Captain America: The First Avenger lives up to its buzz!
Now summer's getting somewhere!
Captain America is a wholesome, patriotic story about Steve Rogers, the all-American boy who has twice the heart of your average person, but only half of the body mass.
I was worried that the CGI digital shrinking of Chris Evans would distract me from the performance. Not so. Like with Benjamin Button, my trepidation was in vein.
Steve Rogers watches his friends enlist to fight against the German forces in World War II, but every time he tries to sign up himself, he can never pass the physical. In addition to being stick thin, he has asthma and a number of other medical maladies. So the closest he can get himself to the warfront is watching the newsreels at the cinema. When a couple of dumb, loud teenagers shout that they want the movie to begin, Steve Rogers can't stand not to get lip with them. As a result, he gets himself attacked in an alley.
Steve Rogers one chance to get into the army is through the Army's Special Scientific Reserve recuriting office, which he comes across at the 1942 World Exhibition of Tomorrow. After watching weapons baron Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) strut out his latest technology, which includes an early-model hover car, Rogers slips in to get a physical for enlistment. He wouldn't have passed, if he were not noticed by Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who decides to use him for a special experiment. Erskine has developed a syrum that expedites bone and muscle growth to transform a man into a superhuman soldier. This is the only way Rogers can get past Colonel Chester Phillips, who isn't even totally convinced by Rogers' bravery when he throws himself onto a grenade he believes is live during a training routine.
It is a risky procedure for Rogers to go through with this medical procedure. It takes up thousands of watts of energy, such that the power grid falters. We hear him scream from inside the chamber as his muscles and bones expand at an accellerated rate. But an out of control Hulk the result of this experiment is not. Rogers emerges as a super-soldier, ripped, tall, and with improved senses...but with the very same heart and mind with which he entered into it. This is what makes him the ideal specimen to represent America in the fight against the Third Reich.
Immediately Rogers smells a rat within the entourage of witnesses to the procedure. A NAZI agent in disguise named Kruger is among the congressmen, military brass and Stark Industries personnel who witnesses the transformation of Steve Rogers. Kruger, as it turns out, works for the enigmatic Johann Schmidt, and somehow managed to gain clearance to the highly classified Brooklyn laboratory where the procedure was taking place. Upon gaining the information on Dr. Erskine's formula, he makes his true identity known by firing off rounds, intent on using the medical technology to develop performance-enhanced fighters for the NAZIs. Rogers takes off on foot, clearly in instant control of his new-found strength. One moment where the NAZI makes off with a kid at gunpoint was sobering for me, since I remember losing my nephew momentarily in Chicago last Spring, and all sorts of horrible thoughts popped into my mind. "Don't hurt him!" the mother screamed helplessly as the NAZI used the 9 year old for escape leverage. Rogers, happily, has just as much horsepower as this NAZI, and with sound moral judgment to boot. The NAZI tries to get away in his water craft, but Captain America thwarts that plan right quick. The only problem is the NAZI doesn't give out a great deal of information about who he works for before deploying his exit strategy.
Steve Rogers wants badly to start fighting the NAZIs on the front lines, but he's used instead to raise war bonds, sent on a nationwide tour to raise money in costume as Captain America. He visits different cities, dutifully reading his pitch, while feeling secretly demoralised at not putting his power to real use.... that is, until, he hatches a plan to find and rescue his best friend, Joe "Bucky" Barnes, kidnapped and held deep behind enemy lines. His plan to get to him? A little help from maverick military industrialist and ace pilot Howard Stark, a reminder to us that everything is relative in the Marvel universe. Well, not only the help of Stark, but also Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), a woman who had some involvement in the performance enhancement project. It's no secret that Agent Carter and Steve Rogers have strong feelings for each other, stretching back to even before he made his radical transition. So when Howard Stark asks her if she wants to stop in Paris for fondue after they make their drop of Captain America behind enemy lines, Rogers naturally assumes it's some kind of innuendo for sex. He makes some block-headed accusations, which only served to endear me to Rogers as a poor naive sot who still scrambled to find social skills to suit the pristine, chiseled masculine body he had acquired.
