Marvel Month - Mini Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America is my favourite Marvel character, there, I said it, happy? I suppose this is mostly down to Brian Bloom in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who gave the character exactly what he needed, to say cheesy lines, but in a way that is inspiring. Chris Evans also helped with that appeal. I will say that his portrayal of the Human Torch in the Fantastic 4 movies is cringe-worthy at best, but I’d chock that down to the writer.

So, how does his first movie hold up? Let’s take a look.

Steve Rogers is scrawny and various ailments prevent him from enlisting in the army like his best friend Bucky Barnes. But he’s chosen to be the first volunteer in a super soldier experiment. Unfortunately, the lead scientist is killed and he ends up being the only one. Side-lined to selling bonds, an opportunity arises when HYDRA, the Nazi deep science division headed by Johann Schmidt aka the Red Skull, begins amassing an arsenal of weapons powered by their latest discovery, the Tesseract. Putting an end to HYDRA’s threat will require Steve Rogers to step up and become Captain America.

This movie had a lot to do with regard to the fact it’s the last movie before the Avengers so it had some set up work to do, giving us an insight into the power of the Tesseract (which saw in the Thor teaser) and making sure the good Captain is in modern times. So, with all that, it was a good idea to introduce Captain America in the past and give him an origin story. And the good news is, there are memorable supporting characters. Bucky (Sebastian Stan) is a good side character. In the comics Bucky was Marvel’s answer to Robin, an exploration into the downside of kid sidekicks but since the closest thing we had to a kid sidekick in Movie form is Chris O’Donnell, that really wasn’t necessary here, so I don’t see any issues in ageing him up. Hayley Atwell makes an excellent Peggy Carter, I’ve talked plenty about her in her solo series reviews. Tommy Lee Jones has a memorable performance as Chester Phillips, but that’s a given, he’s Tommy Lee Jones.

Chris Evans is a fine choice for Captain America, despite his prior history with playing the Human Torch. It’s blatantly clear he had to train hard for the role. Dominic Cooper was a good choice for Howard Stark and blended well with the portrayal by John Slattery in Iron Man 2. The action is well handled, there’s certainly a more war-time feel, although I’ll admit it is handled better in Wonder Woman.

Hugo Weaving playing the Red Skull is another good casting decision and honestly, I didn’t feel like Red Skull was quite as generic as his associates in other Marvel movies. Although the war time setting makes his kind of evil more palatable. Arnim Zola has a role but it doesn’t feel like much time was dedicated to him, so there’s little to say, he was fine.

Like most Marvel movies, the humour blends well with the movie and when they need to double down on the emotional moments, it feels real. Steve Rogers' sacrifice feels well handled by the rest of the cast who knew him.

But I do have some negatives and they come down to the pacing, the back half of the movie is quite rushed, because the ending was inevitable. But the problem is there is little to say, we don’t see any of the battles in full on a lot of HYDRA Bases, Cap’s reaction to Bucky’s death is resolved in one scene and never talked about after, plus the wider impact of Cap’s apparent death isn’t explored at all. We also get little insight into the Howling Commandos.

But overall, it’s a strong movie, telling a mostly self-contained story and completing the heavy amount of setup required for the Avengers. And we’ll get to that next time.

Rating 75/100