“Coyote Frontier” by Allen Steele – Review – Science Fiction

The circle is both broken and unbroken.

Aug 28, 2011 – “Coyote Frontier” has finally taught me what the first two books tried to impart. I should not listen to my expectations. The next book will not be about what you think it will be. For those of you who remember the ending of “Coyote Rising,” Carlos sent his sister, her lover and the Savant Castro into temporary exile in an attempt to both punish and save them, much like what he did to himself in the original “Coyote.” This left what seemed to me to be the perfect set up for an adventurous, character and conflict filled third book focusing on the trio’s exploration of a wild new world. Instead, “Coyote Frontier” takes place many years later. Twenty, I believe. Whatever possibilities lay in that untold story are buried.

So my big question going into this review is if it is Frontier’s fault that I am disappointed with it. – Let me be clear: Frontier isn’t a bad book. It’s a good book; it just isn’t a great book, like I consider the last two. – But back to my question; is my disappointment the book’s fault, or mine?

In the end, my conclusion is that it is primarily the book’s fault. “Coyote Rising” managed to overcome my dashed expectations for the sequel to “Coyote” by providing interesting characters and exciting action. “Coyote Frontier” stumbles in a number of respects, and while it was never enough for me to put down the book, it is disappointing when you consider what came before.

The plot of “Coyote Frontier” is split into two major threads. The first is the inevitable re-opening of communications and transport with Earth, and the conflicts that arise there, and the second, which is the study of the “Chireep” the native sentient population which is carried out by several key characters, such as Susan Montero, Hawk Thompson, Savant Castro and Johnathon Parson.

Both previous books had tense, or poignant endings that were built up from the rising action of the plot. Frontier has a sort of double ending, where the first ending is a lame resolution to the plot elements, and the second ending is interesting, but has little connection to the plot at all.

Despite this, there are many scenes in the book that are just fantastic. The first European Alliance ship to arrive on Coyote brings interesting characters that show not every person from Earth is bent on dominating the new world. Captain Anastasia Tereshkova and her crew become fascinated with Coyote, and her trip to the Barren Isle with Carlos is a great nod to the original explorations of the new world that I loved so much from the first book.

Another nod to the first book was the story of one of the men who was supposed to be an original colonist, one of the D.I.s from the first book, his surprising tale of survival and sacrifice, and his eventual creation of the wormhole technology that bridges Earth and Coyote. His meetings with his old friends and colleagues were all well done, and a chance for the readers to look back on the first book and feel nostalgic for the good-ol-days.

Pretty much all of the scenes involving the Chireep were intriguing, and the only times I got any sense of the newness and foreign nature of Coyote. That alien nature is something I always felt Steele wasn’t very good at eliciting. Of course they were also some of the most frustrating moments of the book because of Lars Thompson who makes a good villain, if extremely stereotypical. The obvious message is the importance of environmentalism, so who do you make the villain for such a message? Why a misogynist, drunken logger, of course.

Lars’ demise, however, was one of my favorite parts of the book. Not for the gruesome revenge of it, but for the complexity of emotions it lends to his son Hawk.

On the other side of the coin we see Carlos and Wendy go once more to Earth, to visit the place of their birth and fight for the political rights of their new world. The international moon base was fascinating, and very sci-fi feeling in the face of all the rugged frontier survival back on Coyote. This was a refreshing segment, and it’s a little ironic that some of the greatest sensations of exploration in the book come from re-visiting Earth and its political mires, which this far in the future is both familiar and creepily foreign, not to mention depressing.

Both of these threads come to a head in an inevitable showdown over the future of Coyote not just as a sovereign nation, but also its natural life and its status as the greatest hope for mankind. Environmental warnings are everywhere, as are warnings of the terrifying potential of humanity to forget the lessons of the past, especially when dealing with the natural world and native peoples. What makes this more interesting than the stereotype is that Steele muddies the waters into gray by showing how desperately humanity needs this new world to survive. The needs of humanity, and the needs of Coyote are in conflict.

Of course this is part of the reason why I felt like the first ending was so bland. It wraps up the conflict, puts a bow on it and considers it taken care of. It’s the plot equivalent of saying and not showing. We hear that they will take the native world and it inhabitants more into consideration. Great… now how so? We never find out. Carlos assures us with his words that the circle of humanity’s foolishness is broken. But what use is a simple assurance when so much is at stake?

