This Weekend At The Movies

Hollywood has nearly exhausted the comic book adaptation, so it should come as no surprise that Captain America would eventually be given his cinematic due.

Slightly more surprising is that his big screen debut, “The First Avenger,” is not half bad. The picture, directed by Joe Johnston, is stronger on character development than your average superhero movie.

The inevitable first chapter of most comic book franchises is the origin story, during which the hero is introduced, his personality (or, quite often, the lack thereof) is laid out, the villain materializes and mayhem ensues.

In this case, Steve Rogers (Captain America’s alter ego, played by Chris Evans) is not a dark tortured soul like Batman or a hero grappling with his responsibilities a la Spiderman, but rather a noble, skinny and awkward all-American boy who is eager to be sent to World War II to fight the Nazis.

His attempts to enlist in the military are thwarted by his size and asthma. But scientist Abraham Erskine (a scene stealing Stanley Tucci), who is working on a top secret project to make an American super soldier, believes Steve to be true of heart and gets him his ticket to Europe.

Once there, he falls under the command of a surly general (Tommy Lee Jones) and into the arms of a British intelligence agent (Hayley Atwell).

But Steve’s transformation from scrawny Brooklyn kid to buff caped crusader is only one of two military science projects underway. German scientist and sadist Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is using Erskine’s methods to turn himself into a killing machine for Hitler known as the Red Skull.

The film’s first half does a nice job of setting the scene with some great period detail, especially during a sequence set at the World’s Fair in Queens, and the picture’s characters feel well-rounded as opposed to the bland figures that often populate these types of movies.

The film’s second half proves to be slightly less enthralling as it moves from character drama to special effects extravaganza. “Captain America” may not be the best of this year’s summer roster, but it’s a step in the right direction for comic book films. It allows us to follow the adventures of actual characters, rather than archetypes.

Two new independent films released this past weekend proved that time-honored stories can still be told with originality.

David Robert Mitchell’s “The Myth of the American Sleepover” borrows the setups of “American Graffiti” and “Dazed and Confused,” but places its stories in what appears to be the present.

The film is set on the last night of summer in small town Michigan, where teenage boys and girls hang out with their pals prior to the beginning of the new school year. Drugs and alcohol occasionally make an appearance, but this is not a youth gone wild film.

“Myth” is an elegiac picture filled with scenes that ring true to the high school experience. We get to know the film’s characters through their interactions throughout the course of the night.

Not every scene completely works. A subplot involving a college student who has returned home and is pursuing a pair of beautiful twins finds only moderate success and some of the picture’s dialogue borders on being too wistful.

But Mitchell’s film, much like 2009’s vastly underrated “Adventureland,” does a better job of capturing the essence of youth than most other films of its type.

Also released last weekend was Mike Cahill’s odd and often strangely moving “Another Earth,” which combines elements of science fiction with low budget indie miserablism.

In the film, a teenager (Brit Marling) with college in her future takes her eye off the road while driving one night and crashes into another vehicle, killing a woman and child.

After serving four years in prison, she is released and takes up a job as a maintenance woman at a local high school. Consumed by guilt, she decides to apologize to the man (William Mapother) whom she left widowed during the crash.

But her courage fails her and she visits his home under the guise of working for a cleaning service. The two soon develop a friendship and then something more.

The film’s story plays out amid a sci-fi backdrop. A planet resembling our own appears one day in the sky and contact is made with its denizens. As it turns out, the planet is a replica of Earth and its inhabitants are essentially, well, duplicates of us.

The film is thankfully short on scientific explanations, although the film’s greatest hurdle is juggling the dramatics of its tragic story with its otherworldly elements.

Cahill's movie includes some hypnotically beautiful sequences. I’d imagine that anyone who sees it would not soon forget a scene in which Mapother’s musician plays a haunting, melancholy dirge on a saw.

"Another Earth" is a strange little film about second chances. Even if its blending of sci-fi and human drama do not always result in a perfect union, the picture’s performances and eerie photography make for a unique viewing experience.