and into 
the age of The Avengers in the final moments doesn't quite work, IMHO.

Incidentally, nothing I have said here is a spoiler, because (a) everyone 
knows that Captain America will be in The Avengers, (b) Ebert already 
mentioned Nick Fury in the review that started this thread, and (c) the 
very first scene in Captain America is actually set in the *present day*, 
when SHIELD discovers something lost under the snow...  (Note: what he 
finds there doesn't *quite* fit with the Captain-America-buried-in-snow 
glimpse that we saw in The Incredible Hulk, but oh well, it'll do.)

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/found-captain-america-in-the-incredible-hulk.php

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