Banana Scoop

Captain America: The Last Avenger.   This marks the last installment before the full length feature including Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Hawk Eye, Nick Fury and Black Widow all played by Hollywood’sA-Listers.  Whew, that’s a lot of superheroes.  Anyways, this feature is the story of Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, whose power is…well, being American.  That doesn’t sound too convincing as an entertaining superhero movie.  Wait.  Maybe this is like one of those superhero movies where it’s more realistic and the hero is believable and Red Skull, the villain, is a menacing grounded mastermind whose ‘Red Skull’ is a metaphor.  Oh wait, you’re telling me there are blue lasers, powers of the Gods, and a questionable German Hugo Weaving in a Red Skull…Uhhhh.

I’m not much of a comic book guy, but I am interested in how a beloved character, such as Captain America, can be created and have over 50 years of character development can change to be translated onto a big budget onscreen full length feature .  Captain America: The First Avenger is another superhero movie and the final full length feature before Marvel releases it’s cash cow, The Avengers.  Apparently Captain America himself is supposed to head this group, being a tactition and a natural born leader.  Before watching the movie, I never really understood Captain America’s powers and I wondered how he could control/lead a man in a flying metal suit that shoots missiles and energy, a giant green Mr. Hyde whose power is based on his rage, a son of a Norse God, and Scarlett Johansson in black leather spandex.  I soon found out that his defining features as a hero is his courage, incorruptability, and ‘immense’ strength.  Despite these ‘powers’ and a trusty 1940’s metal shield, I still thought throughout the entire movie, Iron Man could totally kick his ass, the Hulk could smash him up, and Thor could squish Caps face between his thighs.  In general, Captain America himself didn’t really impress me.

You served your country well...but you as a lead is still not as interesting as Tony Stark

Standing alone, Captain America: The First Avenger would have been a good maybe decent super hero movie if I didn’t already have super hero fatigue.  One of the strongest aspects of The First Avenger is the vintage and sepia feel very reminiscent of O’ Brother Where Art Thou.  As a time-piece film, we really do capture the essence of the WWII America and it’s nice to see how Captain America (played by Chris Evans) worked as a war time morale booster as his origin story.  His heart of gold may make him better than the average man, but how much can that actually translate onto the battlefield.  Apparently, if you give him a racially diverse squad and a metal shield, it can truly change the course of history.  That’s essentially how the story goes, but otherwise, the film falls into super hero skeleton and formula minus the beginning and end that relate to The Avengers.  Hero starts weak, hero gets strong, hero faces tragedy, hero conquers villain. Roll credits until the very end where we get our Avengers trailer [see a clip here].

Sometimes the supporting characters can save a movie that has fallen to formula.  Tommy Lee Jones plays a convincing colonel, Stanley Tucci is a fine and likable German scientist, but the rest of the supporting cast almost seem nameless and quite forgettable.  The film even tickled at Captain America canon comics by including a ‘Bucky’ Barnes (who is actually the Captain’s kid sidekick in the comics), but he and his death are quite forgettable and insignificant.  Hugo Weaving as Red Skull excited me at first, knowing that Weaving can play a decent villain.  However, I didn’t find him as menacing as I probably should have and if anything, besides the revealing of his ‘Red Skull’, ultimately found him a fairly ineffective and forgettable arch enemy.  Red Skull literally could do nothing as the Captain cleaved his way through dozens of Hydra camps like a knife through butter and their final fight was almost just as forgettable.  And then there’s Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), who plays Steve Roger’s love interest.  A likable leading lady with a soothing British accent that captured my heart.  This actually has little to do with the movie itself, so we’ll move on.

I love finding new crushes. Hayley Atwell.

The films plot revolves around how we win WWII.  But not really.  We aren’t actually fighting Nazi’s in this movie.  We’re fighting a Nazi rogue group, Hydra, that has severed itself from Hitler’s Reich.  Captain America eventually saves the day, but not by defeating Hitler and the German Nazis, but by defeating an underground research division that happens to have alien technology that shoots blue lasers because it’s from the Gods.  Uh what?  Meanwhile, soldiers in France are getting slaughtered by the thousands.  IF Captain America actually saved America from the Nazis themselves, I probably would’ve felt the patriotism and pride of being an American that this movie should have inspired.  Instead we got blue lasers and Red Skulls with bad German accents.

All in all, I was not completely disappointed with Captain America: The First Avenger, but super hero movies these days really need to break new ground if they want to stay fresh and relevant.  This was another recycled effort in my opinion of the superhero movie cash cow.  Hopefully The Avengers will be fresh and break new ground, as compilation of superheros and A-listers aren’t often seen together, so the results are hard to predict.  And with Joss Whedon (Firefly, Serenity, Buffy) heading in the director’s chair, I’m sure he won’t disappoint.  As for The First Avenger, the action scenes are okay, but there isn’t anything worthwhile or memorable here.  If anything, you just need to watch this flick to prepare for The Avengers.  And that’s the reason I can find that makes this film worthwhile.

2/5 Stars

Cheers Cap, you're still a 90 year old virgin