The Captain Comes Through

While by no means my favorite all time Marvel character, it was still always a comic I liked to read and a character I very much enjoyed. It’s hard not to. This is a character that within the Marvel Universe was not only worshipped by men, women, and children, but was considered the greatest by even the mightiest superhero. In the comics, whenever the proverbial shit hit the fan, everyone to a person turned to Captain America to tell them what to do. While he may not have had the strongest “superhuman” abilities, he was more often than not the most powerful being in the room. It was this aura and this reputation that really made me wonder how they were going to pull this movie off.

As always, I’ll save those who don’t like to read everything the trip: this was a good movie. Was it the best Marvel movie yet? No, unfortunately, it wasn’t, but that shouldn’t take away from it at all. It’s a nice mix of action with a little touch of goofy and just enough background to teach you who the man is without cramming it down your throat. In the Marvel movie catalog, I personally start with Iron Man as the best, then the Incredible Hulk (the Ed Norton one), followed close by a grouping of Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America. Keep in mind, when I say “Marvel movie” I’m only referring to those actually made by Marvel. Since movies like the X-Men trilogy (yes, trilogy, cause First Class sucked and I won’t include it) and the Spider-man movies weren’t done by Marvel, so I don’t include them in my personal rankings.

So with that said, here’s what I thought made it a good movie:

The Good Stuff
The Acting – Chris Evans turned out to be a great choice for this movie. For me, he came across exactly how Steve Rogers should have come across. He has that inner fire that makes them pick the small, scrawny kid and turn him into the ultimate soldier, yet even when he becomes the Captain, he still is able to show that skinny kid awkward side. He was humble when it called for it, he was the obedient soldier when necessary, and he was still the icon everyone needed the entire time. Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter may have been the biggest surprise for me. I don’t recall ever seeing her in anything before. Her IMBD listing shows more television than anything else, but wow was she strong in this movie. She is an officer in the Army in the 1940’s, which says a lot there alone. Moreover, she isn’t simply the sideline love interest who pines for our hero from the sideline. She’s believes so much in Rogers that she gives him the chance at his first real mission after the commanding officer said no. She gets right into the battle and shows why she deserves the respect she’s given. At the same time, though, there are still flashes that shine through of a soft side, especially when it comes to Rogers. She does a tremendous job of letting those little moments come out but then pushing them down. She was great. The only other real “main” main character is Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. While I personally still think Christopher Waltz from Inglourious Basterds would have been better (who has ever played a better Nazi than Waltz?), it’s still Hugo Weaving, which means he was excellent. It’s hard to talk much about his performance without giving away some key points in the movie, so suffice it to say that he does a great job showing the true heartless and power hungry makeup of the Red Skull. My only complaint about Weaving, honestly, was I wish his German accent had been better and more consistent. Do I really need to talk about Tommy Lee Jones as an Army Colonel? If I do, clearly you aren’t familiar with the man and should just go flagellate yourself in the corner.

The Creation of the Captain – By this I mean the way the character is brought to life onscreen. Characters like the Hulk or Iron Man are fairly easy to do, honestly. While I would say the Tony Stark character takes a lot to bring to life properly, the Iron Man portion really isn’t that hard. You create an armored suit with weapons and you’re pretty much done. The Hulk? Yeah, I think everyone can understand that one pretty simply. The main difference with Captain America is the superhero is the man, and the man is the superhero. There is no separation and I personally really felt that. Sure, comic book fans already know this, but they did a great job in also helping the non-geek movie goer to see it as well. I really believe that is one of the strongest things Marvel has done in all the movies they make, they really have done great work in helping the non-geek individual understand characters like Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. It’s just a shame to me that Ed Norton won’t be Bruce Banner again, because for me, he was the best.