Thor and Captain America

When I initially reviewed Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, I didn't consider the scores official because I wasn't able to take notes in the theater. Now that these movies have been out a for a while, I've been able to go back and give them a fresh look. Just as I expected, the scores for the movies remained the same. Thor is still a 9 and Captain America maintains a perfect score of 10. Here's just a brief recap of why they got those scores.

Thor

I still am entranced by the beautiful Asgard, and find myself wanting more. It's such an interesting and captivating world that I really hope they return to in either a second Thor movie or the Avengers.

I also loved the joyfully violent Thor, especially in the fight with the frost giants. Watching a guy swing a giant hammer around really is pretty fun.

I had to add a point for the great humor in the movie. From repeatedly running over Thor, to watching him smash coffee mugs, to Stan Lee's cameo, this was a really funny movie. But not so funny that it detracted from the action, which made it all the more enjoyable.

By the time this movie came out, Marvel knew it was making an Avengers movie, so it was able to be a bit more open with its references to it. We got to see lots of SHIELD, a brief glimpse of Hawkeye, hear about Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Everything is building up to this ultimate movie. Hopefully I and everyone else won't get our expectations up too high.

What really made Thor for me, though, was Loki. He was wonderfully deceitful. You could not trust a single word he said, which was quite entertaining. It will be very fun to see him fight the Avengers.

Just like the first two times I saw this movie, I was still annoyed by Volstagg. It wasn't so much that he wasn't fat enough, it's that we never saw him actually eat anything. We saw Thor eat more food than Volstagg did. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't obviously fake eating in one scene. In any case, it annoyed me enough to still take a point off.

I wanted to add a point for the final fight with the Destroyer, but it was a kind of short fight, and the whole "evacuation" stuff was kind of lame.

So altogether, Thor is a really fun movie, leaving me wanting more. Much, much more.


Captain America

Just as Loki was perfect for Thor, the Red Skull was the ideal villain for Captain America. Right from the start, we get a great sense of his personality, when he's told the cube is not for the eyes of ordinary men, to which Red Skull says, "Exactly." If we don't see the Red Skull again, I will be very upset.

I absolutely loved the references to Golden Age Marvel. Seeing the Synthetic Man, who'd become the original Human Torch, at Howard Stark's expo really makes me crave a movie during this time period. I'd love to see a movie with Namor the Submariner fight the Human Torch. It could be epic.

Perhaps the best thing about this movie is that it is a fun adventure with good, believable action. I was worried about Captain America throwing his shield around, but they pulled it off. In fact, I had so much fun during this movie, I really wanted to go back and live during World War II.

I also loved the Howling Commandos and Bucky. It made perfect sense to make Bucky older, and they left his death ambiguous enough to allow him to come back in Captain America 2 as the Winter Soldier. I would also like to see the Howling Commandos in the Namor movie I mentioned earlier. It would be so cool!

Just as the Red Skull had one line that defined his personality, so did Captain America with the line: "I'm nothing special, I'm just a kid from Brooklyn." They nailed his personality perfectly, and I liked how we got quite a bit of the pre-Cap Steve Rogers.

This really was one of my favorite movies. If they can capture the same spirit in the next ones, then they will be incredible as well. I also really think they need to make a movie that takes place in the '40s. We deserve it.

So, all the movies leading up the Avengers have been very good and have scored well on this blog. Iron Man (10), The Incredible Hulk (9), Iron Man 2 (9), Thor (9), and Captain America: The First Avenger (10) have an average score of 9.4. I'll admit I am worried that the Avengers will bite off more than it can chew like Spider-Man 3 did. But even if it does, we've had a lot of fun with the buildup.