Captain America: The First Avenger

A Prelude

Like IRON MAN, John Favreau's surprisingly good superhero film, Joe Johnston's CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, has a sense of respect for its subject. Rather than condescendingly pandering with overlong montage, quick and lazy action, and a stupid lead character, the hero Captain America is endearing rather than mechanistic. Beginning with a scrawny Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, a wannabe soldier, CAPTAIN AMERICA slowly builds an environment around its lead, exhibiting Rogers as a feisty but muscle-weak 1940's kid who'd never spoken to a girl. Just as it is with all origin stories, Rogers is picked up by luck by a strange scientist who vows to get Rogers into the army. Despite being previously rejected for his asthma among other ailments, Rogers finds himself in training camp underneath a wonderfully curmudgeonry Tommy Lee Jones, failing every test of brawn, but winning every in brain. The strange scientist handpicks the weakling Rogers for his experiment, and scientifically, by way of Thor's father's magical power on earth (which Iron Man also uses for sustenance), Steve Rogers is transformed into Captain America. At first, he is put aside as a rallying figure for the war, but later he is used in the war with a motley crew of excitingly offbeat characters. CAPTAIN AMERICA is often pretty stupid, but only willingly so: for example, having a Nazi nemesis named the Red Skull who forces his stormtrooper-esque followers to chant: Heil Hydra! However, despite its falls into goofiness, CAPTAIN AMERICA is often fun in a traditional way which it knows it is trying to evoke. It's not great cinema, but it's fine summer entertainment / Avengers movie prelude.
Captain America: The First Avenger: ★★★