LogFAQs > #967333828

Captain America: The First Avenger
Release Date: July 22, 2011
Stand-Out Character: Captain America/Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans)
Best Scene: Captain America vs. Red Skull & Hydra on Aircraft

Captain America's first venture has a lot of good to it, but it seems lacking in some areas. It's also a lot crazier than I remembered.

Steve Rogers is a scrawny geek who wants to join the U.S. Army. Eventually, a scientist enlists him due to his persistence and then gives him a super soldier serum to turn him into the ruggedly handsome and strong soldier. Meanwhile, the villainous super nazi Red Skull has a plan to win World War II by using the Tesseract which grants him a great amount of power. Rogers eventually proves his worth by saving a group of kidnapped soldiers before leading the charge against Red Skull. Eventually, Captain America sacrifices himself to stop Red Skull from dropping a super powered nuke on top of America and ends up frozen until present day.

I love a lot of this movie, because it really makes you appreciate Steve Rogers. It's honestly astounding how well Chris Evans plays this character. He is such a definitive hero here and it's not even close. You see him from humble beginnings and the script is so good at making you root for Cap. This movie sets forth Captain America being such a great character in the MCU, and it doesn't get enough credit for that. His scenes with Dr. Erskine in particular are tremendous.

The entire main cast is really great at what they do. Stanley Tucci plays Dr. Erskine who helps support the idea that it's all about heart to a pessimistic Colonel Phillips (played by Tommy Lee Jones). One scene that sticks out is how Phillips is talking about how Rogers doesn't have what it takes and tosses down that grenade, only for Rogers being the only one to jump on it. And then everything leading up to the super soldier scene, and the encouragement and care that Haley Atwell's Peggy Carter shows is wonderful. And then her further bold encouragement is perfect too, where she goes from treating Rogers with more care when he's fragile to treating him like the strong man he is when he's got the super soldier serum.

If Steve Rogers wasn't so strong in this movie, Peggy Carter would absolutely be my stand-out for this movie. Peggy moves so much of this movie along and supplements Steve's character so well. Without her, this movie is so much weaker. She never feels like she's not a strong enough character on her own either. It's really sad that she's secluded to this one movie (cameos aside) because she's such a great character. Oh and Howard Stark played by Dominic Cooper was fun too. Not much else to say there.

There are so many wonderful steps from the moment Steve is recruited, to becoming the super soldier, to taking down the assassin, and then taking charge to infiltrate and rescue the soldiers from Red Skull. Perfect character escalation. We see him go through the whole story to become a proper hero, tied with a bow at the end where he sacrifices himself to save the United States, doing exactly what he said he was willing to do from the start. It's really, really a perfect origin story.

The problem comes from what happens in between. The parts from Cap's Howling Commandos rescue to the end are just not nearly as strong as everything else that centers around Steve's development. Despite having Hugo Weaving deliver a great performance as Red Skull with plenty of great moments, he's a character that absolutely needed to be around for another film... which we sadly never got. I'm just flat out not in love with everything Red Skull does in general, and I think that it becomes a little bit more meandering as Cap and the crew are dismantling Hydra to get to him. It really does feel like the movie is just a little too long.

Shout outs to Toby Jones' Arnim Zola btw. He really sells how horrific Red Skull is to the point where even he seems horrified by him in most scenes at his brutality. His performance, as small as it may be, is really masterful. Hugo Weaving does a great job selling the terror of Red Skull too, while being oddly suave at the same time? Like casually just getting into his getaway jet and then tossing his nazi keys to Zola and saying "Don't scratch ze paint" so Zola can drive away in his nazi car. I think they worked a little bit too hard trying to make Red Skull come across as "cool". I think maybe just focus on sticking with the horrible super nazi stuff.

Bucky feels, uh, in a word underutilized as well. Sebastian Stan also didn't seem like he really understood the character too much, and it wasn't his best performance. His death is super anti-climatic and not really interesting? Granted we all know what it turns into, so it all works out in the end, but it's worth mentioning.

Now earlier I mentioned that this movie is actually crazy. I completely forgot about the freaking Tesseract laser rifles and super powered suits and everything. Does anyone remember THE VAPORIZING LASER TANK? I didn't remember this! And I feel like that's something I should definitely remember! There's a lot of really cool things that I just really forgot about, but it all kind of blends together into that mush of action I was talking about that's far less interesting. Oh, and the last scene? Where Cap is literally JUMPING FROM JET TO JET as he chases down the Hydra carrier. And then the whole vaporizing scene with the Tesseract? It's all complete madness that I completely forgot how absolutely outrageous it was. It's actually all really fun! But... it doesn't feel like it's enough to carry that part of the movie? It's weird.

Like I bet when you guys think back to Captain America you remember the grenade scene, the super soldier transformation, the song and dance numbers. I doubt you all remember the fight scenes in between as much. It's a movie carried by the story of Steve Rogers with the backdrop of a World War II sci-fi setting. And that's actually really fine, honestly. Without this characterization of Cap, we don't get the tremendous character that is Captain America in the MCU.

So yeah, I enjoy this movie. But it's really a struggle to say how much I really enjoy it, because it feels so lopsided. But I always remember the great scenes with Steve Rogers, so I can at least appreciate it for that.

Oh, somehow more jarring than anything is how the end credits scene for this movie is a straight up, full on commercial for The Avengers. Just a complete commercial, not a teaser or anything. It's wild.

Girlfriend Thoughts: She has always really liked Cap and enjoyed seeing him here. She definitely liked all of the Rogers stuff a lot more than the war stuff. She also loved the song and dance number and I felt compelled to show her the Captain America punching Hitler cover. She was bored throughout this though, and I don't necessarily blame her. She thought Red Skull looked horrifying, and I kind of agree. He had really good effects. Her reaction to Bucky "dying" was more or less "Wait, that's what happened?" She refused to believe that Neal McDonough's character was named Dum Dum Dugan. She also said she wished that Peggy and Steve got together. I reminded her they kind of did.