Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Chris Evans
Hayley Attwell
Hugo Weaving
Stanley Tucci
Tommy Lee Jones
Samuel L. Jackson
Directed By:
Joe Johnston
If any movie gave me hope that another superhero film would be a good idea, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER would have been my choice. I'm not sure why. Steve Rogers is one of Marvel Comics' oldest flagships after all. Maybe the fact that he got introduced so late in the Hollywood Superhero Cash-in process made me believe a set of fresh eyes would tackle the mythic character. What actually happened with CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER is actually more complex than that. While I will Joe Johnston and his screenwriter Christopher Markus credit for tackling Steve Rogers' story since the dead start, I would compare the final product to Boccocini cheese. It's flavorless, has no visual appeal and a disappointing texture. It's not that it's particularly bad, but it's just fade enough to make your regret the time you spent on it. Really, I can't give you a valid reason to try CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER*.
In the beginning, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a ninety pounds schmuck who really wants to join the U.S Army and defend his country in World War II, that is currently fought (I think the year is 1942). But he's so much of a dink, they don't want it. MENTOR FIGURE ** (Stanley Tucci), unlike everybody else, sees the combat-spirit in Steve's eyes and decides that he is the perfect candidate for his experimental program. See, there's this Nazi-gone-rogue named Johan Schmidt *** (Hugo Weaving) who's been experiencing with occult powers and energy. So the army decided to inject Rogers with some of the glowing blue stuff they stole from Schmidt and BOOM. Captain America was born, delivered by the motherland herself. But it's not the end of Rogers' troubles. They won't let him fight and put him as a vaudeville entertainer for the troops after he pulls a stunt in the cities of New York. But Steve has a pure heart and good friends (including Howard Stark, Tony's father...that kinda helps), so he decides to show what he can do for his country and goes to battle on his own ****.
My first complain about CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER concerns the screenwriting. Holy shit, what a boring, predictable, written-on-a-napkin-during-lunchtime action movie. Mix Hollywood cliché, mythic structure and useless plot elements and you get this movie, which looks like many other movies that you ever seen before BUT you won't find any fond memories of it without mixing it up with other superhero movies. Hayley Atwell for example is doing a believable Peggy Carter. A headstrong woman, who stands-up and claims her place in a men world, but her character has absolutely no purpose. Having a love interest in an action movie is a way to raise the stakes and give the hero something to sacrifice himself over, but Rogers already has a burning love for America and is given plenty of other reasons throughout the movie sacrifice and fight. So the love interest then has no purpose but to be a love interest. I mean, she doesn't even get kidnapped or anything. She just stays by her man, behind the safe line of command, like a good girl. Did I also mention that Johan Schmidt looks like the abusive uncle of Johnny Blaze?
I might be stepping on the slippery slope of Marvel's mythology here, but isn't this movie a great way of encouraging American or fuck it, individual exceptionalism? "Oh well, I'm a big guy and I do a lot of crunches, who needs an army? The army needs ME." It's not like it's anything new, but wouldn't a patriotic superhero be supposed to encourage the average American to do the right thing, instead of encouraging young soldiers to take the world of their shoulders and to see themselves as being above the others? Anyway, I might be overanalyzing again (Josie likes to think I overanalyze all the time). Predictable script, boring and mundane action scenes...it's not overly insidious or badly acted or anything like that. It's just a big, fat fart in the wind. You will move to the next movie quick and by the end of the year, you will forget CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER in your year-end review. In fact, you might as well forget about it right now.
SCORE: 50%
Recommendation: Don't watch it and blame it on the superhero movie craze. It's THE movie you CAN afford to miss.
* If you want to stop reading there, it's cool, but in the subsequent paragraphs, I'm going to explain why.
** To be fair, the character's name is Abraham Erskine but I had to look it up. You know what I mean.
*** That's right, two Nazis-gone-rogue named Schmidt in two days. You get my drift?
**** Along with his newly acquired superpowers and his nifty scene costume.