Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Review by Pete Roche

Production for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER snarled Cleveland traffic for an entire month last summer.  Directors (and Shaker Heights natives) Anthony and Joe Russo (WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD) clogged several main arteries and major intersections in hopes of capturing a bit of the superhero celluloid magic that’s become standard for Spring / Summer blockbusters over the last fifteen years.  Were the rush-hour headaches worth it?

Depends on who you ask.  The movie—the latest installment in Marvel’s ongoing AVENGERS-related saga (and third major superhero flick partly shot in C-Town, counting SPIDER-MAN 3)—won’t sway those who never cared much for cartoon heroes, comic books, or the lure of Hollywood spotlights in the first place. 

Marvel's The Avengers

Review by Bob Ignizio

Ever since 2008's IRON MAN, Samuel L. Jackson has been popping up in the Marvel Studios films as Nick Fury, leader of the government security agency S.H.I.E.L.D., to talk about his plans of putting together a group of superheroes. He finally gets around to it in MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, bringing together Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to, as Fury puts it, “fight the foes no single superhero could withstand.”

The foes in question are led by Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the same guy who caused trouble in THOR. Still smarting from his defeat in that film, Loki returns using his powers of deception and manipulation to get his hands on something called the Tesseract. This glowing McGuffin has seemingly limitless power, but its main purpose here is to open a gateway to another dimension so that an army of CGI space aliens can come through and attack the Earth. After the obligatory fighting amongst themselves, partly caused by Loki's manipulations but mostly due to their own arrogance, the aforementioned heroes come together to face this threat as a team, tearing up large portions of downtown Cleveland (standing in for New York City) in the process.

'Avengers' Mania!

It was pretty hard to be in Cleveland this past summer and not be aware that 'The Avengers', the big superhero team-up from Marvel Studios scheduled to be released in May 2012, was being shot here. Now the first full trailer has been set loose on the web, and you can see a little bit of what was shot in a couple of brief scenes. You've probably already seen this by now, but in case you haven't (or you just want to see it again), here's the trailer. As a bonus, I've also posted some photos taken by occasional Cleveland Movie Blog contributor Chip Karpus. Thanks for the pics, Chip!