Captain America is the story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) an American in the 40's whose ailments prevents him from joining the army and defending his country. A scientist (Stanley Tucci) sees potential in the scrawny idealist and helps him to enlist in a secret program that turns him into a superhero. Also starring Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Cooper, and Agent Smith from The Matrix. If you've been reading my blog at all then I won't have to say how much I enjoyed the fact that this movie takes place during World War II, but I will anyways. I do enjoy period pieces. Countries tried some crazy shit in the hopes of gaining the upper hand in WWII (Hiroshima, anyone?) and genetic mutation to create super-humans isn't really that far-fetched (using some magic power-of-the-gods stuff to achieve that though, maybe (but I wouldn't put it past the Nazis)). So the moral of the story is that I liked the basis for the plot and setting. I also liked Chris Evans as Captain America. I found Ryan Reynolds to be distractingly good-looking in Green Lantern, and Evans seemed to be just the right amount of good-looking. He has this all-American quality to him, which is probably appropriate considering the movie. This movie also used some super technology to make Evans look really scrawny for the first bit, and it was so believable that it makes his character really likeable throughout, Captain America is truly a decent guy, even with a six-pack. I really liked Tommy Lee Jones, even though his character is pretty generic, he has that balance of hard-ass and softie that plays well for military characters. Stanly Tucci does a quality German accent and adds a bit of depth to all his roles, regardless of how small. Dominic Cooper (Sky from Mamma Mia) could have been played by anyone but I like the tie-in to Iron Man (he plays Tony Stark's father). Hayley Atwell played the love interest, they never explained why she was British (unless I missed it) and it bothered me how she didn't wear a helmet in combat (presumably because it would mess up her hair and be unlady-like) but her character was likeable enough.
This brings us now to the villain - Schmidt/Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving. I just didn't find him very scary or intimidating, and the fact that the serum turned his face red was kind of random. I don't know if the writers were hoping that a Nazi as a villain would be enough, because Nazi's are the worst kind of people, and that should speak for itself? I also had issue with Captain America's costume/uniform (I can't think of the word), it's kind of dirty and boring. And other than being stronger and faster than he was before (and brave to begin with) what, exactly, are his super-powers? It seems like a lot of his awesomeness comes from that shield, and well, that's just a shield. The ending was also kind of a let-down, clearly it's setting up for The Avengers movie, which is all well and fine, but darn it, he had a date with Peggy for next week, and what ever happened to that?!
All in all though, I did enjoy this movie. The casting was great, skinny Chris Evans was cool, and the retro 40's thing was appealing. I also thought it was really neat how they used actual recruitment/propaganda posters during the ending credits - clever and visually stimulating. I rate this movie better than Green Lantern, but not as good as X-Men: First Class.
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