Movie Review: Captain America

Captain America: The First Avenger lets audiences worldwide experience an American icon. It drops the audience right into World War II and sets the tone perfectly. The Avengers couldn't have asked for a better set-up.

This film tells the story of scrawny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a kid from Brooklyn who wants nothing more than to serve his country in WWII, but is too physically deficient to join the Army. He's eventually chosen for an experimental program that turns him into the super soldier everyone knows and loves, and sets out to save the day (eventually).


What sets this film apart from other superhero flicks is the fact that it doesn't focus on the hero. It focuses on his struggle. Sure, Cap can run fast, jump high and throw far, but those things are background noise to the fact that this is World War II. There are bigger forces at work than one measly superhero, and that's where Hydra comes in.


Hydra is a massive army with incredibly advanced weaponry led by Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), better known to comic book fans as Red Skull. Red Skull and Hydra are important film-wise not only because they're Captain America's most well-known antagonists, but because it allows this to be a WWII movie without making Cap have a throw-down with Hitler. Sure Hitler's mentioned, but let's face it, no matter how good a comic book movie is, a fistfight with the Führer would come off as pretty cheesy. Red Skull is a villain Cap can tackle without drastically changing the history we all know.

Captain America, be he in film, comic book or elsewhere, is the be-all end-all symbol of all that is World War II-era American hyper-patriotism, second only to Uncle Sam. The character was actually created during WWII and was purposefully aimed at stirring national pride (note Cap socking Adolf in issue #1).


This is reflected in the film when Cap sells war bonds while wearing his classic costume. He trades it later for the more practical (and stab-proof) uniform seen in the poster above. On that note, I'm personally a fan of the new uniform. I think it makes a connection to one of Steve Rogers' comic book costumes (pictured below); it adds a subtle layer of continuity.

While Cap is every inch the classic American Boy Scout patriot he's meant to be, Chris Evans gives him depth. I'm not saying the comic versions of Steve Rogers don't have depth, but Evans brings him to life, he makes the audience cheer his triumphs and mourn his failures. And, of course, there's the audible gasp in the theater as he comes out of his transformation.


As I said, the focus of this film is the war and not Cap. As such, characters like Bucky (who is thankfully more than Cap's Robin in the film) often play important roles. Cap's one soldier, and you don't win a war without an army. He literally couldn't do it without them. Cap's rag-tag group of crazies gave his battles some grounding in reality, which is hard to come by when you're fighting a tank that's 50 ft. high.


Captain America: The First Avenger is a worthwhile film, even for audiences who aren't fans of the comics. What's more, like The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Thor before it, this film sets the stage for the 2012 movie The Avengers. The super-powered team-up is packing enough star power to make anyone who has heard of The Expendables worry, but with Joss Whedon serving as the writer and director, this one might actually live up to the hype.