Captain America: The First Avenger is a 2011 production by director Joe Johnston, together with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The film features Chris Evans in its main role with Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan and Hugo Weaving portraying other notable characters. The movie currently sits on 6.9 stars on IMDb and has a 66 Metascore.
A Summary
Captain America: The First Avenger gives the Marvel Cinematic Universe fans the backstory of one of the main Avengers, Captain America. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) starts as a skinny kid from Brooklyn with big aspirations: joining the US army and win the war against Germany. However, his physique isn’t quite right to become a soldier, until a German scientist comes into play. One experiment later: Captain America is born.
After Dr. Erskine’s Project Rebirth, Steve Rogers becomes stronger than anyone fighting in this war. The doctor gets killed by a spy immediately after the successful result, but the Captain new gained strength instantly proved useful as he captured the spy. The US army now knows that a German research division is behind the assassination, called HYDRA, led by Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving).
Despite Steve’s insane strength, he is just being used as a puppet in ‘war’ to earn money to fund the real war. After a debacle at his show close to the frontline, he hears that his best friend, James ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan) has gone missing and is likely captured or killed by the Germans. Captain America decides he will free him along with hundreds of other American soldiers at a nearby German camp. He gets dropped on-site by the famous engineer Howard Stark, with some help from Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), with whom he seems to have a connection.
The unapproved mission turns out to be a huge success. Steve managed to free more than 400 soldiers, along with the newest German technology and valuable information about other hideouts from HYDRA. Afterwards, they attack every other facility as it’s all comes down to the main base underneath the Alpes. Unfortunately, Bucky is lost during one of the earlier attacks, as he falls downs a mountain after he fell from a moving train.
Schmidt, also known as the Red Skull, wants to drop bombs all over the United States by using an enormous plane to fly there. He takes off from the main base underneath the Alpes, which was almost fully captured at this point by an American offensive. Captain America manages to get aboard the plane and fights Schmidt. After Schmidt picks up his power source that powered all of his factories and technologies, the tesseract, he gets disintegrated. The aircraft, however, is flying on automatic pilot towards its destination. Steve decides the only option he has, is to fly it into the ground at a place with nobody around.
Suddenly Steve Rogers wakes up, 70 years later, and meets Nick Fury.
The Story
Captain America: The First Avenger is the fifth movie in the MCU, after Iron Man 1 and 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk. It is the setup for one of the most important Avengers, which released less than a year after this movie. It is an inspiring story. A weak kid, who is bullied half of the time, but never gives up. He always stands up, along with his famous line: ‘I can do this all day.’ It sets him up for a beautiful arc, a relatable guy who wants to help, but isn’t allowed to so.
However, they quickly throw away this weak kid and replace him with a super-human who gained his strength from some fluid being pumped into his body. Suddenly, he is stronger than anyone and he manages to succeed in absolutely everything. I know it’s sci-fi, but he runs through a HYDRA base and manages to not raise a single alarm. He becomes unkillable. Sure it provides a cool story, with some excellent action sequences, but it goes it too far in my opinion.
The Characters
A quick note: I think it is really fun to see how many quite famous actors they put in this movie. Not your big Hollywood stars, but memorable faces, that gave me the feeling that I’ve seen them before. Some of these include Natalie Dormer (The Hunger Games), Kenneth Choi (The Wolf of Wall Street), Neal McDonough and Derek Luke (Both starring in various popular series).
Steve Rogers (Captain America)
As I already said earlier in this review, Steve’s arc goes from relatable and compassionable to instant super-human. He doesn’t even undergo any training whatsoever before going into the field. Still, he manages to make every single mission a huge success. It sets up one of the coolest Avengers, but his powers in this movie are a bit unbalanced, as not all things should be. I think it’s better dealt with in later movies starring the Captain.
I do like the fact that Steve is still too shy to talk to women after his transformation as it creates a nice arc together with Peggy Carter.
Peggy Carter
She is a powerful woman who immediately sets the tone during her first scene. She slams a disrespectful soldier to the ground. You can see the love on first sight between Peggy and Steve. She feels bad for him, as he is the weakest guy on the training, but she does seem to like his personality traits. You can see that they are meant to be together, which makes you feel even worse when the movie ends. They never got to be together, right?
Johann Schmidt (Red Skull)
The antagonist of the movie. A horrible, unforgiving, cold-blooded military leader. He was part of earlier experiments by Dr. Erskine, but he was less successful. Schmidt ended up with a red, burned skull, hence the name. I am not a fan, however, of this character. He is just way too basic. Create a superweapon, destroy the world, done. I would’ve liked something more original. Also interesting how he seems to be powerless against Steve, despite getting a similar serum injected into him.
The Production
The movie sure has a high production value for its time. The visuals are nicely made and keep the viewer interested in the world that Marvel is building for the MCU. I do think there was more to win in the writing department, maybe some more memorable lines and interesting writing would’ve nice in between the almost constant action.