5.0
Captain America: The First Avenger Review
Well that was a surprise. Truth be told, I didn’t have high hopes for the Captain America movie. Joe Johnston hasn’t made a good movie in years and Cap isn’t the most exciting super hero ever created, with such a dumb costume and old timey ideals it’s a wonder anyone still cares about him. But this film adaptation of the Super Soldier goes all out with the hokey-ness of the character and embraces it in such a meaningful fashion that I felt like a bad person after watching it, just because I’m not as nice of a person as Captain America.
Captain America: The First Avenger is the latest and final Marvel super hero film that will lead into Joss Whedon’s Avengers movie next year. The film is set in the forties during the second word war and follows a young man by the name of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a short, skinny little wimp of a guy who wants to sign up for the army to defend his country. Of course, he’s too puny to be accepted into the army, but luckily there’s a secret serum that’s been invented by Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) that will make him big and strong. It’s still in the experimental phase, but Rogers doesn’t care, he just wants to fight some bullies. If successful, the plan is to make an army of super soldiers to fight the war, but this is a movie based on a comic book, so that doesn’t exactly pan out.
After transforming into the worlds strongest man, Rogers becomes Captain America, a performer who entertains the troops, created by the army to reinforce the soldiers moral. He wears an extremely stupid costume and pretends to knock out a dude dressed as Hitler every night. Once a large group of soldiers is captured though, he wants to actually do something to break them out. The real Captain America is born, and he’s a bad ass. He bursts into that camp knocking down everything that comes his way and Captain America is cool all of a sudden.
That’s just the first hour of the movie though, as the story then shifts away from fighting Nazi’s and towards fighting Hydra, the Nazi scientific research organisation. The head of Hydra is Johann Schmidt AKA The Red Skull, played by the delightfully villainous Hugo Weaving. He’s a crazy dude who wants to take over the world. He’s not the most rounded character in the movie and there’s no real explanation or revelations regarding why he wants to destroy all humans. He’s just a straight up bad guy in the vein of 1940′s serials where things like backstory didn’t matter and seeing as the whole film is a love letter to those early years of theatrical storytelling, it doesn’t really matter in the end.
This is Captain America’s movie, his name is in the title after all, and the film does a good job of telling his origin and manages to avoid a lot of cliche’s that are inherent to a super hero origin story. There aren’t really any sections of the film where Rogers is learning his powers, there’s no “montage”. Once he receives his powers he’s straight into helping to stop a baddie and it suits his character. Steve Rogers is a can-do kind of guy who wants to do the best for his fellow man and never really thinks twice about running into a dangerous situation. Chris Evans is incredibly likeable as the character, and any fans that thought he would play Cap as “Johnny Storm” can rest easy in the knowledge that his Captain America is spot on and doesn’t carry any of the Human Torch’s sarcasm.
This is the best film that Joe Johnston has made in a long time and while watching the film I felt a lot of the joy I felt while watching The Rocketeer for the first time. Hate on The Rocketeer as much as you want, but Captain America and that film have a lot in common in regards to their dedication to old-school serials, and Marvel recognised that when bringing on Johnston to direct this film. This film feels the most different from the other Marvel films, simply because it’s set in the 40′s. The period feel mixed with the superhero genre really works and this film, under Johnston’s guidance, has turned out to be just as good as the original Iron Man.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie but the ending felt a little rushed. It sets up Cap’s entrance into The Avengers well enough, but in doing so it hurts the Captain America movie. There are a few loose ends that do not get tied up that I felt were necessary to winding up the story in this film. I’m hoping that The Avengers movie will maybe clear a few of these issues up, but not everyone cares about The Avengers and some people aren’t going to see it, so leaving those loose ends for a film that’s essentially a spin-off is wrong to me. I know Marvel have been building up to The Avengers for a while now and they need to have all the solo character films lead into the team-up film, but they could have at least tied up those loose ends in this film while they did it.
If you’re a fan of Marvel movies and are looking forward to The Avengers then this is essential viewing, but for the rest of you, your enjoyment of Captain America will depend on how much you like movies with superheroes and how much you like movies with a period feel. The Captain America character is very much a product of his time. Modern super heroes are flawed and have a dark side to them that makes them relatable, but Steve Rogers isn’t relatable, he’s a person who is flawless inside and out and he’s someone that you can aspire to. You’ll never reach those aspirations, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to try. When it comes to comparing Captain America to other Super Hero films this year, it’s better than Thor but not quite as good as X-Men: First Class. If they had tied up those loose ends, though…
No Comments