!!!!!!!!!!!WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
I grew up reading DC and Marvel comics so I'm well versed in the characters from each universe and their origins, although I still maintain the royally fucked up Dead-Pool in that Wolverine movie, but I always though Captain America was a pretty bad-ass character, I remember reading the 'Invaders' comics when I was kid and reading all about a team of superheroes led by Cap, who each week would battle the Nazi's and Hitler, it was pretty cool. I think the Invaders first appeared in The Avengers comics, but the hero team was made up of Cap, Submariner and The Human Torch. But anyway like I said I always thought Cap was an awesome character, he was a super soldier created to battle the Axis of Evil, with his fucking awesome shield and his pretty cool costume, with the white wings on either side of his mask, he always intrigued me, now im not American so I can't say that as I a kid I was patriotic because I ain’t, I'm Welsh, so the whole patriotism thing went over my head. The stories were pretty cool too, like they were ripped straight out of a 1950's B&W adventure serial, a bit like Indiana Jones and The Rocketeer, which made them so much more fun. Now not many people will know that this new film is actually the 4th time Cap has been filmed, the first was a pilot and the second was a TV movie from the late 70s starring Trash king Reb Brown (Howling 2) and the third was a TV movie directed by Albert Pyun and starring Matt Salinger, the third actually had some pretty decent Red Skull make up too. Taking over the role this time around and in Cap's first big budget film is Chris Evans (not the Ginger bloke off the the One Show) who is no stranger to the Marvel universe having previously played Johnny Storm the Human Torch in the two, rather disappointing Fantastic Four films, Evans was tailor made for this role, his all American looks, his brick shit-house physique and his ability to drop one liners all play into the character and his role as the 'first Avenger'. His casting has a really interesting story too it after Marvel had screen tested dozens of actors for the part but offered Evans the role without auditioning him, kind of interesting don't you think. Where as most comic book movies have an origin story for the first 45mins to an hour, the entire show here is the origin story, that sets it up for the Avengers film coming in 2012.
The film starts with a skinny, asthmatic Steve Rogers continuously denied enlistment to the Army, sympathetic scientist, Stanley Tucci overs hears his rants about it and offers him a way in, take part in a military experiment and fight for his country, Rogers agrees and the next thing you know, pow, it looks like he's eaten Conan and is totally ripped and after a German spy for Hydra, Hitler's secret experimental weapons division attempts to kill everyone in the lab, Rogers goes on the chase. Soon Cap is selling war bonds dressed in the classic Cap costume until he finds himself in Europe and discovers that a lot of soldiers are being held captive and made to work in a HYDRA facility and that the Americans are not going to do anything about it. So off he goes and he literally blows up everything in site and rescues his buddy Bucky from the clutches of the evil Red Skull, played with almost pantomime effect by Hugo Weaving (this is a good thing). He becomes Cap's nemesis throughout the rest of the film as we go from action scene to action scene. Until we end up at the icey conclusion that leads us into the Avengers movie.
Technically the entire film is one long trailer but it's a hell of a trailer and fun to boot.
So not only do we have a great lead in the form of Chris Evans, but also an excellent support cast too. Tommy Lee Jones is on form as the allied commander and pretty much plays him like agent K off of Men In Black but doesn't he always play his characters like that, then we have the underrated Toby Jones (Olly from The Mist) as Red Skull's chief scientist, Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, Iron Man's old man, Stanley Tucci as the the kindly Prof. Erskind, Sebastian Stan as Bucky, the awesome Neal McDonough as Dum Dum Dugan, Derek Luke (Biker Boys) as Gabe Jones and Samuel L.Jackson as Nick Fury (not really a spoiler as he's at the end of all these marvel movies).
But the female lead in this, a character called Peggy Carter, is played by Hayley Atwell and she's a really strong female character, not the usual damsel in distress, she's a military agent assigned to Rogers. She's does really well in a surprisingly large role in an even larger film.
The direction by Joe Johnston is great, he really knows how to handle the retro/futuristic stuff, which he displayed previously in fucking awesome 1991 adventure flick, The Rocketeer, which this film resembles at points, although I do have to say, this film was more G.I Joe than the actual G.I Joe film, which is quite scary, how did they get it wrong in that film. But Johnston who has never really been considered in the same league as some of the bigger Hollywood directors, you really need to check out his body of work. Johnston has directed many big budget studio pictures over the years including The Rocketeer, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Jumanji and Jurassic Park 3.
It has a great nostalgic feel to it, well to me it does but I grew up on a diet of comics and adventure so I might seem like the perfect audience but this is marketed towards the average cinema go, not the die hard movie fans which is why it works so well, if it was all about appeasing fans then it would have been awash with pop-cultural references and such but at least they give a nice little nod to the golden age of Captain America.
So to end my review of the First Avenger, did I enjoy it?
I most certainly did after being slightly disappointed at the other previous two comic adaptations released this year, the under whelming but still rather enjoyable Thor and the fucking pile of shit that came from the DC universe, The Green Lantern. So Cap was a change of pace for the old comic book movie, for a start it had a good plot, a great director and it was bloody good entertainment also. I really do recommend seeing this prep for the Avengers next year. It's getting the full 5 stars from me, beat that Human Centipede 2....
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