Now I know why it took me so long to watch this movie: it’s bad. Well, it’s bad for a blockbuster movie. In reality, all Captain America does it show off the plot line for the Tesseract that would fill the majority of The Avengers, and the rest of the movie gave us the introduction for who Captain America is. It’s a throwaway movie in my opinion, serving no real purpose other than to create the character for The Avengers.
That’s not to say that the movie wasn’t entertaining nor enjoyable. I did like watching it because, well, it’s a superhero movie, and they are always filled with great action sequences and characterization. While I do have my gripes with the plot, it is decent. Set in 1942/1943, Johann Schmidt, also known as Red Skull, finds the tesseract and begins to harness its power for weaponry. In America, Steve Rogers is a sickly young man who wants to join the army. A scientist overhears him talking to his friend James Barnes who is going into the military and decides that Steve may be perfect for an experimental serum he developed.
After some tests with the military, the scientist, named Abraham Erskine, tells Steve about the experiment that would turn him into a super soldier. Steve agrees to it, and after taking the serum, becomes super strong, faster, and just a more powerful person overall. Erskine is killed by one of Red Skulls henchmen after the treatment, and after Rogers chases him and catches him, the henchman kills himself with cyanide.
Following this event, Rogers is made to be “Captain America” in order to promote the war by performing with a group across the nation. While in Italy, he learns that his friend Barnes is MIA, and goes on a rescue mission to find him. This chain of events leads him to become the super hero Captain America.
The biggest problem that I have with this movie, and many other action movies that do this, is have a romance sub-plot that means nothing. In this movie, Cap begins falling in love with Peggy Carter, an officer with the military corps. The beginning of this love stems only because she is the first women to pretty much talk to Steve Rogers in his life, and the rest because he becomes Captain America. This romance serves no purpose other than to fill time and give us something else to watch when nothing is going on. As much as I can enjoy romance every now and again, no action movie needs a love plot unless that’s the point of the movie in the first place. The most pointless scene in the entire movie involves Steve kissing another women and Peggy becoming jealous… and this is something that’s never talked about after it happens, nor does it matter in retrospect.
Also, the ending of the movie is bad. I won’t spoil anything, but let’s just say that while they make Captain America out to be a selfless person who will sacrifice himself to save others, his actions in the end go too far and make little sense to me. All it does is, again, move the plot along for The Avengers; hell, this allows him to even be in the big blockbuster in the first place. One other thing, this movie also introduces Tony Stark’s father just to give us the tie in with the Iron Man series and again, allude to the fact that this is indeed a Marvel film. While Howard Stark is a somewhat important character, it could have been anybody.
The acting is pretty good though. Chris Evans plays the role of Steve Rogers/Captain America well, going from this weakling who wants nothing more than to be in the army, to a burgeoning superhero with a lot of intelligence and courage. James Barnes reflects those sentiments in Rogers, and while I hate the love relationship, Peggy Carter’s character is well done, providing a good female counterpart to the movie. Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of Red Skull is awesome; his mannerisms and actions make his characters more evil. The rest of the cast rounds out a good group of characters playing supporting roles well.
The action, of course, is pretty good. There are instances of “why are the bad guys such idiots” when they don’t try and shoot the good guys, or just kill them outright, but nothing is really over the top. My only gripe with the action is that there is a montage of action events after Steve officially becomes Captain America, and these could have all been explained (or even become a full movie altogether). Instead, we have the romance subplot.
Captain America: The First Avenger isn’t the worst movie, but in my opinion, it’s really just a cash-in and a holdover for the big feature film. While it’s important in introducing Captain America, the rest of the film does little to provide enough of a reason to watch it. The action is good, but not memorable, and the movie itself drags on in the beginning to get to the important parts. Overall, it’s worth watching for continuity in the Marvel universe, but if you don’t care about Marvel movies, this movie isn’t for you.
I rate Captain America a 6.5/10.
Monahan's Mind 