Captain America: The First Avenger

Some men are born to be big and tough, real fighters and real butt-kickers. However, not all men are born to be athletes, as actor Chris Evans (Fantastic Four, The Losers) portrays WWII Army reject Steve Rogers. Steve is barely 100 pounds and scrawny to boot, plus an asthmatic. The poor guy isn’t trying to stand out or be a hero, he just wants to fit in and do his country some service. The only friend he has is Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) who sticks up for him but ultimately doesn’t think he can make it on his own. But even in fist fights of which he knows he’ll lose, Steve never backs down or gives up on what’s important. It’s for that reason that Dr. Erskine, a sympathetic Stanley Tucci (Julie & Julia, The Lovely Bones), nominates him for a special new Army experiment to create a brand new super soldier. When the full transformation is complete, Steve will be known by another name to the world: “Captain America”.

In Norway a Nazi commander steals a blue glowing cube with devilish delight. He is Johann “Red Skull” Schmidt, played by Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, The Wolfman), a villain intended on world domination. With this kind of evil in the world, America needs all the help it can get. Dr. Erskine and Army Col. Phillips (a great Tommy Lee Jones) are testing out a small squad of soldiers to be something much more than human. The Doc’s serum will be injected into only one of these guys, who ends up being not the best soldier but the best person: Steve Rogers. With the help of Stark Enterprises (Iron Man reference) and a lot of taxpayers’ dollars, the little guy is transformed with another 100lbs. of pure muscle and sex appeal. As promising as he is, the entire project is quickly destroyed by a Nazi spy who kills Dr. Erskine and leaves with one of the serum tubes. Acting completely on his own, Steve goes after him barefoot through the daytime streets of Brooklyn, and discovers that his physique is agile enough to jump 10 feet in the air and punch through a glass window, even while underwater! Things change when he is demoted to a traveling circus act, but once he sees real war in Italy and Bucky is captured behind enemy lines, Captain America goes in alone to free him and hundreds of other soldiers.

One of the issues the audience will have is that we know this is a Hollywood tie-in to next year’s “Avengers” movie, so it sets up a lot of elements like the Cosmic Cube, S.H.I.E.L.D., and future characters that will appear in other movies. While the 1940′s setting resembles Director Joe Johnston’s earlier film “The Rocketeer”, the action here feels anemic and most supporting characters are quickly forgotten. Even Weaving’s Red Skull baddie is clichéd at best. On the other hand we do get a fun role from Jones resembling Lee Marvin from “The Dirty Dozen”, and the female romantic interest Lt. Carter (Hayley Atwell) is commanding and a cool enough heroine on her own.

“Captain America” isn’t great, but this movie is about as good as it could have been; a solid popcorn movie. Note: Chris Evans has been signed on for a sequel already in the works. I’d like to see what else he can do with such a noble and heroic character.

1. Jennifer wrote:

   July 29, 2011 at 12:51 am

   This movie kicked some serious ass! Not gnna lie Chris Evans wasnt terrible to look at either! Id give it 4.5 outta 5 stars, cuz there is always room for improvement, but I am seriously stoked for The Avengers movie next May now…!!! Thor and Captain America on the same screen! Yes Sir!

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