Movie Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

I've never cared too much for Captain America before the MCU, and that's probably the most polite way that I could put it. He's a guy that runs around in a flag, and as a non-American, whenever he shows up in the comics he's tolerable at best. I know of him from old Spider-Man comics or whatever, but unlike many other superheroes that I was aware of prior to 2011, I really did not care for the star-spangled man with a plan. 

Until, of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't think Captain America became a favourite of mine overnight because of this movie, no -- it'd be a combination of The Avengers, Winter Soldier and Civil War and at some point I realized that I really, really actually do like Chris Evans' very earnest portrayal of Captain Steve Rogers. And honestly, they do tread the line very, very well with the writing of MCU Cap in order to make him still represent the values of U.S.A. but still be accessible enough as a generic 'freedom and justice' hero that isn't tied to a specific nation. But I'm not really here to discuss the concept of the character himself, I'm here to discuss the movie.

And it's a pretty good movie! At this point, everyone was really looking forward to The Avengers, and this movie having the subtitle of The First Avenger really is trying to cement the fact that, yes, this movie is going to tie together Iron Man and Thor (and, okay, Incredible Hulk a bit) and lead everything to the big crossover movie in 2012. And a lot of stuff are less one-line hints and turned into huge monologues. The plot device, the Tesseract, is explicitly noted by the Red Skull as being a powerful Asgardian artifact. Tony Stark's dad Howard is a major supporting character, and the rest of Steve's war buddies would go on to establish SHIELD. The final scene is even Steve Rogers waking up after spending time as a popsicle in the year of 2012, under the ministrations of Nick Fury. 

And just like the original Thor and Iron Man... they do kind of play it safe with this one, basically going through a lot of the main parts of Steve Rogers' backstory. Everything is done very well, though which is pretty important, I feel, and a lot of the scenes in this movie would end up informing Steve Rogers' character development all throughout the MCU, which is pretty neat. The plot starts in the '40's, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe's fantastic version of World War II. And we get introduced to our good buddy Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a sickly, asthmatic spindly young man who wants to go and fight in the front lines because he just wants to help people. And all around him, his far more buff and soldier-boy-type best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) kind of tell him that it's all right and that there are other ways to help out... but Steve is determined to do his part in the war, leading to his chance encounter with Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), an eccentric German scientist that's part of the SSR -- Strategic Scientific Reserve -- who's recruiting young men for a super soldier program. 

And I really do like that the two huge qualities that Steve Rogers has and is emphasized is his huge heart and desire to help others (that scene where he jumps on a dud grenade probably emphasizes why he is the best choice there) and actually using his brain at times (the flag scene). Eventually, under the eyes of Erskine, British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Colonel Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), Steve Rogers basically proves himself to be the most mentally and emotionally stable. A lot of this honestly boils down to the acting, and Evans interacts very, very well with Atwell and Tucci that makes me actually get invested in the character. Also, his sheer pluckiness. "I can do this all day" and all that. There's honestly not too much to say here, but there are a lot of actually neat moments between Rogers and his supportive cast. Mostly Bucky, Peggy and Erskine. 

Ultimately, Steve gets shoved into a machine and gets injected with a combination of a super-soldier serum and some Vita Rays. Oh, and Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) is there too! Howard is pretty fun in this movie, although he isn't as huge a presence as I expected him to be. Steve Rogers gains powerful muscles, just in time to fight the Hydra assassin who infiltrated the demonstration. He's too late to save Dr. Erskine, but after a pretty cool scene where he displays what a super-soldier is all about, Rogers rips out the Hydra assassin out of a fancy submarine and does some neat blocking with a trash-can lid. 

While all of this is going on, the movie cuts away now and then to the main villain. Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), a.k.a. the Red Skull, leader of Hydra, a sub-sect within the Nazis. Schmidt is obsessed with gaining powerful artifacts, and the one we're dealing with in this movie is a glowing blue cube called the Tesseract, an energy source that was once the artifact of Asgard. Schmidt is noted to be the result of an earlier super-soldier program, but one that resulted in physical deformities and implied mental instability. Oh, and the nebbish Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) plays off as the more entertaining, panicky sidekick to Schmidt's more badass vibe. Schmidt's ultimate plan is... global domination or something. He betrays the Nazis, and his master plan would involve attacking all the major cities in the world simultaneously. Or something. 

And... and the second act of the movie is a bit slow, but Steve Rogers is basically paraded around as 'Captain America', a colourful costume to get war bonds or some stuff, since all the higher-ups don't really put too much stock in just a single super-soldier. In a tour where he performs on the front lines, Rogers finds out that his best buddy Bucky is MIA against a Hydra base, and with the aid of Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, we get Captain America essentially launching a solo operation to single-handedly free hundreds of soldiers and wipe out an entire Hydra base. He rescues Bucky, a whole lot of other soldiers who would become his Howling Commandos (Dum Dum Dugan and the others are basically glorified cameos, though) and gets a face-to-face with Red Skull. 

