Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Director: Joe Johnston

Writer: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely

Cast: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving

I skipped yesterday’s post because I knew I would finally be seeing the new Captain America film on Friday. Now I finally have time to write down my thoughts. Do I have to say spoiler alert? This came out a week ago.

While the film was not as brilliant as The Dark Knight, as exciting as Iron Man or even as silly as Thor, it was definitely enjoyable and better than the average summer popcorn flick. I had fun while watching the entire movie and actually cared about the characters, which definitely does not always happen in comic book movies. Although, I have to admit, I cared a great deal more about the secondary characters than Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America.

 

He was likable enough and did manage to give the character some heart. I especially enjoyed his insecurities, especially with the Captain America propaganda that he was forced to participate in. But that could also be because I have always enjoyed World War II-era propaganda; it amuses me, especially from the Allies.

Beyond this and my own personal inherent weakness for World War II stories, there was one thing that made me genuinely love this movie: Howard Stark.

Seriously, he was the best. As Tony Stark’s father and the founder of Stark Industries, Howard Stark is an important albeit off-stage figure in the Marvel Universe. So it was really surprising and exciting to see Howard Stark as a central character in a film. And he did not disappoint. Seriously, this guy was like a pre-crazy, still-handsome, still-sleeping-with-Katharine-Hepburn-and-Ginger-Rogers Howard Hughes and inventing things left and right and I loved him for it.

Howard  Stark: crazy playboy inventor/aviator



Howard Hughes: crazy, playboy inventor/aviator

I could probably talk about how much I loved this character (and Howard Hughes) for the rest of this entry. Despite the name of this blog, I shall refrain from fangirling too much. Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter was definitely a great female character, one of the best lately to be honest. Take, for example, Natalie Portman’s character in Thor. She was atrocious. I enjoyed the movie, but I could not stand that this was the best they could do with the main female character. Peggy Carter, however, was very dynamic, steadfast in her missions and never had one of those overly weak moments that Hollywood loves to throw at women. She was very beautiful and I was amused that she always had perfectly applied lipstick, even in battle scenes. I also liked that she and Rogers never “got together,” which definitely would have been super gimmicky.

Hugo Weaving did what he did best: chewed the scenery and it was great. Red Skull is the perfect villain to chew the scenery with so he definitely did not disappoint. Nonetheless, the pacing of the film felt a little weird to me as points and oh man, I cannot believe they killed off Bucky! I was actually impressed that they did that; though Bucky is definitely not a well-known comic book character, he is still integral in the Captain America mythos.

Overall, the film was better than I anticipated and definitely enjoyable. It didn’t grip me as much as other comic book films have, but Captain America made me extremely excited for the upcoming Avengers film. Also, I purposely stayed during the credits to see the traditional after-credit scene annnnnnnnnd… the power went out in the theater. I couldn’t believe it. Someone tell me what happened, damn it!