But these are all plot considerations. The characters are still interesting, even if some of the new ones begin to show signs of a cardboard edging. I won’t say they aren’t believable, it’s just that we never get any real indication of any inner mental processes or turmoil in characters like Susan, who are birthed from the plot fully formed (in her case as the dedicated, unyielding environmentalist from the university) and never change.

The writing is solid and descriptive. The pacing is much better than “Coyote Rising,” and the competing plot threads are well placed to come to a head. Steele is in better format form than his last book, even if the content isn’t as enthralling.

Closing Comments:

I think I would have been more positive on the book had the ending felt less rushed. Most of my other quibbles are just that: minor quibbles. There is still a lot to like in this book. A number of scenes were very well put together that I did not mention, and it’s hard to convey the satisfaction of re-visiting Earth, or the scenes involving Castro, Parsons and visiting the Chireep. Despite all this, the most intriguing moment of the book comes at the very end, and you know what? After the last two books I’ve learned my lesson. “Coyote Frontier” is an interesting and well constructed book that ultimately left me unsatisfied.

STAR RATING: (3 Stars)

For those of you who stuck around after the rating, I’ve got a extra segment for you called Spoiler Talk. It’s a segment in which I discuss what I thought of certain elements of the story or themes that are too spoilerish or high-concept for the main review. What I say here doesn’t ever trump my review, instead it might give insight into what exactly made me give something the score I did. So let’s get started.

Spoiler Talk:

Of course the ending I’m talking about are the returning lost crew of the Galileo (I think that’s what it was called) and the introduction of the new expanded universe, i.e. alien civilizations. I felt like I was finally being tossed a bone I was teased with all the way back in “Coyote” when Gilis first saw what could be construed as alien life. But as I said, who’s to say the next book will follow up on that.

The Chireep storyline frustrated me so much because I kept banging my head against the desk as I watched everyone under the sun question their intelligence when the evidence is staring them right in the face. This is worst in the case of Carlos, who discovered them and their intelligence in the first place.

Carlos’ character disappointed me the most, not from a writing standpoint (deconstructing a character this way actually is pretty skillfull) but because of the way he forgot the lessons and wildness of his youth until it was almost too late.

The cave paintings scene was neat, and I loved everything about Savant Castro and Parsons finding friends in each other, as well as colleagues in the study of the Chireep.

Hawk’s murder of his own father was a dark turn I saw coming, but was still sorta surprised by. How this will play out in his future will be interesting to see (well, hopefully).

The way Barry’s true sexuality was treated was either tasteful or unnecessary and I can’t decide which. Maybe both? He was more or less a cameo in the whole thing.

Eh, I could go on about every little scene that I either liked or was disappointed by, but It means I’ll just keep dancing away from the first ending, that is when Parsons, Castro, Susan and Hawk took the Starbridge hostage.

I could tell when they first set about doing it they weren’t really sincere in blowing up the bridge, and even when the Magellan showed up I never really felt tense about the situation. We were at the very end of the book, at the end of the planned trilogy for that matter, and leaving actually important cliffhangers like an impending war with Earth would have been, while shocking, a bit disingenuous. Things were going to work out somehow. So I never felt tense.

Oh, and as I said before, the hostage-taker’s environmental cause is given lip-service for being answered, but we’re never shown that anything of substance ever happens to protect Coyote’s natural habitats or the Chireep. We’re just left with that hope.

And so I felt left hanging. After a bunch of interesting ideas floating around, and a great set up for some sort of conflict, the last book in the first trilogy ended on a whimper, with a second ending that’s full of promises, and so far I’ve been taught that these sorts of endings are just that. Promises.

“Coyote Rising” by Allen Steele – Review – Science Fiction

The continuation of Steele’s analogue of the American tale.

Aug 14, 2011 – Coyote Rising is (mostly) the story of revolution, fighting against overwhelming odds to clasp hold of freedom. Just as Coyote was basically a sci-fi retelling of the pilgrims landing in the Americas, Rising is a retelling of the American revolution, at least in spirit. There are a number of distinct differences between Coyote and it’s sequel, and the end result is not better, nor much worse, just different.