The dynamic between the two... they're rivals. Throughout the movie, that's basically about it -- Red Skull gets a couple of monologues about superiority and stuff. Hugo Weaving is fun as he chews the scenery, but otherwise Red Skull is kind of a run-the-mill comic-book villain. He's better than Abomination or Whiplash or Malekith, but he only really fits this movie's themes insomuch that Captain America is fighting an evil version of himself that stands against all the values he stands for. 

We then get a montage of Captain America and his Howling Commanders doing World War II stuff, and... and it's neat. Howard Stark makes a shield out of the super-rare and super-durable metal Vibranium. And... and it's mostly a bunch of neat good moments to show the passage of time and just how much Captain America becomes an icon in this version of history. And also to give some time for the budding romance between Rogers and Peggy to grow. And compared to the rest of its Phase I counterparts, theirs might be the one I feel like it worked the most? After the montage, we get the second act's action scene, where a raid on a train leads to the apparent death of Bucky and the capture of Arnim Zola. Bucky's death drives Rogers into a bit of a despairing moment (though it honestly doesn't last for too long) while Zola's capture leads to the plot-related stuff to set up the final battle. 

The final battle is pretty neat, though also slightly too long. Rogers manages to get on the massive Hydra aircraft, prevent the launch of the (actually kinda cute) weird helicopter-mini-ships and fight Red Skull for a bit. During the fight, the Tesseract falls out of its container, and when the Red Skull handles it while monologuing, he gets atomized and seemingly sent into space. However, the plane itself still carries a lot of bombs, and in an act of sacrifice, Steve Rogers crash-lands the plane in the Arctic, entombing himself and the plane in ice for 70 years. What makes this scene work very, very well, again, is the Peggy/Steve romance that actually feels pretty well-done. The fact that Steve is willing to sacrifice everything, even his happy life and his 'dance' with Peggy, that ultimately he's still the guy that would jump on the grenade to protect the people around him... that is actually a pretty well-done story arc. 

And then, of course, the final scene of the movie shows Cap being defrosted, still preserved in the same age, and finding himself waking up in the year 2011/2012-ish, with the war he's fought over for seventy years but then gets roped into the Avengers program by Nick Fury almost immediately. 

I honestly had a hard time writing this review, mostly because I really didn't have much to say about it. This movie is just... it's just solid! It's not the best, but it's definitely not bad at all. Red Skull provides a pretty decent villain that isn't bad, but not too impressive. The broad strokes of Captain America's backstory and how it needs to tie into the storyline we have for the Avengers is laid out pretty well. All the characters (except for the rather underutilized Howling Commandos) all get their chance to shine. I very much appreciate a lot of the smaller moments that Steve Rogers has that humanizes him and keeps reminding us that he's a hero even before he gets the super-steroids, something that gets built up upon a lot in subsequent movies, and easily my favourite part about the character. 

This movie is pretty solid, even if they kind of know that it's mostly serving as a backdrop and an origin story for the good Captain. It's really not my favourite part of the MCU without being actually bad, but some of the best movies -- like Captain America: Winter Soldier and The Avengers are explicitly sequels that wouldn't make as much sense without watching this one. So yeah, overall a very solid movie. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Post Credits Scene: It's just the Avengers trailer! Keep in mind just how huge it was at the time.
  
• Stan the Man: Stan Lee is a confused general who expected 'Captain America' to be taller.
• Future Movies Foreshadowing: Nothing, really? Everything is basically pretty much laid out or are major plot devices. 
• Past Movie Continuity: The Stark Expo from the first two Iron Man movies is seen in all its glory. Red Skull monologues about Yggdrasil and how the Tesseract is the crown jewel of Odin's treasure room, and retrieves the Tesseract from the town of Tønsberg, briefly seen in Thor's prologue scenes as a town where Asgardians visited in the past. 
• Movie Superhero Codenames:
• Played with? "Captain America" is more of a stage name when he's used as a propaganda tool, and he's otherwise called by his actual name. 'Cap' gets tossed around a lot, though. 
• Johann Schmidt is ever only called by his real name, and his codename, 'Red Skull', is only spoken once by a Nazi officer who uses it as an insult.
• Favourite Action Scene: Less of a single action scene, but probably the train battle. The original fight against the Hydra assassin is all right, too. 
• Funniest Line: "I've knocked out Adolf Hitler about 200 times." 
• Obviously, the whole 'star spangled man with a plan' is a riff on the actual WWII propaganda comics, and punching Hitler, well, you could see the very first cover of the very first Captain America has that. 
• Arnim Zola is first seen from the POV of a magnifying glass. In the comics, Arnim Zola is famous for walking around in a robot body that has a screen with his face on it.