A lot of things about Captain America: Brave New World didn’t work. But I can’t stop thinking about one thing that worked too well: the movie’s CG textures.
Specifically, I’m talking about the lovingly rendered detail on Red Hulk, the alter ego of — spoiler warning for those who didn’t see it in the trailer — Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, as played by Harrison Ford. More specifically, I’m talking about Red Hulk’s chest. There’s just… so much to it. Every wiry chest hair, every fold of his skin, every tiny goosefleshy bump on his round red nipples. I swear, I wasn’t planning to gawk at his nipples, but all of that just jumped right out at me. Even though I’m sure I was supposed to be paying attention to Red Hulk smashing his way through the White House Rose Garden, all I could think was CHEST.
Red Hulk’s intricately designed, visceral torso wasn’t the only overly textured body part in the movie. I could trace each wriggle of Samuel Sterns’ bulging, gamma-mutated externalized brain. (And I really wanted to clean out those wrinkles with a cotton swab.) But Red Hulk stands out to me the most, because we already had another Hulk touchpoint to compare this one to. I don’t remember the intimate aspects of Bruce Banner’s Hulkified chest in any previous Avengers movie being nearly this distracting. Yet with this movie, someone decided that it was necessary to render each fluttering chest hair, each detailed pockmark, and each bumpy nipple.
Sometimes we do need to see intimate textures in film. I think a lot about the rotting, oceanic crew of The Flying Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean, and Davy Jones’ squishy, rubbery face tentacles in particular. That’s the kind of texture that really adds to the atmosphere and setting of a movie.
However, I get the feeling that I am not supposed to be distracted by CG Harrison Ford’s nipples when Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) is trying to talk him down from Hulk status. Ross is supposed to be monstrous, yes, but we get that already from his screaming, flaming rampage. All the extra hairy detail is unnecessary, and pushing it to center stage (well, center screen) just undermines any of the sense of character reality that’s supposed to give us emotional catharsis for this character (which there was already little enough of).
Captain America: Brave New World is out in theaters now.