Captain America: The First Avenger* is the newest film by Joe Johnston, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, based on the comic books by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and starring Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Richard Armitage, Toby Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.
Plot:
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) dreams only of one thing: he wants to be able to do his duty for his country and fight in WW2. Unfortunately, he is small and sickly and is never accepted into the army, unlike his best friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan). During one last attempt to sign up, he meets Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci). Erskine is convinced he sees the right morality in Steve to take part in his experiment: Erskine is trying to develop a supersoldier. Steve jumps at the chance – but that’s only the beginning of his journey.
After the buzz Captain America got, I was expecting a movie that was actually good – and was surprised how craptastic the film actually was. I was still entertained very much. But there were many moments of entertainment out of ridiculousness.
There were a few moments where I could just giggle because it was so over the top. I mean, seriously, who the fuck labels their bombs with the cities they’re supposed to be dropped on? And when we get to hear “Hail Hydra” for the first time, it really shouldn’t sound like the person saying was the worst Nazi ever by mispronouncing “Heil Hitler” as “Heel Heitler”. And there were quite a few things like it.
And the “English with German accent” that stands in for actual German is fucking grating. Seriously people. Either they actually speak German – in which case they wouldn’t have any accents – or they speak English with each other and we just pretend that its German – in which case they wouldn’t have any accents either. That all those German guys actually spoke English with each other (the only scenario where German accents would fit) doesn’t make any sense. [This is actually a pet peeve of mine, this happens so often.] At least the German accents were good.
Hugo Weaving hams away and it is wonderful to watch. Stanley Tucci is generally amazing and Dominic Cooper was pretty great, too. And Chris Evans is not only incredibly hot, he sells you the Cap wholeheartedly. Which is not an easy thing with his war obsession. But in the end his relationship with the war is a lot more complex than pure “I wanna defend my country” and both the script and Evans do that justice. [I still don’t agree. But it was a good argument.]
And last but not least, the movie has an actual sense of humor and not only craptastic moments. That’s always good.
Summarising: though I expected the movie to be qualitatively stronger, I enjoyed myself a whole lot.
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*Can I just point out that saying Captain America was the First Avenger is kind of weird after all the Avengers movies we’ve had so far? He is more like the Last Avenger, even if he was born first.
[…] Captain America: The First Avenger Director: Joe Johnston Writer: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely Based on: the comic by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Cast: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Richard Armitage, Toby Jones, Samuel L. Jackson [Here's my first review.] […]