I realised I’ve been remiss in preparing this.
Captain America is good old fashioned fun. As many have commented, it harkens back to the Indiana Jones films and the way we wish those 40s movie serials were. Performances are great – especially Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell and Hugo Weaving but it is Joe Johnston’s slightly clunky direction and tin ear for pacing that stops Captain America being a timeless classic.
Evans deserves particular credit. Numerous reviewers have said the character of Steve Rogers is basically boring because he doesn’t have any personal demons to overcome. I disagree. In the first act he has to persevere even though everyone tells him he’ll never serve, in the second act, he has to deal with the frustrations of becoming the supersoldier and yet still not being able to serve. That qualifies as a story arc where I come from. Evans plays him exactly as he should – a good man, who wants to do right. He is not an ideologue and nor is he an adventurer, he is the perfect exemplar of the citizen who wants to do his duty and meet his responsibilities.
As for pathos, well given the way the film ends, he’ll have that aplenty in the sequel and the Avengers. Arguably making Captain America only a chapter on the road to the Avengers and the demands the latter makes for a balanced team of different personalities liberates Steve Rogers from being another a generic joking action hero.
While the film is intentionally anachronistic, the sequel won’t have that luxury. The anachronisms are possible because the film is set in WW2. The same schtick won’t play in the present which means the sequel will have to find a different tone (presumably they will draw inspiration from Brubaker’s espionage inspired Captain America run).
Mostly the anachronisms work well but a few irked me – like Erskine overhearing Steve and Bucky talking about his inability to serve or the ease with which broke into the Hydra facility. I know what they were aiming for and I know they workedd in Indiana Jones but here it didn’t quite hit the mark (but they weren’t deal breakers either).
The romance between Evans and Atwell works well, especially in its understated moments. I think that is true for the whole film and that’s what makes the drawn out conversation between Steve and Peggy at the end all the more disappointing. It was really an example of where less would have been more. Again it didn’t ruin the film, but it lessened a bit of the impact.
Hugo Weaving was great as the Red Skull. He chomped up those scenes like there was no tomorrow. Red Skull’s plan was pretty generic but that anachronism did work although i expect Loki to have better plans for the tesseract than the Red Skull.
Production design was spot on and the soundtrack was serviceable but nothing special.
Two thumbs up for Captain America and bring on the Avengers!
