Marvel Studios keep opening the doors on their catalog every summer and Captain America is the latest to enter the spotlight. The movie matched the superhero himself: average at best.
Not to sound like a hater, but the draw of Cap himself isn’t really that strong. He’s really a B level guy in the superhero world as far as I can tell. Average man Steve Rogers tries to join the army during World War II and is turned away multiple times for his physical inadequacies. A chance meeting with Dr. Abraham Erskine gets Rogers into the Super Solider program where all of those nagging little physical inadequacies are erased. Enter Captain America to fight for the side of good.
The movie is really well made. It looks fantastic, the backdrop of the US circa 194x is well established and very believable. Great use of color, it’s well shot and staged and the FX are all done very well. The cast is great to, I think this is Chris Evan’s best work. He makes Steve Rogers a very likeable and loveable guy and he makes great moves in the action scenes (Caps’ fighting style is pretty unique, probably the best part of him). Everyone surrounding him is very good too, he has very good chemistry with Haley Atwell who plays Peggy Carter. They get most of the laughs together and Howard Stark (Iron Man’s father) role was much bigger (and better) than I thought it would be. Hugo Weaving as the villainous Red Skull (who is so hardcore he doesn’t think much of Hitler’s efforts) is great too, the effects for creating him are a particular stand out.
The movie has a very long lead in, there’s a lot of character development and set up with most of the action in the last half hour of the movie. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does make the pacing feel off. It’s a bit of a drag to be honest. After some time the first action scene comes and it’s pretty short, then a bit later there is a rescue scene and then when the good guys go on the offensive, we get a montage of Cap and some troops taking out some enemy bases. While what is shown is good, there’s really no reference to where they are or what they’re doing. Feels too broad, like it’s just a generalization. That decision didn’t sit well with me. While it’s a good movie, I don’t feel any need to see it again.