Here are comments from the new directors on how they are screwing up this film;
From Empire Film: http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=38428 “We had a strong vision for the movie, a specific direction to move in that was different from everything they've done up to this point, and the Marvel team were very supportive,” said Anthony. “The film is shot handheld, there's aggressive camera work in it."
The whole movie shot hand-held, wow, that sounds unappealing.
I've drawn from a few different interviews, but it sounds like they know exactly what they're going for so I'm happy to give them the benefit of the doubt:
"there is certainly a very strong element of espionage like a political thriller. I mean this movie draws upon The French Connection and The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor and all of these ’70s thrillers in a way that there is paranoia and mistrust at the heart of the movie."
"[70s thrillers are] a huge influence on us. I'll be honest. We're really surprised... well, not surprised because they're a great group of people to work with, but Marvel really supported and bought into a huge shift in tone for the character and for the franchise. There's a certain level of verite with this movie. It's shot with a lot handheld camerawork, a lot of longer lenses, it's gritty. There's a lot of action in the movie, but it's based on a sort of realism. We had all the actors training for months because we wanted them on camera fighting with each other. They got a lot of bumps and bruises. We beat the shit out of them over the course of the shoot, but I think it really shows in the movie. We were really true a sort of verite approach to the material."
"The movie is very different in tone from the first film. The first film was a wonderful love letter to the origin of the Captain of the time period. Cap is now in the modern world. The movie is a political thriller. In order to be germane to that tone, we wanted the movie to be as modern and as edgy and as aggressive as it could be 'cause you can't have thrills in a thriller unless the characters have real stakes and real jeopardy. Cap gets put through a lot in this film. It's action-heavy. It's a very intense movie."
hand cam can be really great, in small amounts. The more continually it is used, the less effective and more annoying it is. Apparently we are still recovering from the era of film school kids that saw Blair Witch and thought it was so awesome.
Now if we were talking about Steadi-cam shots, like Kubrick used many times that would be much more appealing.
Jesus Christ! Get over the hand held camera crap! Seriously? And to mention it like its some unique filming technique? That's like saying we used lights and sound. Woooow!