Captain America: The First Avenger – movie review

Captain America: The First Avenger is the latest entry into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. For years now Marvel has been building its continuity, marching purposefully towards next year’s team-up movie, The Avengers. For the first time I wondered “Are casual audiences going to understand this movie?” When Thor came out in May, it was riddled with references to other Marvel movies that in hindsight probably made no sense to anyone who hasn’t seen Iron Man. It doesn’t matter how referential these movies are if they can’t connect with everyone. Luckily for Captain America, you don’t need to have seen Iron Man or Thor to understand what’s going on.

Right away the film has its time frame working for it. Since it takes place during WWII, this film comes first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thor hasn’t happened yet, causing Captain America to feel very stand-alone for those who are new to Marvel, but there’s still plenty for the more hardcore fans to notice. It works for both types audiences. The best example I can think of is the Macguffin of the movie, the Tesseract. All you need to know is that it’s a mythical object with powerful magical properties (not unlike any object sought after in the Indiana Jones franchise). What the film leaves out is the Tesseract’s connections to the realm of Asgard, introduced in Thor, only briefly implying them. This movie is hardly concerned with prepping The Avengers.

No, the movie makes itself all about Steve Rogers and his journey to become Captain America. When Chris Evans was chosen to play the Cap, I was skeptical. I remember thinking “Who? The guy who played the Human Torch? He’s a goofball.” Most of what I’ve seen Evans in has had him playing fairly cartoony characters. He’s great in those roles, but I just didn’t see him as the Captain. I was proven wrong. Evans perfectly portrayed Steve Rogers, goodness personified. He made jokes when they were appropriate and never lost sight of his need to fight for his country, not for himself but because he doesn’t like bullies.

For the first bit of the movie, Evans was made to look short and gangly, an effect I was afraid to see. I read somewhere that it looked like bad work in Photoshop. I’m not certain if the person who said that saw the same movie as me. I thought it was very well done, and you could only really tell that wasn’t Evans’ real body if you stared hard at it. I’m sure if you didn’t know it was fake you wouldn’t know the difference.

It takes a surprisingly long time for Steve Rogers to don his real suit. For a good while he wears this silly stage outfit when he’s being used as symbol for America. After proving himself to be a true war hero, he’s allowed to design the final Captain America suit, which is the one you see in the trailers. I felt it took way too long to get to that point. The whole montage of Rogers as a performer in a stage show was funny, but entirely unnecessary. I would have much rather jumped straight into Rogers fighting in the war, showing that he’s more than just a successful experiment.

The action scenes were uninspired, to say the least. Don’t get me wrong; they were fun, but they weren’t anything to go home and talk about. I don’t think I could recall one moment of action where I was at the edge of my seat. It was all pretty straightforward, with no chances being taken. Luckily the characters were far more interesting, with Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, and others doing what they do best. Even Stanley Tucci does a great job for his short amount of screen time.

Overall, this was a satisfying first adventure with Captain America. It introduced his character well enough that I’m excited to see him continue throwing his shield around in The Avengers .