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4.5
The Selfless HeroMarvel is a comic publisher that has enthusiastic fans and respect for their creations. The comic book logo beginning that flashes across the screen of every Marvel masterpiece initiates a sensation of excitement and suspense among the audience due to their reputation of stellar superhero films. Captain America: The First Avenger was directed by Joe Johnston. A man known for his interest and expertise in special effects and fantasy department, making him the ideal candidate for this superhero film. Throughout the film, Captain America: The First Avenger, Joe Johnston was the captain of incorporating symbols of color within characters and settings.Captain America: The First Avenger begins with a very mysterious and cold glacier setting with very dark lighting and unrevealed characters. The music by Alan Silvestri is very intense, suspenseful, and mystifying. The setting is quickly represented in 1942, the time of World War Two, when Captain America is introduced during the enlisting process. An enlistee announces, “Boy a lot of guys getting killed over there. Kinda makes you think twice about enlisting, huh?” Steve Rogers, later identified as Captain America, replies with a firm “Nope.” Steve Rogers is portrayed as a scrawny, driven, and desperate man who wants nothing more than to serve his country. Doctor Abraham Erskine is introduced into the movie by being intrigued by Steve Rogers’ intensified eager to join the army. Also, at this time in the movie, Stark industries is thrown into the mix when Tony Starks father, Howard Stark, speaks about a flying car and his new technology he is inventing. This uniquely foreshadows that Doctor Abraham Erskine, Steve Rogers, and Howard Stark will eventually be together again in another situation of experimentation when Steve Rogers is transformed into Captain America. When Captain America is transformed in the lab, he brings to life the American red, white and blue uniform that becomes his icon. His iconic outfit purposely stands out from the other soldiers because he has become their respected leader, their captain. As the scenes shuffle, we eventually come face-to-face with the lair of Nazi officer Johann Schmidt. His cold, dark, uninviting, yet modern room incorporates mainly dark colors with seamless highlights of fluorescent blue. The hints of fluorescent blue generate the connection to the Tesseract and how it has the power connect to the out of the world forces that exist. This is tied with Schmidt because he desperate searches for greater power and does this through rage. Joe Johnston used this technique to hint to the audience about Schmidt use of the Tesseract as an alternative power source and how the Tesseract drives Schmidt’s evil mentality. Schmidt reveals his true face for the first time when Captain America invades the Hydra site. He throws his fake human skin face into the fire below to show that the war between Captain America and him has begun and he is officially ready to fight. Schmidt’s true boiling red face explains the constant rage that is exemplified through his want for greater power. The music at the end of the film proves to be accurate to the audiences and the character’s emotions during the scene. Alan Silvestri incorporated slow, intense, and heroic music while Captain America drove the plane into the water. This exemplified the intensity of the sacrifice he made. Then, it almost immediately switched to cheers to reassure the audience that the Captain did the heroic job of ending the war and truly saving all Americans.Joe Johnston uses symbols throughout the film in a simple way. He does this by zooming in and drawing attention for the sole purpose of forcing the audience to notice and remember the symbol for a reason. The first symbol is shown to the audience during Joe Johnston’s technique of a flash-forward scene as the first scene of the movie. The audience is presented with Captain America’s red, white, and blue shield cemented underneath the ice. This initiates the audience’s thoughts that this movie revolves around American values and gives the suspenseful feeling of what could’ve occurred that lead to the hero’s symbol being inaccessible. The following symbol that the camera zooms up on is the octopus as the emblem on the front of the car that shows the obvious enemy side: Hydra. The last main symbol of importance that immediately comes to the audience’s attention is the Tesseract; the fluorescent, blue, and glowing cube that connects to extraterrestrial life. It is clearly depicted as a instance of importance because it was introduced with high interest from the villain character, Johann Schmidt, and was secretly hidden in the dark and dusty tomb.One main genre that was incorporated throughout the entire film was romance. The primary aspect of romance was between Steve Rogers and Agent Carter. Agent Carter was introduced as division supervisor and was consistently intrigued and impressed by Steve Rogers heroic qualities. Agent Carter never failed to have a glimpse of red on her at all times portraying her aspects of intimacy and female sexuality. Along with Agent Carter’s constant quality of red, she also has the typical outfit of red, white, and blue which tied her and Captain America together throughout the whole movie. Another genre that was illustrated was science fiction. The clips involving the Tesseract incorporate large amounts of science fiction because of its computer-generated qualities and capabilities. A majority of the weapons and soldiers that were under control of Johann Schmidt portray science fiction because they are futuristic and utilize the Tesseract as a power source. The genre of action is constantly displayed during battles between Captain America and the army against Hydra. This constant fight continues until it is finalized with a fight between Captain America and Johann Schmidt. The action on the American side is less advanced compared to Hydra due to the time period and lack of intelligence with futuristic materials versus Hydra has the brain of Schmidt’s extreme scientist that allowed Hydra to take their weapons quality and quantity to the next level making the fight harder to achieve for the Americans, but not impossible. The last, most important genre that was depicted in the film was the comic genre. The film’s comic qualities constantly make an appearance through the hero, villain, and storyline. The typical comic book plot shows through by having a hero that was introduced from the start and slowly found his duty to the world. Eventually, the hero developed an arch-nemesis to battle against until the end when the hero is forced to make a drastic sacrifice that gives him the ultimate hero reputation.Captain America: The First Avenger was a film created as an idealistic hero movie. Joe Johnston effectively incorporated different settings, lighting, special effects, and genres in order to give this film the spark it needed to be rated as a successful superhero movie. As a viewer in the audience, I believe Johnston worked hard to integrate scenes that truly depicted Steve Roger’s mental dedication to saving lives. In my opinion, the most crucial scene, was when the commanding officer of Roger’s division threw a grenade at the men to test their response and while every man ran away for their safety, Rogers ran and jumped on top of the grenade to sacrifice himself. This scene sparked my interest because I feel like it became a turning point for the audience to notice that Rogers was the clear candidate to be Captain America: America’s fighting hero. This scene goes to show that there are many undiscovered individuals out there that are willing to put forth the effort that is required in order to contribute to the greater good of society.
