Captain America: The First Avenger Review

After years of Marvel making superhero movies disguised as teasers for The Avengers, the last pieces of the puzzle were finally filled this summer. Now moviegoers have had a chance to see almost all of the Avengers in action before their big team-up, and to see their various powers. Yet while Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye have their own unique origin stories, even they didn’t rise as suddenly as The First Avenger, Captain America himself. As such, they saved the transformation of 90-pound weakling Steve Rogers for the final origin movie.

Despite being weak of body, Steve’s strength of heart inspires him to keep trying to get into the U.S. Army in WWII. This resilience attracts the attention of army scientist Abraham Erskine, who gives Steve his chance to go overseas. But he is put into no ordinary unit, as he wins the right to become America’s first genetically altered “super soldier.” Yet even after becoming tall and buff, he is only useful for propaganda and bond-raising tours as the newly dubbed “Captain America.” However, Steve gets his chance to go into the front soon enough, where he is the last best hope to stop the Nazi’s own deep science program- led by red skulled fellow super soldier Johann Schmidt- from overwhelming Europe and the world.

The title Captain America: The First Avenger is quite literal, since Cap was saving the world 70 years before Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and the rest got their superpowers. As such, director Joe Johnston not only sets the story in WWII, he makes it into an old fashioned WWII picture in superhero form. In this modern era, such a strategy straddles the fine line between a welcome throw back to simpler times, and an outdated approach that lacks real ambition.

For the most part, Johnston is on the right side of that line, in spite of the occasional cornball moment. With today’s America going through a rough summer, and its military still bogged down in controversial wars, Captain America‘s flashback to a time when might and right were on our side is seductive comfort food. Even after 70 years, Cap’s transformation from weakling to hero- while keeping the same patriotic heart along the way- is still hard to resist for this nation’s audiences. The seamless special effects used to shrink Chris Evans into the pre-Cap Steve don’t hurt either.

There is a lack of energy and action to start off, which seems to hurt at first. But Captain America: The First Avenger ultimately benefits from taking its time and providing a reason to care when the big action sequences start. Yet when they do, this is when the movie turns into the same old superhero spectacle we’ve seen dozens of times lately- and close to a half dozen times this last year alone. In fact, the most exhilarating sequence turns out to be a montage of Steve’s fundraising tours, where the WWII style and homage’s are at their best.

Still, Johnston provides some nifty battles and explosions, and a few moves with Cap’s shield that turn out quite well in 3D. However, by the time he goes for a tragic tone in the final minutes, some of the impact is lost. As a result, Captain America becomes yet another movie where the parts are better than the whole- and where the parts are good enough to make us wish there were more of them.

Chris Evans at least gets to take a step up in the superhero ranks, after being one of the few bright spots of the disappointing Fantastic Four movies. Evans’ cocky attitude from those films has to be suppressed here, which makes it harder for him to not make Steve into a too pure boy scout. Yet Evans still manages to give Steve some sense of humor and make him more heroic than boring- with the early special effects helping a bit as well.

Helping him out are several reliable supporting actors who do their usual routines, but still manage to do them well. Tommy Lee Jones spouts off his typical gruff but funny one-liners as Steve’s commanding officer, while Stanley Tucci steals his usual amount of scenes as Dr. Erskine, and Hugo Weaving is in fine megalomaniacal form again as the Red Skull. Hayley Atwell is an equally formidable scene-stealer as Steve’s female ally, although Sebastian Stan and Dominic Cooper aren’t given much as his best friend and a young Howard Stark.

Captain America: The First Avenger falls into line with many of Marvel’s prequel movies, as they have a lot of strengths but are held back from being something more. Yet now that all of The Avengers have had their first adventure, there are no more excuses for them and Marvel not to have a bigger payoff. While Captain America may be satisfying enough as a throwback adventure, he and his future teammates will have to aim a little higher next summer.


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