Let's Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

After viewing Thor I was actually quite worried about Captain America. While I did think Thor was a good movie, there was something always holding it back that kept me from fully enjoying it. My worry was that Captain America would suffer from the same problem and that Marvel was just trying to get them out of the way before going into The Avengers movie. Were my worries correct? Let’s Review Captain America: The First Avenger.

The Negative

I want to say first that every single one of my complaints are simple nitpickings and the issues did very little to ruin my enjoyment of this film. That being said, my first issue resides in the scene where Steve Rogers first gains his powers and is chasing down Dr Erskine’s assassin. I understand that he isn’t used to his massive muscular build yet, but the whole scene just seems really awkward looking. I compare it to the first Spider-man film’s car chase scene with Uncle Ben’s murderer. That scene demonstrated Peter Parker getting used to web swinging as well as learning how to best use his new agility. My problem with the Captain America film’s car chase scene is that it looks exactly how it sounds. A very tall muscular man is trying to catch up with a car. He bumbles through the streets and then looks extremely silly when he leaps onto the car. The whole scene just looked really awkward but I’m not sure how else they could have done it.

My second complaint comes around the scene where Captain America is rushing through a crowd of Hydra soldiers in an attempt to catch up with Red Skull’s jet, The Valkyrie. In order to get past all the soldiers Cap decides to grab a hanging chain and swing past them all. There is an incredibly sudden jump cut where we see Captain America running towards the jet. I might have blinked but I should think it wouldn’t be that difficult to film a scene where he landed first and then started running. This particular scene also has some of the worst digital graphics in it as the long hallway for the jet seemed particularly out of place against all of the real life characters. That said, Bucky’s death sequence also had poor digital effects as it looked like he was going to hit the ground way before the scene was going to cut away, but he just kept falling. It just looked weird.

My final complaint is that for being placed within World War II, there is a surprisingly large amount of sci-fi lasers and technology flying about. I understand that Hydra was the Nazi’s science division and that this all falls within a realm of disbelief, but I found myself having a hard time staying with the film when suddenly they World War II battlefield had lasers shooting all over it. Once again, these are all minor complaints and did not ruin the film for me.

The Positive

Now that I have all of that out of the way…THIS FILM WAS AWESOME! I enjoyed absolutely every second of it. If there was one film that Marvel created that perfectly adapted the entire comic book it came from, this would be that film. Absolutely everything was done perfectly and I loved every single second of it.

I was worried at first when I heard that the former Human Torch was going to be the one playing Captain America, but I was completely wrong. Chris Evans does an amazing job portraying our Star-Spangled hero throughout his entire life easily showing the weak but strong willed kid, the egotistical yet bored super star going across the nation, the rise of a powerful leader who can charge into battle without fear, to the lost soldier being a man out of time. Everything was played out perfectly.

I also want to praise Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull. More so than then any other villain portrayal like Green Goblin, the Abomination, or even Loki did this portrayal get so close to the mark. If I had to picture the Red Skull this is exactly how I would have pictured him. The look was exactly how he is suppose to look, his motives were the same motives that have carried him through the pages of comics for years, the way he reacted to situation was perfectly done how the Red Skull would have acted. This was in my opinion a perfect portrayal of the character.

In Conclusion

This was by far a masterpiece on Marvel’s part. I loved every single moment of this film and it is now one of my absolute favorite superhero films. A fantastic final piece to the buildup of the Avengers movie, let’s just hope that the Avengers film lives up to all the hype these films have been giving it. 4.5 out of 5