Being a lifelong comic geek, it would have taken more than one team of wild horses to keep me from reviewing Captain America: The Winter Soldier for Aleteia this last week. And I have to say, while I’m a fan of Marvel Studio’s first Captain America film, I think this one has it beat, definitely a film worthy of everyone’s favorite shield slinger.
Alas, it wasn’t always that way, was it? Most folks can usually recall the Captain America television movies of the late 70s, the ones starring Reb Brown wearing a blue motorcycle helmet and carrying a clear plastic shield. But as bad as they were, at least Reb’s movies had a little of bit of charm thanks to their disco era cheesiness. Not so with 1990’s Captain America, a film most people have forgotten because everyone who ever saw it prayed for collective amnesia afterwards. Oh, it was painful. Still, despite its wretchedness, it managed to highlight one of ol’ winghead’s lesser known skills, one never seen in any other film version of Captain America before or since, that of the master car thief…
Now some folks out there might be shocked that a good protestant boy like Cap would so blatantly violate the Lord’s commandment not to steal, but perhaps there’s more to the situation than meets the eye. The Catechism bluntly states that “the seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner,” so there’s no doubt about whether stealing is right or wrong. But it goes on to add, “there is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one's disposal and use the property of others.” So, if you’ve really got to take someone else’s car to go save the world from the Red Skull (or whatever it is he Cap did in that movie, I’ve managed to purge most of the details), it’s technically not considered a theft, at least not from an ethical standpoint. So you see, despite what it looks like, Steve Rogers did not actually steal anything in Captain America 1990. Well, unless you count the hour and a half you spent watching the movie, that is. He owes you big time for taking that part of your life away.
4 comments:
The only reason such a gambit would work, twice, in a movie, is because either a writer, the director, or one of the producers had fallen for it in real life. My bet would be on a producer.
You may be on to something there :)
Ah, but he DID steal a car in Winter Soldier - called it borrowing and then told Black Widow to her feet off the dashboard. :) And yes, I really, really liked CA: Winter Soldier.
Now I just have to wait for Godzilla! :)
Now you have to believe that Cap returned that car, unless of course it got blown to pieces by all those missiles. Besides, needing the car to go save millions of people probably falls under the same rules I was talking about in the article, so his reputation is safe.
Still, the guy's got to buy his own car eventually.
Post a Comment