Never mind his novice social swagger. On the ground, with shield and pistol in hand, Captain America is one of the most formidable weapons the U.S. Armed Forces has. He penetrates the HYDRA Base, which is where he comes across not only Bucky Barnes, but five other POWs who were leverage for the maniacal Red Skull, who has gone around under the face mask of Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving). Captain America discovers that the NAZIs have far more up their sleeve than toppling and overtaking every country in Europe. Nope, they have a nefarious plan to take over the entire world, with bombs labeled with American and world cities.
Captain America sets out, with Agent Carter's help, to pinpoint the exact coordinates of all of HYDRA's munitions facilities on a map of Europe. With that information, he sets out with his vibra
Captain America now has not only his country, but his planet to think about in thwarting the plans of Red Skull. The POWs he rescues become the Howling Commandos. This consists of Rogers' best friend, Bucky Barnes, Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, Montgomery Falsworth, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, and Jacques Dernier.
Captain America knows that the HYDRA mastermind Red Skull is on a train passing through the French Alps. As the U.S. Army had Dr. Erskine working on genetic engineering on their end, the evil NAZI terrorist faction leader has his own assistant in biomedical advancement, Dr. Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), who is on the train as well. Captain America decides the best way to get information is not merely to have planes flying over the enemy bases, but actually plans to zip line down to the train and find the plans they have for their world domination, then hand-deliver them to U.S. Army intelligence. If they can get the classified information from this reconnaissance mission, the Captain will have a huge advantage in thwarting this super-secret, super dangerous subsidiary movement of the NAZIs. If there is an Achille's heel to Captain America, it is his enormous ability to feel and empathize. This, of course, drives his heroic actions. But when a man from the Howling Commandos doesn't make it out of the train infiltration, Steve Rogers is left in a bad state of regret and remorse. And as he points out to Peggy Carter in a bombed out bar, his attempt to drown his sorrows in whiskey is in vein. His new-found metabolism with his body strength prevents him from getting drunk. It is understandable that he could feel this sense of responsibility, since the fallen soldier was among the ranks he led back to safety from the clutches of HYDRA. Peggy is good of a friend for Steve as a potential romantic interest, which makes their dynamic in Captain America unique among comic book movies. She provides emotional support for him above all, and tells him what he needed to hear; those soldiers weren't on the mission strictly for him; they were in it to do what they knew was right.
But this does make it personal for Captain America, as Colonel Chester Phillips points out to Dr. Arnim Zola during interrogation. Phillips, at first skeptical of Steve Rogers' purpose in the fight against the NAZIs, is sort of won over by the last third of the movie, and he knows that the NAZIs are sweating with Captain America leading the charge in blowing up their weapons facilities. It is with this sense of desperation to act quickly that Red Skull loads up a glider with explosives that he intends to drop on every major American city, as well as points abroad.
It is Captain America's brave to the point of delusional mission to board this HYDRA aircraft, fight hand to hand combat with Red Skull personally, and redirect the aircraft to a safe detonation locale far off of the U.S. coastline. Delusion may be a strong word. He knew exactly what he was doing, he was just making a very big sacrifice within his right mind.
Of course Captain America has to say goodbye to Agent Carter, but not without a shared moment beforehand...a great shared moment. (Between this film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and Thor, it's been a great summer for kissing scenes.)
Before diverting the plane to its remote resting place, Captain America gets on the horn with Peggy, making a promise to take her on a dancing date, though the two of them have an unspoken understanding that this is just an affectionate way for them to make a farewell to each other.
If Captain America survives the descent of this ship, he will not wake up in his own time.
Captain America: The First Avenger, you relieve Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows of its brief tenure at the spot; this is the best film I have seen so far from 2011. In fact, this sets the bar pretty high for the year. It may be deep in to the fall before I see a film that impresses me more than this elegant mesh of action, romance, drama, art direction, period musical score, and visual effects under the keen, knowledgeable eye of Joe Johnston. I await The Avengers eagerly.
Four Stars.