I finally got around to Captain America: The First Avenger. It is altogether appropriate to review it for Memorial Day. The title indicates something impressive: the film was part of what we might call the Avengers Initiative. It was made with an eye to the recent Avengers film. That kind of grand strategy in film making seems to me to be very promising. Movies have a way of resisting the kind of coherent storytelling that is possible in a good TV series. Movies tend to isolate themselves from one another, even when there is a general story. For case in point, see the reboot of the Spiderman series.
By contrast, the Iron Man and Hulk films, and Thor and Captain America, were all successfully woven into one story. Let's see if they can keep that up.
Captain America is a very American movie. Steve Rogers, a ninety pound weakling with the heart of a hero, desperately desires to serve in WWII. Both his physical weakness and his impeccable character make him the ideal subject for a secret technology that aims to produce super soldiers. It works. On him. Naturally, the experiment turns out to be a one time only success.
That is a comic book version of the American promise. No matter how small you are, America is a place where you can make it big. Of course, you have to have something big inside you. Another part of the American story is expressed when Captain America assembles his team. Guess what? There's an Irishman complete with a bowler hat, a Black guy, an Asian "from Fresno", and a couple of guys who don't speak English. That looks like America to me!
Like most of the films in this series, this one goes to a lot of trouble to satisfy comic book nerds like me. In the comic books, Captain America had a teenage sidekick named Bucky, a sort of Robin to CA's Batman. Bucky is written into the film.
The villain in the film is Captain America's most important nemesis, The Red Skull. I still remember reading the story of his elevation to major evil. I quote here from Wikipedia:
According to the official version of the story told by the Red Skull and the Nazis, Schmidt met Hitler while working as a bellhop in a major hotel. This occurred during his late teens, around the same time that the Nazi Party gained power in Germany. Schmidt wound up serving the rooms of Adolf Hitler himself. By chance, Schmidt was present by bringing refreshments when the Führer was furiously scolding an officer for letting a prisoner escape, during which Hitler pledged that he could create a better National Socialist out of the bellhop. Looking closely at the youth and sensing his dark inner nature, Hitler decided to take up the challenge and recruited Schmidt.
That's pretty good story telling. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't include it. The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) is the head of Hydra, the Nazi's "deep science" agency. He is no Nazi but something at least as bad. While Hitler searches for "trinkets in the desert", an obvious nod to the Indian Jones films, the Red Skull finds a true source of occult power.
Captain America, like Nick Fury, was a character born in WWII storytelling and later revived and readapted to post war culture. The film covers the entire transition. We meet Howard Stark, Ironman's dad, and he gives CA his famous shield. That piece of metal almost steals the show. It is made of some mysterious metal (that's all of it we have) and is impervious not only to bullets but to Hydra ray guns. It is a shield and an offensive weapon, but seems to come back to CA as reliably as Thor's hammer. This comic book nerd is in love.
One interesting difference in this film and all the other in the series is that Captain America actually kills people. Not just aliens and robots but real, live human beings. You could do that back when the bad guys were Nazis. There is a lot to chew on there.
Captain America is a very solid piece of superhero cinema. It doesn't quite make it up to Ironman standards, but there is very little wrong with it. This is the comic book version of American virtue. It's camp and fantastic, but it draws its power from reality. We did stand up to magnificent villains in the 1940's. Lots of small guys from Brooklyn and other parts got a lot bigger as they closed in on Hitler. Captain America is sure enough who we are. All those would be Red Skulls out there had better see the film. It's good Memorial Day material.
It's been a year since I saw Captain America, but most of your review resonates with my memory. I would add that the movie used every WW II movie cliche/motif that I remember from all of the war movies that I watched on the late night movies growing up in the pre-cable era.
Of course, everything looked better in black and white if the antenna was turned the right direction.
Posted by: LK | Monday, May 28, 2012 at 06:48 PM
LK: Yes! As fanciful as it was, the film incorporated a lot of WWII American culture. That was one of its strengths.
Posted by: Ken Blanchard | Tuesday, May 29, 2012 at 12:17 AM