I’ll assume that you’ve read the first book, though at times knowledge of the first book seems unimportant. I say this because that the first three sub-stories of the book’s narrative have little to do with events of the first book at all. Sure the setting is the same, but our exposure to the original cast of characters is practically nonexistent. What we have instead is an assortment of three story arcs focused on characters that are largely peripheral to the main plot. First a story about a musician newly come to Coyote, second a story of a religious cult, and third the story of a bridge builder.

Each story is interesting in it’s own right, to be sure, and each is very character driven. The story about the musical composer details the struggles and relationships of those who arrive on Coyote under the banner of social collectivism. The bridge builder is probably my favorite, showing a reclusive eccentric getting in touch with his sense of community and humanity, somewhat ironically in his defiance of the “communal” government.

The religious cult story, while interesting, was truly bizarre. Much of the rest of the Coyote story is grounded and realistic, but this tale of a grotesquely modified man, mad science, religious insanity and ill-fated treks through the wilderness bolts directly in the other direction. In that respect it sticks with you. You can’t help it as it is so disparate from the rest of the book, and the characters are intricate, yet I don’t feel it ever made the case to me as to why the story needed to be here. The characters make appearances elsewhere in the book, but they never felt necessary.

I understand why Steele did this. He wanted to give us a picture, to some degree of the new arrivals on Coyote, to connect us to them and show that they aren’t a bunch of communist sheep come to claim the land. In that he succeeds, but the entire time I read these stories I was itching to get back to the meat of the book, to get to what I came back to the series for, the original characters. Where he excels in character and setting development, he somewhat fails in connecting the plot.

When we finally get back to the original characters it was very refreshing. I became once again fascinated by the sense that I was watching the history of this alien world unfold through the eyes of people I’d come to care about. But while this was great and all, it wasn’t everything I could have hoped for. While he got back to the plot, he didn’t keep his character focused writing. The trade-off isn’t extreme. We still get some very nice character sequences, such as the reunion of Chris and Carlos, and the return of Wendy’s journal, but the focus becomes mostly plot centric. It’s an odd dichotomy, where the first half of the book is so strong with character but mild on plot, while the second half is strong on plot but medium on character.

There are a few personal disappointments I had with the book that stem with my expectations or hopes leading out of the first. Primarily I was sad to see a downplaying of the fantasy epic Gillis wrote. I understand it can’t be earth (or Coyote) changing after only a decade or two, but I still want to see how it impact the local culture, which hasn’t really happened yet. I suppose this yearning mostly stems from how much I loved the way culture can mold itself in new ways in works like the Change series by S.M. Stirling. I recognize this is a bit unfair to Steele, but there you have it.

My second qualm is how little exploration I felt the book had. While the terrain does seem more diverse now, I still never got much of a sense of “the new world” so to speak, and that was one of my favorite elements of the first book. Despite setting up shop on a whole new continent, we got very little exposure to new and exciting flora and fauna.

One last notable difference between this book and the last is that I don’t recall Steele switching in and out of Present and Past tenses anymore. This may be a symptom of having all the characters in the same general time frame, as which wasn’t always the case last time. Whichever way, it made the reading experience smother, if a bit less artistic.

For all these differences I want to stress that they are mostly differences, and not flaws. The book is more uneven than the last one, and it doesn’t have nearly as gripping a beginning, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t several stand-out moments that kept me glued to the page. The ending is also great with a climax that doesn’t end quite the way you’d expect, but mostly the way you would hope, while leaving threads wide open to new story possibilities that should come to fruition in the third book.

Closing Comments:
The parallels to the American revolution are much lighter than those between American history and the first book. The plotting is uneven, some characters you wish you could see again are removed too soon, and some story sequences, while unforgettable, are also largely out of place. Despite all of that, I came out of the book at the other end largely satisfied with my time back in Coyote. It didn’t follow through on all the promise of the first book, but what it did deliver was ultimately a convincing portrait of a world in need of revolution, and an exciting struggle from the people who make it happen.

