Monday, 12 September 2011 Captain America: The First Avenger 3D (Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving) Posted by joeldfisher at 07:59

America has almost completely cornered the market in the film industry, when you think of cinema, you think of Hollywood. America has a certain reputation of national pride and to an extent it could be said a great sense of self worth, who some may say is not always deserved. In the 1940's Captain America was created to help boost the moral of the American public during the war. Everything good, noble and patriotic was shoved into one character to remind the public what their troops are fighting for. In the 60's comic-book god Stan Lee revived the character, given the Cold War, he felt that America needed a symbol again to fight the forces of evil and Cap's been going strong ever since.

These days, however, the rest of the world sees America as an overly proud, self congratulatory nation that is deluded in it's own sense of self importance. There are numerous jokes about how America thought they won World War Two single-handedly and how they seem to continue governing all the major conflicts in the world today like it's their own personal crusade so making a movie about a character called Captain America is a risky move, one that in the wrong hands could become a new joke all of its own.

Captain America: The First Avenger tells the story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans; The Fantastic Four, Scott Pilgrim vs The World), a diminutive man who has a passion for his country and for what is worth fighting. He's given the chance to enlist in the army, despite his size and other physical problems he may have provided he takes part in a new experiment to make him into a super soldier. Willingly sacrificing himself for his country, Rogers enlists without a second thought and becomes the man he always wanted to be, Captain America.

This movie could have very easily taken a route down the cheesy path that we all recognise. Steve Rogers could have been an arrogant American who believes his country is the only one that can truly save the world and thus his transformation would have lead to the whooping and cheering that all American audiences are thought to do in such patriotic circumstances. However Chris Evans' portrayal of Steve Rogers is of a humble man, a man aware of his self worth but with the knowledge that he is only one man and only one man can make a big difference when it counts so he is an admirable character, whether you're an American or not.

As the story continues we are introduced to an impressive supporting cast. Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci; The Lovely Bones, Burlesque) is a kindly, German scientist who Tucci has a lot of fun with, his accent may not be completely authentic but he brings light and warmth into the character as only he knows how. Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones; In The Valley of Elah, No Country For Old Men) is played with relish, Tommy Lee Jones is soon due to reprise his role as Agent K in Men In Black III and he fully flexes his comedy muscles as the sharp-witted all-American soldier, if you've seen Small Soldiers, Men In Black and Batman Forever then you'll know what to expect from this performance and no doubt, you'll love it.

Finally The Red Skull, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving; The Wolfman, the forthcoming movie The Hobbit) is evil beyond evil. Having such great character actors as Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving in the same movie is a definite plus and particularly Weaving's performance is the creation of another great cinema villain that cinema goers will remember for a long time.

The story of Captain America has evolved over the years in the comics, as it had to in order to survive. However this being a period piece it enabled director, Joe Johnston (The Wolfman, Jurrasic Park III) to poke fun at the genre as well as homage it and the balance of comedy, satire and action is well balanced. As well as their being sly nods to other movies that inspired Johnston during the making of the movie, the tone gets into Indiana Jones action territory and Johann Schmidt (who is so evil he is even betraying the Nazis) makes a reference that he's going after bigger things while Hitler is searching for trinkets in the desert.

Captain America: The First Avenger is probably the best superhero movie of the year, not a great accolade most of the time but considering Marvel's full-frontal assault on the superhero movie genre, gearing up for their climax, The Avengers next year then they certainly left the best for last. The worst thing about it is that, without giving too much away, I very much doubt that there will be a Captain America 2. Considering the final outcome of the movie I believe that Marvel have used up probably their greatest resource too soon and I for one am certainly hoping for more.