Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Marvel Studios
Captain America: The First Avenger is the highly-anticipated latest installment in the onslaught of Marvel Comics-themed movies, of which there have been at least three in the last two months (Thor, X-Men: First Class, and now, Captain America). Interestingly, before viewing this film I witnessed a preview for The Amazing Spider-Man (the supposed reinterpretation of the Spider-Man franchise, which frankly does not require a reinterpretation/revamp) and I went into Captain America with a face full of scowl, prepared to not only regret dishing out 13 bucks (yes, $13 USD) to see the film, but also to fall asleep as I had been informed when I purchased the ticket that the film was two hours and nineteen minutes long. In particular, I was irritated that the new director (and screenwriters) of The Amazing Spider-Man felt the need to retell how Peter Parker became Spider-Man, and also felt the need to recast Uncle Ben and Aunt May, but that's a story for a different day. Let's go back to me being irritated about dishing out so much cash for what I was sure would be a terrible film. In fact, I left more pleased with the film than I had been with Thor (mostly because I went into that film expecting a heck of a lot from Kenneth Branagh, and ended up with almost a Disney-esque feature), but I still sort of regretted paying that much to see a film: any film. Indeed, Captain America lived up to all of its expectations.
The present film is not the only film adaptation of the iconic American hero. I vividly recall seeing the late 70s Captain America film - starring former college football star Reb Brown (who also infamously starred in Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf) on the Sci-Fi Channel, which in my memory has melded with the other Captain America film that was released in the 80s, if I remember correctly. It goes without saying that prior interpretations of this character set the bar for the present film low, at least in terms of surpassing its predecessors, but conversely, it placed the makers of the present film in an awkward position in which they might feel compelled to blow the ball out of the park with the present film in order to prove that Captain America: The First Avenger was not a fool's errand, but a viable film with room for sequels. To jump ahead a bit, Captain America is being used as a lead-in for the future Avengers film, which unfortunately imbues the film with an irritating commercial aspect that one should quickly forget. As we all know, Captain America stars Chris Evans (of Fantastic Four fame), Hugo Weaving, and Tommy Lee Jones. It also stars stunning British actress Hayley Atwell who I remember very well for her performance in the film version of Brideshead Revisited.
Captain America: The First Avenger is, in many ways, the predictable midsummer family film that critics were anticipating, but it manages to acquire a welcoming quality that makes it more than just the standard fare. Where Thor was gimmicky and unoriginal with characters that fell flat in the likability category, Captain America manages to successfully tap into the American's love for the underdog to create a memorable film. Did the film need to be more than two hours long? Obviously not. We're talking about a comic book movie here, not Citizen Kane, but they are not painful hours. Captain America is the tale of "never-say-never" Brooklyn-native Steve Rogers, and his seemingly endless quest to join the American army in the early 1940s, in spite of incessant rejection because of his status as the ubiquitous 90-lb weakling of the era. A German scientist comes along and takes a liking to Steve and cajoles him into participating in a super-soldier program. It turns out that the application of the program back in Germany by a mad officer named Johan Schmidt leads to the creation of Red Skull, the villain of the film. Steve is transformed into an American super-soldier called Captain America (clearly) and after a stint as a propagandist for the American military, manages to see action on the European continent. Meanwhile, Steve has fallen in love with a straight-forward British agent in America service called Officer Carter (played by Atwell); in the end, their love for one another never reaches its natural culmination as Steve ends up trapped in ice for nearly seventy years in a successful attempt to neutralize Red Skull's secret weapon. This unrequited love and the feelings it inspires (along with the acting) is conceptually the strongest aspect of the film for me.
It goes without saying that there are no robots in Captain America: The First Avenger (this IS a robot blog) and there are not even characters that can be said to conceptually be construed as robots, but I can tackle the issue of pesky American propaganda. It's interesting. Even Captain America (though without my cynicism) seems to find the tours that he is roped into performing annoying and the implication that the objectives of the politicians are distinct from the visible message of the tours, that implication is there. So what does Captain America represent? He represents freedom and the American way. In actuality, he represents American strength. The puny Steve Rogers is transformed from the weak man he once was into someone strong enough to impose the will of the nation he serves on others. Captain America doesn't go on propaganda tours in Europe to convince Europeans to overthrow their fascist governments and adopt an American form of democracy. He uses his physical strength to beat up bad guys, neutralize bombs, and restore civil and economic order. In spite of his derision at being used as propaganda, Captain America as a character, is walking propaganda and it is impossible to dissociate him from that. Although very predictable, Captain America: The First Avenger was entertaining, and notable for better acting (nice job, Chris Evans) than what one usually encounters in these sorts of films; it is recommended to comic fans everywhere.
