This is a review that has long been in development. Finally came out with it.
After having been disappointed more than overjoyed by the offerings of superhero flicks this year, it was hard for me to harbor any form of high expectations for the last big-name superhero movie of 2011. It was still hard to discount Joe Johnston’s interpretation of one of the more iconic heroes from Stan Lee’s stable of superhuman misfits.
Captain America: the First Avenger stars Chris Evans, who already previously played a Marvel character as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in Fantastic 4 (2005) and Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). At first, I found it hard to reconcile that the movie studio executives cast an actor who had already been cast in a lead role of a superhero film. In my mind, this casting was almost at the same level as Ryan Reynolds being cast as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in Green Lantern after portraying Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). While the Reynolds casting was more or less forgivable in the sense that Green Lantern and Deadpool lived in separate comic book universes – GL is a DC character and Deadpool comes from Marvel – the Evans casting was harder to iron out as a good choice.
What’s odd, though, is that I didn’t find the casting of both Tommy Lee Jones – who played Harvey Dent/Two Face in Batman Forever (1995) – and Hugo Weaving – who portrayed V in V for Vendetta (2006) – as hard pills to swallow. Maybe it was because either their role had already been re-cast – Aaron Eckhart played Jones’ role in The Dark Knight (2010) – or the actor’s face was never really seen in his previous comic book movie (Weaving).
Despite having these casting issues to think about, anticipation for the movie still built up in me ever since the shield of the title character made a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2. In an act of preventing disappointment, though, I removed any semblance of high expectations about the movie. In my mind, I was heading to the cinema to watch what should be a good action movie. And in the end, I guess that worked.
The movie revolves around the story of Steve Rogers (Evans), a frail-framed wannabe soldier who is recruited for an experiment that changed his life and made him the hero who symbolized America’s fight against Nazis in the Second World War, embodied in this movie by Hydra, an organization headed by a man known as Red Skull (Weaving), who later on is revealed to have been the first subject of an imperfect formulation of the experimental serum Rogers was also subjected to.
As a narrative, the movie was very successful in my opinion. While the main storyline (Rogers’ journey) was wrapped in the discovery of Captain America’s body in the North Pole and his recruitment into S.H.I.E.L.D., it was still very much a well-told story. The audience was given a chance to sympathize with Rogers, who attempted so many times to be enlisted into the army, only to fall short metaphorically and literally. He is then subjected to even more trials despite having these new and incredible capabilities, as he is relegated to being only a mascot, going around the US to seek support for the war effort. But the prime reason for his recruitment for the experiment, his desire to fight for the cause and compassion for his fellowmen, was what brought out the hero in him. It was also what distinguished him from Red Skull, who was rotten through and through and whose basic desire for domination was only exponentially magnified by the serum. The whole movie itself also set an even bigger story arch for the Marvel Studios very well. It gave the up and coming movie The Avengers (set for release in 2012) one of the two leaders that it had in the comic books and did so in a very impressive fashion. And if movie goers waited until the end of the credits, they will have gotten even more hyped up about that assembly of Marvel’s superheroes in next year’s movie.
As far as acting goes, I have to say that I am very pleased with the performances of all of the actors. From the lead actors to to supporting ones, everyone contributed performance-wise to this movie being entertaining.
Evans himself was surprisingly impressive. In this movie he showed that he can handle more serious and ponderous roles. Granted he is no Christian Bale or Leonardo Di Caprio, whose renditions of all their characters bring a certain level of gravity to the films that they are in, Evans was still able to display a range that marked him as a very talented actor. With this performance, he separated himself from the rest of the “All-American Joe” actors such as Channing Tatum, and Chris Klein.
There is nothing more I can say about Hugo Weaving, of whom I have been a great fan ever since his roles as Agent Smith in The Matrix (1999) and Elrond in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003). His Red Skull/Johann Schmidt was a character that was neither V nor Agent Smith, but was somehow a new character he thought of while studying the film.
Hayley Atwell, who played Peggy Carter, the handler/love interest of Rogers, was sufficiently successful. She supplied no moments that moved me as much as Stanley Tucci, who played Dr. Abraham Erskine, the scientist who created the Super Serum that augmented both Rogers and Schmidt.
As far as design went, there were some hits and misses. I liked the general look of Hydra. Their costumes, gadgets, and vehicles all looked so modern and yet so apt to the period. Captain America’s look, on the other hand, left much to be desired. While they did well in making the costume more realistic, the interpretation of the original costume just didn’t quite work out for me. It was fun to see them give homage to the other costumes that the Captain wore throughout the years with the evolution of his costume, though.
I also didn’t quite like the way they used computer graphics for Rogers’ frail body. To my eyes, it was all too obvious that Evans’ head was super-imposed on a thin man’s body and just didn’t look right. Whenever I am told that it would have been impossible for Evans to go from bone-thin to buffed up in a short span of time, I would always point to the fact that Christian Bale did so when he filmed The Machinist (2004), where he portrayed a wire-thin character and then right after buffed up for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Begins (2005). Then again, that’s Christian Bale.
The overall interpretation of the story of Captain America was quite well-done. While I never followed the comic book series, the way they made Rogers relatable to the common, ordinary man, and transform him into an extraordinary man while retaining the same characteristics that made him an earnest and sincere ordinary man was very well portrayed. To me that was a success not only of the actor but the director as well, in timing the beats of the sequences well and making sure that the story and emotion flowed from scene to scene. The love interest between Peggy and Rogers, while somewhat abrupt, did not distract from the telling of the story. It even provided a tragic portion when Rogers wakes up in present-day Manhattan, having promised to meet Peggy for a dance when he got back from the face-off with Hydra.
Captain America: the First Avenger was helped by acting success and good directorial vision and technique that overcame some design and post-production issues that I am nitpicking at. The film was successful in bringing a nice back story to one of the more recognizable characters in Marvel comics history while adding a focal character to the Marvel Studios mega-event coming next year.
RATING: I give this film four stars out of five.
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