Captain America: The First Avenger (The Unseen 2011)

"The Unseen" is a series in which I watch popular films for the first time. The list, which moves backwards in time, is based on the highest-ranked film I've never seen each year on Letterboxd (as of April 2018). Captain America was #2 for 2011.

The Story: He's always an odd man out - initially as a scrawny Brooklyn kid who fails every Army physical and eventually as a fossil reawakened in a world he can't understand. But in between those two demoralizing positions, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) gets to be exceptional in the best way possible. Chosen for a top secret World War II experiment due to his fighting spirit and unpretentious sense of virtue, Rogers is injected with a high-tech serum which expands his muscle mass and increases his endurance. The goal is to create a fierce fighting force of fellow supersoldiers; unfortunately, he remains an army of one when the leading scientist Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) is killed, and the formula which transformed Rogers dies with him. Reduced to selling war bonds and touring the European theater in a tacky costume with the hokey name "Captain America," Rogers receives another opportunity for valor. He discovers that his childhood best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) has been taken prisoner by the renegade German faction Hydra, led by the scientist Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving). Schmidt has received the same serum as Rogers and becomes his nemesis, especially after Rogers defies Colonel Phillips' (Tommy Lee Jones') orders to rescue Barnes.

With the encouragement of the smitten British officer Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and the technical support of Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Rogers leads a band of misfit commandos on war raids, eventually climaxing with a battle against Schmidt over the Atlantic. Saving New York City from a devastating weapon (powered by the mysterious Tesseract that later shows up in The Avengers), Rogers is forced to crash land on an icy island where his body is discovered in 2011. He wakes up in a familiar forties hospital room...but it's a bit too familiar: he remembers the baseball game on the radio from several years before his disappearance. Breaking out of the false soundstage where he's being held, Rogers races into the modern Times Square and is confronted by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency that has been cultivating superheroes across the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Informed that he's been frozen and comatose for seven decades, Rogers is most morose about the final conversation he had with Peggy shortly before his fate was sealed. "I had a date," he sighs, a Rip Van Winkle dismayed rather than relieved to discover the passage of time.

The Context:

The Avengers (The Unseen 2012)

"The Unseen" is a series in which I watch popular films for the first time. The list, which moves backwards in time, is based on the highest-ranked film I've never seen each year on Letterboxd (as of April 2018). The Avengers was #2 for 2012.

The Story: Jumping right into the action and never letting go, the film begins when the godlike Asgardian extraterrestrial Loki (Tom Hiddleston) arrives at a secret scientific laboratory to steal the Tesseract energy source (and intergalactic gateway) from the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. That's a mouthful, but The Avengers is largely unconcerned with the details of this intrigue which provide an excuse for its real purpose: assembling "the Avenger initiative," a team of misfit superheroes. Their task is enormous: stop Loki from opening a portal and marching an army of alien supersoldiers who will subjugate the Earth. Loki is determined to enslave the human race, converting them into mindless drones which - he proclaims - will be good for them as well as his own imperial ambitions; freedom is a curse and submission is the true nature of mankind. Only the plucky if unruly spirit of disparate individualists can prove him wrong, if they can coordinate that spirit without losing its drive. On a floating battleship where they've been brought together, these protagonists will quip and banter, fight amongst themselves, learn to work together, and develop a deep loyalty and commitment to one another, utilizing their disparate skills in order to save the world. While the narrative functions in a fairly self-contained way, it draws upon backstory and character development stretching into earlier entries from the Marvel Cinematic Universe like Iron Man (2008), Thor (2011), and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), as well as a half-century of comic book lore. A certain familiarity with the characters is assumed despite some slight exposition.

