When I returned to the states for a while last month, I put aside time to catch up on some movies. It being summer, this means I mostly watched superhero and action films. I’ve already wrote up my thoughts on Transformers 3, and didn’t have time to properly review the other two films I caught, Green Lantern and X-Men: First Class. Green Lantern was so dramatically inert that I couldn’t muster the energy to even consider responding to it with a review. To the contrary, X-Men: First Class was quite entertaining but I thought spent too much time in slavish fan service sub-plots rather than focusing on Magneto and Xavier’s story.
So, with a batting average of .500 (I also thought Thor was quite good) I approached, with some trepidation, the Captain America movie. Cap was never my favorite super hero (those tend to be Spider-Man and/or Batman, depending on my mood), but I’m also a sucker for all things World War II, so I was keenly interested. The story of Captain America is one that, in the wrong hands, could go really really wrong… He’s the superhero version of Horatio Alger, who never forgot his roots and loves his country with a whole heart, warts and all. If that love of country was played to heavy-handed it could come off as jingoistic, and if moviemakers try to change the core of the character then they will lose the essence of what makes him work.
So… did it work? Absoultely. Far far better than I expected it to. In fact, it may be the best Marvel superhero movie yet, as you could take the superhero aspects out of the film and it would still be a rousing piece of entertainment. It’s the spiritual sequel to director Joe Johnson’s earlier superhero movie The Rocketeer – when Captain America comes out on video I plan on a personal double feature. It has heart to spare, powered by a starmaking performance by Chris Evans. It has a hyper-real version of WW II, powered by technology stolen from the world of Thor. It has great character moments, especially between Evans and Hayley Atwell who plays love interest Peggy Carter. It has the Howling Commandoes, Marvel’s ragtag fighting unit that in the comics were lead by Nick Fury. It has a rousing score from Alan Silvestri, his best since Back to the Future. It has a fantastic performance by Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull. It has amazing effects and action sequences. it has…
OK, have to stop now, otherwise I’d be gushing for another 1000 words. Just see it. If you love solid entertaining filmmaking, you won’t get a better example of it than Captain America.