Directed by:
Joe JohnstonCinematography:
Shelly JohnsonComposer:
Alan SilvestriCast:
Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayley Atwell, Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, Neal McDonough, Toby Jones, Anatole Taubman (more)Plots(1)
In 1942, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is deemed physically unfit to enlist in the U.S. Army and fight the Nazis in World War II. Volunteering instead for Project: Rebirth, a secret military operation, he is physically transformed into a super-soldier dubbed Captain America. With sidekick Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), he fights the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Hitler's treacherous head of advanced weaponry, whose own plan for world domination involves a seemingly magical object known as the Tesseract. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (15)
I’ve been a big fan of this project from the very start, so you can always take one star off, if you like, but just I can’t help myself. The Cap’n is exactly how I wanted him to be. Maybe it’s a little short, on the other hand it doesn’t lose any tempo anywhere. The intro with the puny young Steve is just great. Watching his futile attempts at joining the army and the training is even more entertaining that the elimination of Schmidt’s bases (the fantastic Hugo Weaving) thanks to the balanced doses of humor and selfless courage. Chris Evans did an excellent job with his portrayal of Rogers. Thanks to him, Captain America shakes off the image of parroting clown and turns into a convincing hero. But Peggy Hayley Atwell is equally important. Thanks to her, the romantic storyline is the strongest element of the movie. Neither the action, nor inventions, nor the demonic psychopath with the red face, but the sad ending dialog is what will get to you. I had a date. The lead-up to the Avengers is very obvious in this movie and it basically touches on all of the other worlds we have seen so far. Fundamental to this is the microworld of Thor and Iron Man, the Hulk is a side-effect from development of the serum. This excellent lead-up is topped off by the post-credits scene/trailer.
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This stupid bullshit has better reviews than the brilliant Green Hornet? Poor taste rules the world :D… Captain America felt bland already from the trailers, so I didn’t bother going to the cinema – thanks God for that! It’s been long since an expensive Hollywood blockbuster made me suffer so much. I didn’t like the story, the visuals were very ugly; I really can’t find anything to praise. After the trailer for Avengers (that looks every bit as derivative as the Captain and the other origin stories), I’m now feeling almost certain that the Marvel Universe will not produce anything great.
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He was the last one to the table, but when things get worse, you can be sure he'll be standing in the front lines. Steve Rogers stayed somewhat on the sidelines throughout the Avengers journey, but in the end, to my great surprise, he ends up being the one who got under my skin the most. His loyalty, bravery, and naivety in the most positive sense, combined with his style of fighting, are simply unrivaled. When the dark Red Skull or the self-sufficient Agent Carter join the party, there is nothing left to do but applaud. Marvel won this war, and I gained a hero I had thus far only seen on T-shirts for almost a decade since his origin story.
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I think I'm going to hide in Asian cinema for a while after this crap. I don't know why America is trying to mix the impossible lately. Suddenly the cinemas are full of sci-fi westerns and war fantasy action flicks. I'm turned off by the red monster that disrupted the rather excellent retro atmosphere (kudos to Hayley Atwell's make up). The tiny and determined kid becomes a super-powered idol rolling out one badass line after another. But was the invincible and mostly cheesy shield really necessary? 2.5 stars.
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I wanted to believe in it after the good trailers and mostly positive feedback. But Joe Johnston and I once again don’t see eye to eye. I don't mind the poetics of Captain America as such, I understand the time period and why the comic was created, and how it got moving according to Hollywood rules is appropriate to all of that. Yet the whole thing is so perfectly staged, it has a lot of visual frills, and it overflows with insight that is delivered by precisely cast actors, until in the last third I stopped enjoying it just because of how perfectly it copies the classic template. It's not the failure that Green Lantern was, and the king of the naive comic book films this year was Thor (and the film made do with half the bombast!).
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Gallery (231)
Photo © Paramount Pictures
![Captain America: The First Avenger - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/162/785/162785968_ac9856.jpg)
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