These characters, contacted and persuaded - or forced - to enlist by S.H.I.E.L.D. in a globetrotting first act, include the cocky New York tycoon Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.); the old-fashioned Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) who was recently thawed from ice after sixty-plus years and remains encased in a World War II era outlook; the weary, on-edge scientist Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, controversially replacing Edward Norton after Marvel's 2008 The Incredibe Hulk) who transforms into a raging green monster when he gets too angry; lightning/hammer-wielding Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Loki's brother and the Mufasa to that villain's Scar who is determined to protect this planet from the power of his own alien race; and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent herself with a dark past (what Loki sneeringly calls "a lot of red" in her ledger). They are overseen by the determined but perpetually frustrated S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who must balance their unruly natures with the demands of his ruthless superiors, and they're eventually joined by the deadly archer Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), who is initially captured and converted into a brainwashed henchman by Loki. Together they battle Loki's hordes in Manhattan, until Iron Man travels through a portal that has opened up over the city, delivering a nuclear payload to the enemy before falling back through this closing wormhole just in time to declare victory - and lead his new friends to an exhausted shawarma dinner after the closing credits roll.

The Context:

Guardians of the Galaxy (The Unseen 2014)

"The Unseen" is a series in which I watch popular films for the first time. The list, which moves backwards in time, is based on the highest-ranked film I've never seen each year on Letterboxd (as of April 2018). Guardians of the Galaxy was #2 for 2014.

The Story: Fleeing his mother's (Laura Haddock's) deathbed in 1988, Peter Quill (Wyat Oleff) is abducted by aliens; we will later piece together that the space pirate behind this kidnapping, Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker), adopted and exploited the human boy until he rebelled in adulthood. When we catch up with Quill (now Chris Pratt), he still listens to his mother's mixtape for inspiration but has otherwise moved far away from her beneficent vision of his character. Then Quill gets caught up in the intrigue surrounding a potentially universe-annihilating "infinity stone" desired by the godlike Thanos (Josh Brolin) but eventually intercepted by Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), a puritanical radical who wants to destroy most other races in a genocidal quest to live up to his twisted religious ideals. The reluctant hero gains, loses, recovers, loses again, and eventually seeks to intercept this small superweapon before Ronan can use it to destroy the peaceful Nova Empire, led by Irani Rael (Glenn Close) and dutifully protected by Rhomann Dey (John C. Reilly). In the process, Quill discovers a conscience and, just as importantly, comrades. The criminal lowlife, alternately known as "Star-Lord," is soon joined by the misfit all-stars of green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), literal-minded and (literally) thickheaded refugee Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), and two bounty hunters - the caustic, chip-on-his-shoulder mutant raccoon Rocket, and the kindly tree creature Groot (Vin Deisel, hired solely to repeat "I am Groot" as the only three words the creature can speak). Together, they break out of prison, race between various planets and starships, and slowly discover a purpose for their lives: guarding the galaxy from an imminent apocalypse while hopefully having a bit of fun in the process.

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Black Panther (The Unseen 2018)

"The Unseen" is a series in which I watch popular films for the first time (reviews contain spoilers). The list, which moves backwards in time, is based on the highest-ranked film I've never seen each year on Letterboxd (as of April 2018). Black Panther was #1 for 2018.

The Story: After a terrorist attack on the United Nations kills his father, T'Challa becomes king of the African nation Wakanda. Presenting itself to the world as a humble agricultural country, Wakanda is actually a bastion of advanced technology, secretly developing flying ships, weapons, and clothing like the highly responsive, skintight, bulletproof "Black Panther" uniform. The king wears this costume while engaged in battle or more smallscale combat, for example pursuing the ruthless arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) to South Korea, allowing him to slip from mythology into the familiar superhero dynamics of the Marvel universe. Tasked now with ruling and defending this kingdom, T'Challa struggles with doubts about his readiness for the monarchy, discovers a dark secret from his father's past, and both loses and reclaims his throne, returning from near-death in the process.

If he is the central, title figure, the primary plot arc is nonetheless driven more by T'Challa's nemesis Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), a Wakandan by birthright but an American by upbringing. Scarred by the poverty and persecution he saw around him as a child, orphaned at a young age when his father was killed, and radicalized by his father's belief that Wakandan technology should be used to help in the struggle of the oppressed, particularly those of African descent, Killmonger grew up to become a black ops combatant in the U.S. military, racking up kills and subverting governments around the globe. He assisted imperial conquest with the long-term goal of subverting the empire once he was trained enough to assume the Wakandan throne and lead a worldwide revolution. It is Killmonger whose family tragedy launches the film and whose needs and desires drive many of the narrative turning points - and he is the film's most striking, memorable character.

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