FINALLY a good movie for The Captain!
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Directed By: Joe Johnston
The Prologue
Captain America: The First Avenger, is probably the only good Captain American movie ever made. While most kids love their Wolverine and Spider-Man, many forget that Captain America was intended to be Marvel Comic’s Superman once upon a time. Still, the Captain has always been a fun read and one of my favorites, but as we’ve seen over the years that’s never been duplicated on film until now. Chris Evans (who has played in a few comic book based films) takes on the role of Steven Rogers here and he does a superb job as anyone could have done here. While some will argue the case of Thor and X-Men First Class, for my money THIS was the best comic book adapted film of the year.
The Movie
It is 1942, America has entered World War II, and sickly but determined Steve Rogers is frustrated at being rejected yet again for military service. Everything changes when Dr. Erksine recruits him for the secret Project Rebirth. Proving his extraordinary courage, wits and conscience, Rogers undergoes the experiment and his weak body is suddenly enhanced into the maximum human potential. When Dr. Erksine is then immediately assassinated by an agent of Nazi Germany’s head of its secret HYDRA research department, Johann Schmidt aka the Red Skull, Rogers is left as a unique man who is initially misused as a propaganda mascot. However, when his comrades need him, Rogers goes on a successful adventure that truly makes him Captain America and his war against Schmidt begins.
If you had to find anything that someone might not like about Captain America, it could be the run-time. But hear me about about that. The Steve Rogers story is such an epic story that you couldn’t fit it into an hour and a half, if they had even tried plenty of fan boys would have been bitching because it would have been rushed. But for what it’s worth (and this coming from a guy who hates most long movies), I don’t think the film drags at all and there is plenty of fun and interesting things going down on screen to keep your full attention for the slightly over two hours running time. Most of which the superb performance of Chris Evans.
The story starts off in current times before jumping back to the 1940s where we learn the origin of Steve Rogers. And trust me, skinny Steve Rogers is best bit of CGI work I’ve seen in a very long time. I normally hate that stuff, but it’s fine and dandy with me in a none horror film. The movie then spends about 99% of it’s time here in this period as we all head for the start of Steve’s transformation from tiny man with a big heart to Captain America and his part in the war, most importantly his battle with the evil Red Skull. We even mix in a bit of a love story with one character named, Peggy Carter. Any comic nerd like myself will know that name well.
The film takes it’s time trying to hit every important Captain America mark, from his side-kick Bucky to his team he assembled during the war with the Nazis. In between that there is action and some of it is pretty damn good. Most importantly it ends in a way that makes you want to see Avengers (the next film following this), and see it NOW. So in that way, the film does it’s job superbly. Perhaps the final battle between the Captain and Red Skull is a little weak, but outside of that I can’t find much of anything wrong with Captain America. It’s just a classic example of a fun Summer action flick.
The Conclusion
A fun and action packed film that doesn’t forget about character development either. Marvel once again proves it knows what it’s doing with their characters. And as long as we don’t get silly reboots or odd recasting along the way, this could be the start of a cool franchise for Captain American.
The Rating (8/10)
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