In 12 months the world will be awash with geek drool as Tony Stark, Thor, The Hulk and Captain America (plus a bunch of other Marvel heroes) team up for the Avengers. But for now, you’ll have to make do with Chris Evan’s clutching the world famous shield.
The First Avenger is an origin story about how little Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) ends up in a top secret research project that see’s him transformed from skinny little guy into big, muscly guy. From there he don’s a cheesy “Captain America” outfit and eventually, and I do mean eventually, gets into proper Marvel standard issue Cap’n uniform. In the interim, the worlds only super solider thunders around on the occasional mission, before eventually facing off with Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).
To his credit Chris Evan’s has really ditched the human torch cheese festival and his become quite the charming, bad ass. His performance is rock solid. While it won’t get any Oscar’s and what not, it does make an impact and he is entirely convincing. The same can be said for Hayley Atwell who plays Peggy Carter. She, like Evans, is really believable and probably out of all the cast puts in the most sincere performance. The same alas cannot be said for Tommy Lee Jones. Even though his part is relatively small and his onscreen time is quite minimal, it shows. He comes across as this was an easy pay check and literally doesn’t break a sweat. Hugo Weaving has a few decent moments as Red Skull, but his “accent” lets him down on a number of times, swaying between German, English and Christ knows what.
Captain America: The First Avenger is directed by a man who should know how to direct a super hero / comic book flick. After all, Joe Johnston brought The Wolfman to life. Managed to trample a few dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 3 and even had Robin Williams running for his life in Jumanji. The point I’m getting at here, as all the above movies mentioned, weren’t bad movies. But at the same time, they weren’t exactly amazing pieces of work. They just were! And that’s what Captain America is. It just is.
It’s not bad, and it looks superb. But the whole thing takes far too long to get going. While I accept it’s an origin story, has anybody learned from Superman Returns? The final stages of Captain America are genuinely some of the best and biggest scenes you will see this Summer. They are incredibly well directed and tightly put together. But by the time Chris Evans don’s the proper outfit, you might have well started nodding off. Up until that point, excluding a few short action scenes, it’s boring dialogue after boring dialogue that adds very little to the picture. At least 20 minutes could have been shaved off the 2 hour running time.
Overall, I enjoyed The First Avenger in part. Besides it’s lacklustre pacing it does eventually get going ,and whilst it may all be over too quickly after that (a montage does not do the Captain justice), Johnston and his team have done something that many movies these days can’t quite manage. And what’s that I hear you cry? It leaves you wanting more. And Jesus H. does it leave you wanting more, so much so you’d nearly start painting a few dustbin lids with stars and make it yourself. At this stage though, it’s more of a private, than a Captain. Roll on the Avengers. And yes, hang around after the credits!