STAR RATING: (3 & 1/2 Stars)

Three and One-Half Stars

For those of you who stuck around after the rating, I’ve got a extra segment for you called Spoiler Talk. It’s a segment in which I discuss what I thought of certain elements of the story or themes that are too spoilerish or high-concept for the main review. What I say here doesn’t ever trump my review, instead it might give insight into what exactly made me give something the score I did. So let’s get started.

Spoiler Talk:

The religious cult story was baffling. I didn’t know whether to laugh at it, feel admiration or feel disgust. Well, I settled on disgust near the end. Cannibalism in the wilderness and the treason of trust will do that to you. Rev. Zoltan Shirow was ultimately a monster, though at times I felt pity for him. The story evoked a storm of emotions across the spectrum, and I suspect it was meant to do so. Greer and Ben’s tragic part in the whole sordid tale was kind of heartbreaking. To see her and Zoltan show up again near the end of the book seemed out of place, needless, and dragging out a point that did not need extrapolating on. I would have preferred to leave their fates after the disastrous trip through the wilderness a mystery, and left Zoltan to become a legend.

Savant Castro’s demise was pretty chilling and fascinating, as was his surprising return. I hope there is some exploration of his place in (or out) of society in the future. It certainly seems there is no getting rid of him at any rate.

The demise of the Alabama was sad. Clever writing, but sad. I mostly wish they could have salvaged Gillis’ painting before it’s untimely demise, but ultimately freedom is more important than a work of art. And ouch, ouch it hurt to say that.

Robert Lee’s death wasn’t surprising, but it was well done, and a great symbol of what was lost in the rebellion, as well as what such a high price gained. In many ways, the twin loss of the Alabama and Lee was a way of shaking lose the last true bindings to the old world and their old lives. This is no longer just a colony, this is a civilization, an independent nation, sovereign.

The most disappointing death was that of Tom Shapiro. He essentially gets a cameo as a corpse. Not being able to get much time with him is bad enough, but then they go and kill him off screen. A tragic end to one of the early stalwarts of the new world.

The volcano blowing was neat. No getting around that. I didn’t see it coming. Well, I guess I did once they said there was a volcano. You don’t lay a Chekhov’s gun, cannon rather, that prominently without shooting it. But they placed that information out there late, which made it very much a last minute surprise.

“Coyote” by Allen Steele – Review – Science Fiction

If the Pilgrim’s journey to America began with a grand heist, and their ship was a space craft…

July 23, 2011 – The men and women of science fiction novels have launched themselves into the stars for many reasons. They are escaping a doomed planet facing some sort of apocalypse. They are sent off by their government to explore. They’re heading off to destroy the alien enemy. It’s time to colonize. Etc. The spacefarers who are the stars of “Coyote” are most similar to that last one, sent off to colonize the remote moon from which the novel gets its name. But there’s a catch.

This isn’t a story of a bunch of simple colonists, rather they are fugitives, intellectuals and dissidents oppressed by their government, escaping a certain and horrible future in internment camps, lead by a conspiracy of government officials to steal a billion dollar space craft on its way to colonize a small moon many light years away. The novel grabs you at the very beginning and drags you along through an intense heist and finally, despite several close calls, into space. What follows is a story of a colony landing on an alien world, learning to cope and survive in a hostile environment, while working out internal strife and conflict.

Steele’s writing style is straightforward and descriptive, never veering too far into techno-babble that plagues some works of the genre, but providing just enough insight into the science behind the story, and with just enough nod to the realism of the scenario to satiate those readers who are more interested by the numbers and the theories than the characters.

Yet it is the characters who receive the most attention in “Coyote.” Complex motivations, political idealism and basic human drama serve to flesh out the characters and connect them to the reader. The politics that pushed these escapees into space serve as a backdrop, and inform us of where these people are coming from, but it’s the simple matters of survival, love, hate, curiosity and the explorer’s spirit that really make the characters shine.

Where some books exploit character deaths to try and tug on heart strings, “Coyote” uses them as a matter of fact. These people have taken risks. Risks which sometimes cause death. None of the characters ever seem safe, and characters that have been followed and built since the beginning can still die. The book isn’t a slaughter house by any means, but the dangers of space colonization aren’t glossed over either.

