Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger, amusingly only called First  Avenger in South Korea, is in some ways the beginning of the Marvel  Cinematic Universe. It almost could have been the first film, telling  the titular heroes story while setting up the later Iron Man and Thor  installments, and of course leading into 2012's Avengers.

It opens with a strange ship found in the arctic, inside of which is  the frozen Captain America. Hence, any non-comic fans immediately know  that this hero’s story ends in tragedy.

Flashback t0 1941, where Johann Schmidt A.K.A. the Red Skull (Hugo  Weaving) is introduced. Schmidt is the head of Hydra, the Nazi deep  science division. Hydra raids a town in Norway in search of a Tesseract,  a cube (in the comics called the cosmic cube) of immense power,  apparently tied to Viking mythology. This item allows for fantastic  weapons and vehicles later seen in the film. This scene is reminiscent  of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and even has a backhanded reference to it as  Schmidt mocks Hitler for looking for “trinkets in the desert.” His final fate is also reminiscent of Indy films.

Cut to New York, where through some interesting special effects,  actor Chris Evans plays 90 pound weakling Steve Rogers. Due to his size  and a score of health problems he is rejected by 5 different recruiting  stations. Steve has strong moral convictions and desperately wants to  join the war effort. He sees the Nazis as nothing more than bullies that  need to be stopped. He’s also upset that his friend James Buchanan  “Bucky” Barnes not only has joined the Army, but is in the 107, which  Roger’s father was in when he died during World War One.

His moral courage gets the attention of escaped German scientist Dr.  Abraham Erskine, who gets him into a secret super soldier project. There  he meets later love interest agent Peggy Carter, who is British for some reason, and Colonel Phillips played by Tommy Lee Jones. Phillips is naturally skeptical of Rogers and doesn’t respect him, but Erskine realizes that Rogers is the correct choice because he is “a good man.”

Rogers is selected and, with the help of Howard Stark, Tony Stark’s/Iron Man’s father, goes through an experiment that transforms  him into a muscular semi-superhuman specimen. He’s not invulnerable and  not as strong and fast as ,say Superman, but he’s more athletic than any human, able to throw people good distances, is fast, can jump fairly  high etc.

Rogers is intended to be the first of many super soldiers, but a Nazi spy blows up the lab and kills Erskine, leading to Rogers first action  scene. It’s not really explained why the formula can’t be replicated, but in the comics Erksine memorized much of it, hence didn’t leave notes. The film drops the ball on that though.

Much to his humiliation Rogers is turned into a propaganda tool to  sell war bonds across the country, accompanied by songs and USO  showgirls. Here he gets the name Captain America, with a goofy looking  outfit reminiscent of the actual serial film made of Captain America in  1944,  and the triangular shaped shield he had in that era. Ironically  he also films a few movies. We also actually see first issue of the  Captain America comic book, which also appeared in Iron Man 2.  Interestingly the comic was first published in 1941, 7 months before  Pearl Harbor. In this world it was apparently published afterwards.

After a show in Italy before an uninterested audience of battle weary  G. I.s, Rogers learns is friend Barnes is behind enemy lines. He goes out on his own to rescue him and other soldiers, and has a great first  encounter with the Red Skull.

From here he leads Barnes and other soldiers in a special unit  specifically made to fight Hydra. One of the interesting features of  this movie is we don’t see all of his adventures. It’s understood that  he went on many missions but we don’t see them all. This leaves room for  more sequels and other tie in items set in this period, like the video  game Captain America: Super Soldier for instance.

The crux of this film is Rogers morality and determination. This  plays into his recruitment, his conviction to go through the painful  experiment, and his desire to lead men in battle. Even his final fate in  the war is not so much an accident as in the comics, but another  example of his moral courage.

Naturally there’s plenty of action, probably more than the Iron  Man’s, Hulk and Thor actually. It does capture it’s period very well. Some of the CGI background effects looked obvious, but I think it led to  a certain feel that they were purposely trying for.

One point of contention among fans is the lack of Nazi symbols. The  swastika appears real big in a scene in a movie theater, but aside from  that it’s hidden. A few Nazi officers have tiny Swastika pins, and they  have the armband, but the swastika on their arm band is never in view.  It makes sense story wise that Schmidt uses Hydra to strike out on his  own, even one upping the Nazi salute with a “Hail Hydra” accompanied by  two fists in the air (as opposed to the Nazis salute of one open hand  raised). Hydra has it’s own symbol and the uniform for their troops is  reminiscent of Star Wars storm troopers, who in turn were designed after  Nazi soldiers. Still, to go so far out of the way to hide Nazi symbols  is a testament to the strange sensibilities of our day. The Indiana  Jones series, which this film sought to emulate, took no qualms about  showing the swastika in all it’s evil glory.

Howard Stark is fun to watch, clearly the predecessor of his son, and also Roger’s weapons man A.K.A. the Q to Evans’ Bond. I would have  liked to have seen more of the soldiers, but there simply wasn’t enough  time. Rogers relationship with Carter is even more light than the romance in Thor, and based around the fact that she’s the first girl  that bothered to talk with Rogers, who has no idea how to talk to women.

Captain America covers a lot of ground in it’s two hours, maybe more so than it’s predecessors, but it’s a fun ride.  8/10.

Minor Marvel Movie-verse Spoilers.

The tesseract is hidden in a carving of the world tree from Viking  mythology, and is said to be the jewel of Odin’s treasure room. In the  comics, I always thought it was awkward that Thor, a Viking God, had such prominence in the Marvel Universe, especially given the amount of  mythological heroes available. In the Cinematic Universe it actually  makes more sense. Captain America connects us to the Nazis, who in real  life were into Viking mythology. A whole sub genre of science fiction is  based around Nazi super science/Nazi occultism (Like Indy). So in a superhero world it would make sense to have Viking mythology be real/the  superheroes/villains of their time. So I really liked that.

Rogers and Barnes have a double date to the Worlds Fair, which is similar in design to the Stark Expo in Iron Man 2, and has similar music  too. At one exhibit Professor Horton’s synthetic man is in full  display. This was the original Human Torch from the comics. (Not the  later Fantastic 4 Human Torch, ironically played by Evans)

Cap’s circular shield is made of the fictional metal Vibranium, but it’s not said where it came from.

We don’t hear the name but the men Rogers leads are the Howling  Commandos, led by Nick Fury in the comics. One addition they have is  James Falsworth, who in the comics becomes British hero Union Jack.

Howard Stark tries and fails to find Rogers in the arctic. He does find the cube, which presumably will be the basis for Arc Reactor  technology.

Barnes dies and that scene comes really fast.

At the very end Captain America is told that he was asleep for nearly 70 years. I wish they just said “a long time” or something like that.  As the movies continue, they will always be presumed to be set in the  present, so that will get dated fast.

There’s not really an extra scene after the credits but instead an  actual trailer for next years Avengers, which is filming right now.

I run a fansite for the Marvel Cinematic Universe at http://marvelmovieworld.webs.com.

http://jemurr.wordpress.com/<br />
<br />
http://www.youtube.com/user/murmanpoet

Last updated: 2011-09-22 05:33:58 by jemurr