Captain America: The First Avenger is no Green Lantern...and thank God for that! Unlike Green Lantern, this big screen adaptation of the Marvel Comics creation of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is fun, exciting, has a coherent story and an engaging hero who has good romantic chemistry with his leading lady. This is how you do a comic book movie!
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) wants to serve his country, which is in the midst of World War II, but he’s a sickly, 90-pound weakling. After being rejected for military service a handful of times, Rogers is approached by German scientist, Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), to participate in a top secret experiment. Steve agrees, is injected with a serum that gives him super strength, thus becoming Captain America. After his dramatic transformation, Rogers is regulated to being a propaganda icon to rally the troops, but soon he is thrown into action to battle Nazi agent Johann Schmidt aka Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).
The film is directed with a steady hand by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, October Sky). He paces the picture nicely, building to some truly exciting action sequences. As for the screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, it is well constructed and gives us just enough character development to care.
This is an effects heavy movie, but in most instances they serve the picture. Through digital manipulation actor Chris Evans is ef fectively turned into a scrawny little guy. It looks amazing!
This would be all for naught if there wasn’t a compelling leading man. Sure, Evans is ridiculously good looking, but he’s not a bubble-headed piece of meat. No, this guy has personality and movie star caliber charisma. I mean, come on, The Losers was a terrible movie, but he was good in it.
In the character of British Strategic Scientific Reserve officer Peggy Cater, we get a tough female lead, well played by dark-eyed beauty Hayley Atwell. She’s in no way a weak damsel in distress and that is refreshing. Evans and Atwell are good together, creating two memorable characters. Their shy flirtation with one another is believable and cute.
The rest of the strong supporting cast includes Tommy Lee Jones as the gruff Colonel Chester Phillips and Toby Jones as the nefarious Dr. Arnim Zola.
Yeah, Thor was pretty good, but Captain America: The First Avenger is the comic book movie of the summer. It’s terrific entertainment in the Saturday matinee tradition.
