Captain America: The First Avenger Cinema Review

By Alex J Smith

Like its protagonist, the formerly malnourished but forever heroic Steve Rogers, ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ is a film with an identity crisis. At first, Joe Johnston’s retro-futurist vision of 1940s America, along with its starry-eyed citizens and gleaming cityscapes, serves as a perfect backdrop to ‘yet another’ origins story. Johnston succeeds in confidently establishing his context within a thoroughly convoluted Marvel Universe, and Rogers’ transition from weakling to an Atlas-like capitalist man-beast is rewardingly well-paced.

But before long, the narrative, aesthetic and thematic strengths give way to a stagnating middle act that introduces an exhaustively large cast of secondary characters, all of whom imbue the film with a greater sense of aggressive misdirection. This, along with the increasingly underdeveloped characterisation of the primary villain, ‘Red Skull’ (played by an appropriately cast but overtly neglected Hugo Weaving), and a heavy focus on regularly bland action sequences, attribute to a film ill-at-ease with its Marvel contemporaries. It also doesn’t help that the sources of its relative ‘inspiration’: a gravitationally-shifting brawl aboard a bomber (‘Inception’), a daring assault on a high speed train (‘Mission Impossible’) and an entirely unnecessary bike-chase scene (even ‘Return of the Jedi’), are all examples of inferior duplication.

The plot, after briefly showing a frozen Cap’ being discovered in modern day, concerns the hero’s humble transformation from a mild-mannered 4F recruit into a symbol of national pride and fidelity. Fortunately for us, this is depicted via a process of explosions and acts of tremendous heroics - there’s even a Nazi-slaying montage that makes full use of nothing whatsoever – and a finely-drawn parallel narrative is defined between that of the hero and his opponent.

This antagonist comes in the form of the dastardly-named Johann Schmidt, a leader of Hitler’s ‘Hydra’, an especially evil sect of Nazi administration typically seeking global domination. Towards the start of the film, Schmidt conveniently discovers an alien artifact – convenient in that it serves as both a fantastic plot device, neatly connecting the film to the ‘Thor’ universe, and a source of limitless power. He soon sets out to so on and so forth. You get the picture. However, it’s when Steve’s heroic efforts take him to Europe that the problems start to appear. The issues are not simply due to the film’s short-comings (of which there are many), but to the inevitable limitations born from a modern revival of a Golden-era propaganda figure - particularly relevant when considering a current age of more cynical, Christopher Nolan-influenced Superhero pictures.

But whereas John Favreau found his success with the modern relevance of an appealingly flawed and all-too human Tony Stark in the ‘Iron Man’ franchise, and Branagh with the Shakespearian interpretation of Norse God, ‘Thor’, Johnston is left with an old fashioned Superhero clearly out of touch with now-outdated cultural principles. Although this could’ve been one of the film’s greater strengths if it were not an origins story – in other words, 40s Cap’ in conflict with a more pessimistic and mercenary modern America – we now have to wait until next year for Joss Whedon’s ‘The Avengers’ before we get to see how he plays up against a modern world – not to mention the likes of the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Loki, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Nick Fury. For now, we have a relentlessly hammy and thoroughly antiquated hero in the form of a 7-foot tall, blue-eyed, blonde-haired mega-Aryan, whose preferred past-time - besides the personal gratification wrought from inflicting capitalist strength on imperialist fascism - seem to be leaping away from a great number of increasingly large explosions at a regular rate - grand total of five, lots to choose from to put in the trailer and get those kids excited.

However, his predilection for instilling unbearably self-satisfied American patriotism in anyone he comes across during the film’s arduous 124-minute running time proves to be his greatest undoing. One can understand that these attributes would have been unquestionably effective in 40s and 50s-era America, but the charm is essentially diminished on a more modern audience, and most of the time he comes across as a bit of an arrogant dick. That’s not to suggest that this origins story is altogether unnecessary, it’s just that we’ve seen the likes of this done so many times, and more often than not, far more effectively, with Peter Parker, Tony Stark et al, that it’s produced a form of Marvelmalaise – take note, this film marks the eighth Marvel origins story of the last 6 years.

The film does have a few redeeming features however. As with every summer blockbuster, the film comes packaged with appropriately high production values and, apart from the relentless greys and browns of the film’s later half in Europe, it looks fantastic. The rarely-seen vibrancy of the 40s is brought fully to life with remarkable colour and attention to detail - monorails twist around a Fritz Lang-esque vision of Golden Era Brooklyn, while Anna B. Sheppard’s costume design injects a welcomingly humorous retro-camp into the style of Hydra’s Über-Nazis. In addition, the film’s light and regularly self-aware humour helps to distinguish it from more sanctimoniously-focused Superhero offerings, while the inclusions of an understated performance from Stanley Tucci as Doctor Abraham Erskine and an often-overwhelmed Hayley Atwell as Steve Rogers’ love interest, Peggy Carter, award the film believable and nuanced sub-plots.

Unfortunately though, the film still suffers from a considerable amount of glaring flaws. And, although it may not be this year’s worst Superhero movie (congratulations Ryan Reynolds and your ridiculous ‘Green Lantern’) it cannot succeed when compared to other various Marvel alternatives. Contrary to the Captain’s former reputation as a symbol of indefatigable strength and diplomatic integrity, it seems America’s once-great hero might have finally lost his powers of inspiration.