Captain America: The First Avenger (Johnston) 2011

In re-watching this film with the benefit of hindsight, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. Our introduction to Captain America (Chris Evans) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings us to WWII and introduces another key element of the battle between good and evil, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s evil counterpart, Hydra.

Don't get me wrong, The First Avenger is a fun film that does an adequate job of introducing an additional critical character to the world. It also gives us background on the Tesseract which contains one of the Infinity Stones that we will start to hear so much about in another few films.

The film stars with Steve Rogers as a scrawny kid who has tried multiple times to sign up for the army during the war, only to be told no every time due to a number of ailments. He tries once more and catches the attention of a former German scientist (Stanley Tucci) who brings him into a new army program testing the development of super soldiers by injecting them with a special serum. Rogers receives the injection and emerges several inches taller, and many muscles larger, immediately taking off to chase down a Nazi/Hyrda agent who sabotages the experiment.

Following his heroics, Rogers joins a traveling revue complete with a chorus line and "Hilter" himself, trying to get the country to pony up for war bonds to fund the fighting. After receiving applause across the country, the show moves to Italy, just miles from the front lines and receives a much different response. Upon hearing that his childhood friend James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan) was captured or killed nearby, he takes it on himself to free the prisoners and receives a hero's welcome upon returning to camp.

Other than The Incredible Hulk, this film feels the most "comic-booky" in the series so far. You really get the wartime feel, even if this is not a great "war movie." It could have easily been twenty to thirty minutes longer in order to flesh out some of the story better. Trying to pack the entire backstory of America's greatest hero into a little over two hours is really tight, but with The Avengers needing to come together in the next film, it had to be done here.

Captain America: The First Avenger did not receive any nominations for Academy Awards.

Had I written this review when the film was first released, I probably would have given it a 7 or 8 out of ten. As it is, I can only muster a 6 for the film today.

​​6 out of 10

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