The book has, in my mind, three primary standout elements (I’ll spare the details.) The beginning is a wonderful an intense heist, fraught with danger and excitement. On the journey to Coyote, an accident occurs, and the reader is treated to witnessing a man’s life in isolation in what is easily my favorite sequence of the book, and then near the end of the book, a lone man’s journey through a foreign landscape while discovering himself. The rest of the book is great, but these three elements are what make the book a joy to read.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some issues. Steele shifts in and out of Present tense to emphasize the difference in when a scene takes place, which is nice and artistic, but some people will not be able to get over having to read Present tense. I admit that it took me some time to get used to.

The biggest issue to me was how familiar the world seemed. For a book about exploring an alien moon, much of the alien life is very familiar. Of course there are obvious reasons, both scientifically and from an author’s perspective why this would be, but at times I wondered how the book might be even better if I truly felt out of place on this world. There are glimpses of exotic life on Coyote, but in a way I felt like they had landed on another Earth. This somewhat shortchanges the exploration elements as you never really feel like you’ve stumbled upon something truly out of this world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World” felt more exotic.

On top of this, the colonists truly have smashing luck. I mean, aside from the predators, they couldn’t have landed in a better place. It’s not an easy life but it is also pretty darn manageable. I can see why the author would write it that way, as he wants to deal with more than just survival concerns, but in the back of my mind it sometimes felt like the universe was being rather gracious to these people.

Closing Comments:
My concerns aside, this book did a great job of investing me in the characters and their successes and failures in this new world. The thematic elements calling back to the Pilgrims’ journey to America feels novel and inspired, bringing out a surprising nostalgia for the beginnings of our own nation and the burning desire of mankind for freedom. But what really makes this book stand out is it’s humble focus on the daily struggles of individual people, and how that the journey across space and time is just a backdrop to the real journey, the exploration of our own souls.

STAR RATING: (4 Stars)

Four out of Five Stars

For those of you who stuck around after the rating, I’ve got a extra segment for you called Spoiler Talk. It’s a segment in which I discuss what I thought of certain elements of the story or themes that are too spoilerish or high-concept for the main review. What I say here doesn’t ever trump my review, instead it might give insight into what exactly made me give something the score I did. So let’s get started.

Spoiler Talk:
I can’t wait to go get the sequel and read it. The arrival of new people from Earth, so strange in their advancement, are more alien than the world they’ve landed on, while being simultaneously terribly familiar. I’m very hopeful for what comes of these events, but I hope Steele doesn’t paint them in a black and white paintbrush. I want them to be as complicated as the colonists.

The boids are interesting, I suppose, but they just don’t do it for me as creepy creatures. They’re dangerous to be sure. The case is made there as good as it can be, but they just don’t give me that vibe that I get from predators here on earth.

A lot of my reaction to the blandness of the alien life might come from how much of the world is presented as flat plains and marshes. I know there are trees, but I never really felt like we saw any forests to speak of, or other plant features that would make it interesting. While we only saw one selection of wildlife, it felt as if it was all boids and grass as far as the eye could see.

This contributed, I’m sure, to the catwhales and sandthieves portions of the exploration by Carlos and the others being such favorite bits of mine. That and I’m a sucker for massive sea creatures and sentient life.

I’m hoping that now we’ve established some ground rules for the planet and the colonists that we might see some more exotic elements of living on a new world. They are traveling elsewhere, after all. It would be a shame to drop the exploration elements, which were some of my favorites in this book.

Oh, and the sequence where Leslie Gillis is woken up and lives out thirty-plus years of his life writing that book and drawing murals was fantastic. There’s simply no other way to put it. I felt like I was watching history as Gillis unwittingly created his masterwork which I’m sure will shape the future generations of the colonists from then on. It felt like watching the man who first chipped Gilgamesh into a stone tablet, or Moses scribbling down his account of the ten plagues. He’s formed what will become a backbone of their future’s culture, and I find that fascinating. If this isn’t followed up on in the sequel, I’ll be very, very disappointed.

“Captain America: The First Avenger” Review

The heroism and heart of a romanticized era outshines the super hero wrapping.

