Captain America: The First Avenger

Every week, a group of friends and I are rewatching a Marvel movie in preparation for the Avengers: Endgame. Might as well talk about them on the way, right?

I love this movie so much. It’s in my top ten. What are my top ten? I don’t actually know. It’s 30% Stars and Wars. Good Will Hunting’s in there too.

So how does the first Captain America hold up, 8 years later? Really well, actually! It’s a good, competently made film. Like all Marvel films, its color palette is a little on the bland side, but for this gritty WWII action movie that kinda makes sense. It feels like a period piece.

In 2011, when I went into the theater, I smirked to myself. “Hmph,” I said like an arrogant, shitheaded 20-year-old, “Captain America is just a shitty Superman knockoff, and couldn’t possibly displace the Man of Steel as America’s superhero.”

Well, Man of Steel came out two years later and I think we all recognize Chris Evans as America’s superhero now.

Captain America: The First Avenger succeeds largely for one reason: It feels authentic. It’s genuine and heartfelt. You can feel the love from the wonderfully skilled artists and it makes for a phenomenal product.

Buuuuuuut… the script needs a little a lot of work. Like, most of the second half of the movie doesn’t really make sense and is just action-and-blams. I love action-and-blams, but they have to be justified. Much of the nonsense that happens in the really really messy parts happen because Red Skull, who started out as a really promising villain, quickly transitioned from interesting Nazi to just another Darth Vader clone. Like, there’s literally a shot where he looks at the camera and goes

Like, what the hell? YOU WERE DOING SO WELL. Now,

And while that’s a wonderful reaction to insert into any conversation, and I highly recommend that you do exactly that, it really rips the audience out of the narrative. Also, right after this shot, he shoots one of his own soldiers, a trope that needs to fucking die because it’s stupid and terrible and I hate it.

Captain America really delivers on its premise of the young, earnest soldier doing what he feels is right- which involves him regularly breaking rules and getting himself in trouble with his allies to accomplish what he believes is a mission for the greater good. Unfortunately, it does not deliver us a great villain to counteract that. It’s worth noting that some elements of Red Skull as a thinking, living character did make it into the final fight sequence: While he’s fighting Cap on the plane at the end, he says, “I have seen the future, and there are no flags!” which points to an interesting philosophy that goes unexplored because Red Skull dies gets sent into space moments later.

Howard Stark is an interesting character. Tommy Lee Jones whatever-his-character’s-name-is is not. Peggy Carter is cool and all, but she doesn’t really do enough to support the plot. If Tommy Lee Jones were removed from the movie, and the role he served was split up between Peggy and Howard, we could have had deeper relationships among the three of them- Howard especially. In Avengers and Captain America: Civil War, Tony Stark brings up Cap’s relationship to Howard several times. It’s unfortunate that we, the audience, only got about two scenes with Howard and Cap interacting in a way that would cause Tony to resent him in the future. Big missed opportunity.

All-in-all, the flaws of “Captain America: We Only Started Calling It ‘The First Avenger’ After Civil War Came Out” don’t outweigh its merits in my opinion. I think it’s more important for a film to be earnest and honest with its intent than for it to have a perfect, sensible structure. It’s a fantastic first entry for Chris Evans, and I’m glad he’s retiring from the role on his own terms. I wouldn’t want him to keep making move Marvel movies like a factory worker.

Next up is The Avengers- the first Marvel Cinematic Universe to be released with a Disney logo on it. Oh, also the most ambitious film ever released up to that point.