Yet with plenty of patriotic fanfare, Steve Rogers and his company of handpicked fighters (Sebastian Stan, Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Kenneth Choi, JJ Field, Bruno Ricci) buddy up to entertain older audience members while squelching villainous attempts to overtake the world. The most startling depicts the bloody results of a man flying through a whirling airplane propeller.
Like many of the other recent Marvel Comic movies ( Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk) released in anticipation of the 2012 film The Avengers, war violence will be the biggest concern for family viewers. (Most interesting may be the metamorphosis of Chris Evan’s bulked-up body into a bony boy with the help of body shrinking computer techniques.) The CG images also enhance the experience. As a result, Steve finds himself wearing tights and hawking war bonds with a group of showgirls until American agent Patty Carter (Hayley Atwell) offers him an opportunity to prove what he can really do for the war effort.ĭirector Joe Johnston (known for his period pieces October Sky, The Rocketeer and Hidalgo) captures a comic book feel in this live action production that combines humor and a sprinkling of romance with plenty of high adventure. But despite Steve’s superhuman abilities, Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) hesitates to use the untested soldier in his unit. (That includes his metabolism, which now makes it impossible for him to get drunk even though he tries.)Īlmost immediately after his transformation, Steve becomes aware of the evil intentions of Nazi leader Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) when a German spy infiltrates the secret lab and shoots the doctor while attempting to steal the last vial of the serum. This light activates the chemicals in his body and enhance everything about him.
Inducted into a top-secret program as a human guinea pig, Steve is injected with the unproven liquid before Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) blasts him with a dose of “Vita-Rays”. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a German-born scientist who has developed an experimental serum. However Steve’s pertinacity finally pays off when he crosses paths with Dr.
#CAPTAIN AMERICA THE FIRST AVENGER MOVIE 2011 CODE#
(In the trailer, Rogers’ paperwork is punched with "rejection" to make it clear for those who are unfamiliar with the military’s code for an applicant who is unsuitable for service.) During World War II, he repeatedly shows up at the U.S. Orphaned as a child, Steve is a spunky soul who refuses to run from a fight-even if he is clearly losing the battle. And Steve Rogers’ (Chris Evans) transformation from a scrawny scrap of a guy into a muscle-bound avenger would have been right in keeping with the hopes of every undersized kid who poured over the story of Captain America. He even had a “Proof-in-7-Days” offer.Ĭomic book readers from the 1940s would have been familiar with the Atlas ads that frequently ran in those magazines. The result is pacy and punchy, but not quite a knockout.Beginning in the 1930s, bodybuilder Charles Atlas promised skinny guys (who got sand kicked in their faces at the beach) that he could "manufacture weaklings into men" with only 15 minutes a day. Most damagingly of all, ‘Captain America’, like ‘Iron Man 2’ and ‘Thor’ before it, is hamstrung by its commitment to the upcoming Marvel superhero ensemble movie, ‘The Avengers’, leading to a deeply unsatisfying non-sequitur ending. ), traverses the country selling war bonds and bopping a comedy Adolf on the nose to the delight of baying crowds.īut, with this sticking point out of the way, the film has other problems to contend with: the action scenes are inventive and well constructed but can feel somewhat slight the characters are well sketched but far too plentiful and the 3D effects are blurry and confusing – if you can catch this in 2D, you probably should. They even take a few witty potshots at patriotic fervour in a terrific mid-film musical sequence, as our genetically buffed-up, weed-turned-warrior hero, Steve Rogers ( The film’s period setting helps: by taking the character back to his mid-’40s roots and pitting him against history’s most hissable villains, the Nazis, the filmmakers have neatly sidestepped questions of American imperialism. So respect is due toĪnd his screenwriters for not only fashioning a nifty, highly entertaining slice of pulpy comic-book action, but for making this most divisive of costumed crusaders universally relatable. As the film’s subtitle alleges, the Captain may be ‘The First Avenger’ but he’s still a patriotic prat in tights whose main powers, much like the real-world superpower that spawned him, seem to be excessive arrogance and blunt force. It feels fair to say that when ‘Captain America’ was first announced, no one outside of the 50 states was expecting anything special.