Captain America: The First Avenger (2011 review)

4 outta 5

While Captain America: The First Avenger does threaten to drown in patriotism at times, overall it’s a neat WWII-era twist on the superhero formula. And the last 20 minutes downright rock. Also: Hugo Weaving as a bad guy is never a bad idea. And if you know your Marvel Cinematic Universe Easter Eggs you get about 900% more out of the flick. Or maybe that’s just me.  Captain America also nicely sets pieces in place for 2012’s better-be-friggin-epic Avengers film. 

Scrawny, sickly, brave but still skinny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is desperate to enlist in WWII and fight for his country.  Along comes a scientist (Stanley Tucci), a general (Tommy Lee Jones), inventor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) and a special forces officer Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) who offer Steve a chance to get in the military if he agrees to be injected with a super-solider serum, becoming Captain America.  Much to his embarrassment, he’s used for USO tours and bond-raising gimmicks.  Eventually, Steve has to save his friend, Bucky (Sebastian Stan), from the clutches of the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).  Red Skull is also jacked up on super-solider serum and he’s using the power of the Gods to try to take over the world.

Evan’s makes the potentially bland character more interesting and funnier than you would expect.  He does have to deliver a monologue or two about how important it is for him to fight for that gets a bit eye rolling but you’d expect that in a film called Captain America.  But Evans does show that he’s tough, especially in the early scenes with some fantastic visual effects that turn him into a scrawny twerp. But even when he’s super-powered, his tiny dork shines through once in awhile.  Tucci adds soul and humour to a character that could have been a generic mad scientist type, and Lee Jones is entertainingly surly.

A lot of fun is in the b-movie vibe of the villains plot: secret Nazi science experiments welding technology and the occult in something that should not be! Weaving’s Red Skull is nowhere near as iconic as Agent Smith from The Matrix was but, to be fair, not may are.  There aren’t multiple layers to this character; it’s mostly just arrogant or murderous but the fun is watching how many different shades of arrogant or murderous Weaving has.  He spends about half of the film looking like his usual self, until his mask of humanity quite literally starts to slip off.  The makeup job on Red Skull is pretty spectacular, not restricting his acting and looking very freaky.

Speaking of freaky, the magical object that Skull is using is a Cosmic Cube.  People who stuck around after Thor’s credits would have seen it and it ties in very nicely with the world of Asgard.  If you’ve seen that film, you notice this is but if you haven’t it’s just the glow-y, superpowered cube thingie.  The movie definitely has a bit of a Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe with evil Nazi’s unearthing supernatural trinkets.  It gets a bit overt by the end when Red Skull unleashes the power of the Cosmic Cube it’s like when they open the Ark of the Covenant.   What’s up with Pirates 4 and Captain America cribbing shamelessly from Indy?  Probably because Indy is awesome. 

Aside from the now-contractually-mandatory Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury cameo at the end the other big connection to previous Marvel movies is Howard Stark with Stan doing a WWII-era version of Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark.  Not quite as much fun but Stan gets in some of the movies best quips. 

The film gets a bit episodic as it basically blasts through Cap’s WWII exploits in about a 2 minute montage.  One of the movie’s best sequences is a bizarre and meta-textual bit where Steve is dressed up in the classic Captain America suit. Comic book fans usually complain about movies changing the design but this shows if filmmakers did it exactly like the book it would be awful.  Also the song-and-dance bit is funnily awkward, has Cap punching out Hitler, chorus line girls, and there are bits of him filming serial movies and soldiers reading Captain America comics. The last two are actual historical artefacts so it’s a wheels-within-wheels type of gag.

Despite getting saggy things pick up for a spectacular finale with Red Skull bombastically monologing to his minions, and a fantastic action sequence where Cap jumps on a disembarking plane with a bad guy attached to his back trying to beat the hell out of him. Atwell’s Carter is nicely snippy most of the movie but she ears her paycheque in the final scene where she says goodbye to Steve.  Both actors play it extremely well.  I knew the basic final beats of Captain America’s origin story and I was still surprised at how emotional the ending was.  Tag on some “Twilight Zone”-esque weirdness in the final minutes and an absolutely perfect final line and you have one of the better endings to a comic book movie since “I am Iron Man.” 

Captain America: The First Avenger tweaks the superhero formula and has better performances, lush direction, and smarter writing than something as lame like Green Lantern.  Now freakin’ assemble already, Avengers!