MetalFaceDoom Reviews Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The first Avenger, has been met with lots of skepticism and doubt since the announcement of Chris Evans as Cap and Joe Johnston as director. Well I am here to tell you that all the doubt I had has been washed away. I came into this summer expecting Thor to be not only my favorite movie of the year, my favorite Marvel movie and the best one they have ever made when all the dust settles. Boy I was wrong! As much as I loved Thor and really enjoyed it, Captain America: The First Avenger is the best comic book movie of the year and the best comic book movie Marvel has produced.

Chris Evans was absolutely superb in his portrayal of Steve Rogers and eventually Cap himself. He has been known as a jokester in the movie world and he had his moments of comedy in this film but he really captured the never quit, never give up attitude you expect from your leader. When everyone else would run away he would run head on into the problem and for that he really made the role. While Evans was amazing, his supporting cast (though not a star studded as Thor’s) was absolutely brilliant. This was perhaps the biggest surprise to me of all. I grew little by little every day on the idea of Evans playing Cap well but the supporting cast did not initially wow me like Thor’s did. Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell were absolutely perfect in their roles. Tommy Lee Jones provided the majority of the comic relief in this film and his one liners throughout were fantastic. Hayley’s portrayal of Peggy Carter was amazing! She not only captured my heart by how freaking hot she was but she also owned her role much like Evans did Cap. She brought toughness to a female character that we haven’t seen yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her and Evans on screen chemistry was excellent, they really sold their interest in each other very subtly as though not to turn this into a love story but really give you a sense of the connection they had for each other. Their love was a never brought to life because this movie was about good versus evil and Captain America above all else understood his personal agenda was irrelevant to the larger picture. Evans, Jones and Atwell all captured the true essence of their characters but it was Hugo Weaving who stole the show. Hugo’s portrayal of Johann Schmidt/Red Skull was on par with Tom Hiddleston’s portrayal of Loki. Hugo really portrayed the type of world domination villain very well. He fought when he had to but he was a puppet master moving his pieces where they needed to be until he had to do it himself. He was equally genius as sinister in character. We can only hope that Marvel models all of its future villains after Loki and Red Skull because they absolutely hit the nail on the head with both of them. When Skull and Cap are on screen together they really played off of each other well. Their fight scenes, though not lengthy, provided a lot of excitement. Now to the one who had the most to gain from this film, Joe Johnston. The comic book movie community loved the casting for Red Skull, was growing to the idea of Evans as Cap but nearly all of us were skeptical up until we saw it of the choice of director. Well Joe finally did it! He won this fan boy over and many like me. He made a masterful movie that flowed well. He captured the chemistry between characters, the scenery of the 40s and the good versus evil of those treacherous times. He took a beautifully written script and turned it into a masterpiece. He really delivered on all fronts. He provided great action, the dialogue was not boring at all and kept you interested, really brought to life the decade and really brought Cap and Skull into the real world.

This movie like all is not without faults. I have read many reviews and I will tell what I consider to be the low points and challenge other reviews and their problems with the film. The acting, visuals, directing and script were all perfect. However, I could have used a little more shield throwing. I have seen this in several reviews and I agree. The shield throwing scenes were awesome on screen and it was some of the best moments of the film. The Howling Commandos were not introduced by name which really was disappointing from the aspect that we are probably not going to see much of them going forward. If they make a shield movie then the back story could feature them but otherwise they seemingly have no place in the MCU except to appease us fan boys a little bit. I felt they did the USO tour song well but it could have been shortened just a bit. This didn’t ruin the movie but if it was a tad bit shorter I would not have minded. The end battle scene was awesome but there was one major omission that casual fans may not understand, Cap becomes frozen in the ice and is found later. They don’t really tie the closing battle scene to the opening scene very well. My girlfriend asked me to explain it to her because she did not catch on to the fact that he was frozen. This was the only major issue I had with the film because I get it and it didn’t ruin the film for me but I want these films to be successful and casual fans returning is the only way it’s going to happen long term.

I have read many reviews that explain their problems with the film and I want to put some of those complaints in their place. Several reviews have complained about the running time of the film being too long. I saw it twice and each time when the final battle scene was happening I said to myself it’s already that time. This movie, while not loaded with action, was very fast paced and entertaining that it did not seem like it was 2 hours and 10 minutes. There have been many complaints about Johann/Skulls German accent. I don’t speak to enough German people to know any different and if it wasn’t authentic it was foreign sounding nonetheless. If that really upset you then you are nit picking a very minor detail. Hydra’s uniforms and technology, this complaint really grinds my gears! We can accept the reality that our government can make a skinny soldier into a super soldier with a special serum but we cannot accept that Skull found the cosmic cube that has power greater than anything on Earth and used it to his technological gain? That one really dumbfounds me a lot. He has a tool from the gods and that is why he could create those items. Second were the uniforms for hydra, which I will admit are very Star Wars like in design but they set themselves apart from the rest of the decade. If they wore outfits similar to Nazis and had the technology the Red Skull provided them they would have looked even more out of place. Their outfits matched the evil and technology of the Red Skull.

All in all, this movie far exceeded my expectations and easily claims the best Marvel Cinematic Universe installment we have seen to date. Unlike Iron Man, the villain is equally as amazing as the hero. Iron Man is a close second but Iron Monger or Red Skull? Easy, Red Skull! Thor was the one I anticipated the most and while I was not disappointed I did not leave the theatre as excited as I did when I left CA: TFA. All in all this movie receives 5/5 stars from me and I am even more excited for the Avengers especially after the teaser trailer shown after the credits.