Movies
Chris Evans, left, and Hayley Atwell, cast members in “Captain America: The First Avenger,” pose together at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles on July 19.
Chris Evans is savoring the moment By DERRIK LANG Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — At the back of a lavish Hollywood party where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are serving as the guests of honor, past the likes of Tom Hanks and Nicole Kidman, stands a tuxedoed and remarkably comfortable Chris Evans casually leaning against the bar, hair slicked back, champagne flute in hand. Though he’s been acting in films since he graduated from high school, Evans is among the youngest A-list attendees at the posh British Academy of Film and Television Arts soiree, one of the stops on the royal couple’s recent trip to the U.S. Yet wait, it seems Evans’ coolness might be as much of a facade as his costume in “Captain America: The First Avenger.” “I just thought, ‘There’s no chance these people will have any idea who I am,”’ the 30year-old actor remarked a week later during an interview to promote the live-action, 3-D rendition of the Marvel comic series. It’s hard to imagine that anyone, including
British royalty, isn’t aware of Evans, who’s already played a Marvel superhero on the big screen: the wisecracking Human Torch in both “Fantastic Four” films. The announcement that Evans would personify Captain America was met with both suspicion and excitement from fans. It’s a feeling Evans understood. The actor, perhaps better known for his hunky roles in mainstream ensembles like “Cellular” and “Not Another Teen Movie” than his nuanced performances in indies such as “Sunshine” and “London,” is “more nervous than anything else” about the Friday debut of “Captain America.” The film, about a scrawny orphan named Steve Rogers who transforms into a chiseled supersoldier after being injected with a topsecret serum during World War II, is the final Marvel film before next year’s fanboy-fantasycome-true, “The Avengers.” “It’s a double-edged sword,” said Evans. “On one hand, it’s terrifying, nerve-racking and intimidating. There’s a swirl of negative emotions that arise. On the flip side, it’s great. You have to maintain a healthy amount of
respect. You have to understand this is where I want to be. It could be so much worse. My life has unfolded in a fortuitous fashion.” Evans, whose father is a dentist and mother is the artistic director of a youth theater in Concord, Mass., spent four months bulking up with a trainer in order to fill out Captain America’s uniform. Computer-generated effects were used to shrink his body down for the scenes featuring Rogers before he became the Nazi-fighting peak of human perfection. In the film, which is set mostly during World War II, Rogers is aided in the battle against an occult-obsessed Nazi commander nicknamed Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) by British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), gadget whiz Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), slick sidekick ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and overbearing Col. Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones). For his performance as the patriotic posterboy, Evans was inspired by a childhood friend named Charlie Morris “who always did the right thing.” Instead of the snarky silliness that Evans memorably brought to the “Fantastic Four” movies, he instills Rogers
with a subdued stoicism. In fact, Evans’ casting compelled the screenwriters to craft less goofiness. “We could dial back on the outright jokes in the script because he brings a likeability and warmth without having gag lines to punch it up,” said screenwriter Christopher Markus. “In the beginning, when we were writing in a vacuum, we felt the pressure that he’s getting too stiff. Give him a joke. Chris very wisely even took out a few of the wisecracks.” Evans hopes for “a long journey of character development” with Rogers, who will team up in the present day with Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury in “The Avengers” next year. The screenwriters also left gaps in his World War II exploits for “Captain America” sequels to flashback to in the future. “We had to leave room in what we were telling for a career in World War II,” said screenwriter Stephen McFeely. “When he comes back in the present day, he has to be a seasoned soldier and a legend. He can’t be that having done just one battle."
"Friends With Benefits" familiar but fun By ROBERT GRUBAUGH For The Edge Despite having a nearly identical plot to January’s "No Strings Attached," "Friends with Benefits" is a better film than that one was because of its frankness, supporting characters, and the trading talents of its two stars. But, still, they’re practically the same movie. Fresh off the plane from sunny California, Dylan (Justin Timberlake, America’s greatest living performer...after Betty White) finds himself alone in New York except for his tenacity and Jamie (Mila Kunis), the tiny firebrand headhunter that lured him there to take a lucrative job offer from GQ Magazine. The two have found themselves co-dependent: he needs her to show him the ways of the dangerous, swear word-
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filled city and she needs him to keep her livelihood intact. Their easy, breezy relationship tries to be casual lunches and ready-made dates for corporate events, but this is a modern sex comedy and they fall into bed and fast, pledging to be physically intimate without the danger of those pesky emotions. So hip and trendy and American, the casual hook-up. It never works, though, does it? Family business, in this case, and natural chemistry always threaten the simple act that romantic comedies tell us can’t exist outside of a monitored environment. Jamie’s mother (Patricia Clarkson) is a wreck of the 1970s, a fun time she never quit. Her daughter has never found love because the role model set for her keeps showing up with a new guy or, worse, alone because of one. She’s funny, this
On the Edge of the Weekend
character, but not in a way where we don’t also pity her. The same is true of Dylan’s family. We meet them on a last minute trip back to L.A. for July 4th. They have a great pad right on the beach and shine in the sunny weather, but storm clouds loom badly for the brood. Sister Annie (Jenna Elfman) and nephew Sam (Nolan Gould, so excellent on TV as Modern Family’s Luke Dunphy) are left to deal with the pieces after Dylan flees for the other coast and his father (Richard Jenkins) falls further into the abyss of Alzheimer’s Disease. Their mom has long since split the scene, the heartless macguffin. The other sage to which we’re party is Dylan’s flamboyantly gay co-worker (Woody Harrelson). He dishes advice that largely g e t s i g n o re d t h ro u g h o u t t h e movie because he mixes it with
August 4, 2011
crude, hyper-sexual stream of consciousness about boys and girls and their caustic differences. The dialogues does zip along, thanks to polishes by writer/director Will Gluck (Easy A). There’s a few other tidbits that make it fun for the discerning adult viewer. Cameos by Andy Samberg (hoodie-clad doofus) and Emma Stone (John Mayer-obsessed freakshow) get the whole thing off to a splendid starts as they dump our main characters publicly and without any of the compassion romance is supposed to encompass. This was one of the better scenes in the whole feature, but I truly preferred the uncredited movie-within-a-movie look at how Hollywood has anesthetized us to the pain of love. Jason Segel and Rashida Jones play a cutesy couple who breakup and reunite in an obviously fake Grand Central
Terminal. This fairy tale sequence and other asides to the absurdity of movie-going, movie audiences, and the interchangeability of pop music, some of which nearly break the fourth wall, give us a little more than we’ve bargained for. "Friends with Benefits" is funny and certainly more dramatic than I was expecting. It’s good fun for an adult crowd, but also very NSFW. Many of the bedroom antics are a little more revealing than your run-of-the-mill picture and the appearance of Olympic snowboarder Shaun White will leave you wondering what’s real and what’s not. That was a level to the story I didn’t see coming. ••• "Friends with Benefits" runs 120 minutes and is rated R for some violent content and brief sexuality. I give this film three stars out of four.