August 1, 2011 –
Captain America has been compared to Indiana Jones in an number of reviews I’ve seen, and I can see where they would get that impression. Some of the basics of Indiana Jones are also present here. The setting of World War II, the adventurous tone, the romance between a strong and strong willed woman and the main protagonist. At the very beginning there is even a nod to the archeological elements when the Red Skull makes a visit to Norway. But in many respects Captain America is a different film that, while never quite reaching the heights of an Indiana Jones film, is worthwhile all the same.

Oh the things you can find in Nowegian gift shops

Captain America, is the story of a scrawny, weak little man named Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, who, despite his unwavering dedication to the cause his nation is fighting for, is constantly rejected for enlistment due to his physical state. Dr. Abraham Erskine, played by Stanley Tucci making the most of his short appearance, is a scientist working for the American Government who takes note of Roger’s spirit and heart and enlists him in an experiment that sees Rogers turn into a muscle-bound warrior with unparalleled ability of strength and reflexes; a super soldier.

It's a big change.

But in their moment of triumph an agent of Hydra, a secret research group of Nazis, blows up part of the facility, killing Dr. Erskine, and destroying the dream of an army of American super soldiers with him. Rogers, now an oddity, is used for the propaganda machine as “Captain America” a symbol of the war effort for the USO.

When the regiment of Rogers’ best friend Bucky go missing in action, Rogers ditches the USO to go save the men, beginning his turn from propaganda figure to war hero. The rest of the film follows his continuing fight against Hydra and the Red Skull who have grand ambitions that outstrip those of their unaware Nazi masters.

The writing here is very straightforward, but clever. The plot makes a lot of basic sense, for the most part, and the audience can follow along readily. This could be seen as a negative, as the film is, in many respects, very predictable. There’s not really a single twist that comes as a genuine surprise. It’s a thoroughly trodden path, but it’s told so well I never really cared.

Framing the WWII story with snippets from present day works out very well, both foreshadowing the ending, and setting everything up for the Avengers. Some people call this film just a massive advertisement for the Avengers, but I disagree. Aside from the trailer after the credits and the presence of Howard Stark, I felt that this story was mostly self contained with a smooth progression from start to finish.

I thought the Super Soldier experiment was very well put together.

Steve Rogers’ character stays mostly the same throughout, and while this might seem to indicate a monotone 2D portrayal it never felt like this to me. Partially because of the excellent acting of Chris Evans who really pulls out his best performance in anything I’ve seen from him, making it obvious that there are more complicated emotions and struggles behind his outward determination and loyalty, even though he never wavers from those values.

Marvel has been a little hit and miss with their romantic relationships in their films. Incredible Hulk saw no real chemistry all between Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner and Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross, and as much as I loved Thor, that film’s relationship felt more like an infatuation waiting to blossom into a real romance. On the other hand, Iron Man’s relationship between Pepper Pots and Tony Stark feels genuine, if never serious.

In this film, Marvel has hit the mark, providing the first true romance in their collection between Rogers and Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter. The relationship between the two has time to grow and bloom, and you see her like his spirit before he gains the body of a greek god. It’s the subtle growth of the relationship that makes it believable, as opposed to the sudden, if sweet, one in Thor.

It should practically not need stating that Hugo Weaving does a suitably dastardly performance as the Red Skull. Tommy Lee Jones does a fantastic job as Colonel Chester Phillips and delivers all the best lines of the film. It may be his best role in any movie, he’s so good. Pretty much every bit-part in the film is played very well, from Toby Jones’ Dr. Arnim Zola to Neil McDonough’s Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan (Even though Dum Dum and the other Howling Commandos are never mentioned by name.)

And to be perfectly clear, the Howling Comandos are awesome.

Possibly my favorite element of the movie is its setting. The World War II backdrop informs the rest of the entire movie, from aesthetics, to mannerisms to the plot to way history and fiction interweave just a tiny bit (the nod to Hitler’s obsession with finding relics in the middle east- and Indiana Jones too – was an especially fun nugget tossed in there.) Roger’s story is a romanticized and fictionalized allegory for the Greatest Generation, and in a time when WWII seems like ancient history to kids born past the turn of the century, Captain America makes it relevant again – which by no means is me saying it isn’t, but rather people don’t recognize it as such.

