Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
THE SCOOP
Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci
Plot: After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America's ideals.
Plot: After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America's ideals.
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi
Awards: -
Runtime: 124min
Rating: PG for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
It is
with irony to note that Captain America: The First Avenger features
the origin story of the final major superhero character that will return in the
very highly anticipated Marvel blockbuster The Avengers (2012)
next year.
Directed
by Joe Johnston, a visual effects guru who won an Oscar for Indiana
Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and is most
well-known for directing Jurassic Park III (2001), Captain
America is a Hollywood blockbuster in the traditional mould – loud,
action-packed, predictable, and two hours worth of, in this case, above average
entertainment.
Chris
Evans stars as Steve Rogers, a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who despite being
bullied, never backs off from a fight. He
desperately wants to serve his country in WWII but is deemed medically unfit
for military service. Dejected and
disappointed, Steve however gets the chance to serve as a volunteer for a
secret military experiment. The result
is a beefed up body with bulging muscles, and incredible strength and
dexterity.
Steve
becomes Captain America, initially as a marketing gimmick to sell war bonds,
but later as fate would have it, a shining symbol of American power and pride,
and a defender of America’s ideals.
Evan’s performance is
weak and he has an almost negligible screen presence. This is perhaps the biggest flaw of the entire
film. I am very curious to see how Joss
Whedon, who will be writing and directing The Avengers, tackle this
problem.
The cast
gives mostly sub-standard performances with only Tommy Lee Jones giving a
memorable supporting turn as a high-ranking colonel. Moreover, much of the humor in this film comes
from Jones cracking sarcastic one-liners. So as you can see, Jones is still reliable,
and in Captain America, he is more important than you would think,
considering Evans is truly disappointing.
The
visual effects are not particularly outstanding, but they are serviceable to
the story, never overwhelming the main conflict between Captain America and Red
Skull (Hugo Weaving), the film’s primary villain. The film is set in the late 1930s, hence the
retro-looking art direction, though I have a problem with the
all-too-futuristic design of some of the film’s props (e.g. Red Skull’s
airplane).
The
action sequences are old-school shoot-and-blow-‘em-ups but they are quite
well-executed. The film is generally
enjoyable if you leave your expectations at home, but those who expect more
from Marvel will not be rewarded.
Captain
America is a
few notches lower in quality (story and character-wise) than Thor (2011),
which I feel is indisputably this summer’s best blockbuster. However, at the very least, it gets us psyched
up for next year’s epic screen culmination of Marvel superheroes.
GRADE: C+ (6.5/10 or 3 stars)
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