The details of the time period are especially fun. The way the rampant American propaganda of the time is handled, and the inherent element of propaganda that is the main character, is brilliant. The USO scenes, involving a song and dance number, the goofy first costume, and the contrast between the reception at home versus amongst the troops, is all very well done. Sometimes real patriotism is ignoring the flag-waving and just getting a task done right, which is an important thing to remember in our paranoid first decade of the new millennium.

I like how realistic the visuals are when compared to the bright colors of something like Spiderman

The action of the film is pretty much all you could ask it to be. Gunfights were exciting, explosions were expode-y and motorcycles leaped off improbably angled bunkers. However implausible the physics, Captain America looked like a skilled warrior while fighting, ably moving around a battlefield taking out armed opponents in a tactical and effective manner. The ping and clang of the shield is possibly one of the most satisfying sounds I’ve ever heard. Captain America’s fights with the Red Skull were particularly satisfying. Seeing two people of equal power duking it out with high stakes were some of the best fights in the movie.

There is also a motorcycle chase that is VERY reminicent of the speeder chase in Return of the Jedi.

In terms of special effects, the Benjamin Button-esque transformation of Chris Evans from a weakling Steve Rogers into the dashing Captain America should earn a bunch of tech guys a pay raise. You understood the moment you saw him why the army would reject Rogers, and you can believe the butt kicking Captain America dishes out later in the film when you see what the experiment turned Rogers into.

The Red Skull’s face was another stand out effect in the film.

A face only a mother could love

I honestly couldn’t tell how much of the Red Skull’s face was CG and how much was practical. Either way, they did a great job on making him true to the comic book, while still managing to be menacing, rather than comical. On the other hand, the green screen moments were fairly obvious. Not Star-War-prequels obvious, but noticeable all the same.

Closing Comments:

Captain America’s only real flaw is its predictability and simplicity, and if you come at this film with the right mindset, those might very well be virtues. Captain America is just about all it could be. Clever writing, excellent acting, explosions, science fiction, fisticuffs, tragic romance, a memorable villain and a fresh take on the World War II backdrop make this film one of, if not the best Marvel movie to date. It may not be the most exciting action movie, most romantic romance movie, or most historically accurate (haha) war movie, but it combines it all so well under the superhero banner that it doesn’t really matter. This isn’t just a movie to see, it’s a movie to keep. Marvel has done it again.

STAR RATING: (4 & ½ Stars)

Four and one-half Stars

Spoiler Talk:

For those of you who stuck around after the rating, I’ve got a extra segment for you called Spoiler Talk. It’s a segment in which I discuss what I thought of certain elements of the story or themes that are too spoilerish or high-concept for the main review. What I say here doesn’t ever trump my review, instead it might give insight into what exactly made me give something the score I did. So let’s get started.

The demise (or not) of the Red Skull is a little bit of a cop-out. Captain America doesn’t defeat him. Instead he is sort of melted by the Cosmic Cube. What almost certainly really happened was that he was teleported somewhere, like we’ve seen in Thor. After all the beginning of the film ties the Cosmic Cube to Odin’s store house, so it makes a lot of sense, especially when you see all the images of the cosmos that appear when the cube’s power is activated raw. So we know that the Red Skull is still out there, and no great surprise, really.

Hydra was a good choice for an underling service for the Red Skull, making them sort of super-Nazis, and those always make for good villains and cannon fodder. On the other hand, I’d like to see them expand from here and become the more distinct group we know from present day comics.

One element that makes my heart get all warm and glowing is how egalitarian and truly peaceful the message is. It isn’t a glorification of war, but rather the reasons we fight against evil. It’s an easy well to mine, as World War II is truly the most justified war we’ve ever fought. The most black and white. And yet to a degree Captain America subtly undercuts that black and white image of the time period. As Dr. Erskine says, “people forget that the first nation the Nazi’s invaded was their own.” There is definite good and evil, but it’s not the races, genders or nations. It’s about the powers and principalities (wink-wink to all the Christians out there) that drive them.

Complete with a selfless sacrifice.

As I said before, the romance between Peggy Carter and Captain America was great. The tragic ending where Rogers knows he’s not going to see Peggy again, and they both talk about a date they’re planning to have until the end… got a little glisteny in the eye. Oh, and she is a bad-ass, punching that soldier out and then pegging the driver of the saboteur’s car from down the street. Girl-freaking-power!