Plot: After seeing his best friend 'Bucky' (Sebastian Stan) shipped of to fight in the war, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) , constantly rejected by the military for his frailty, finally gets a chance to prove his worth as a soldier when he's chosen by U.S. army colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), Peggy Carter, an agent in British intelligence (Haley Atwell) and German scientist Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) for an experiment that could create the worlds first 'supersoldier', pitting him against Hydra (a special weapons branch of the SS) and its leader, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving). A man who has become such a threat, even Hitler wants to destroy him.
Review: Marvel Studios willingness to take risks choosing the right directors for it's tentpole films and the best actors for the title and supporting roles has become the most reliable highlights of their films. First, a burned out actor looking for second shot (Robert Downey Jr.) as Iron Man, a relatively unknown Australian actor (Chris Hemsworth) in the title role of Thor and now a mostly disregarded actor, Chris Evans. And once again the risk pays off.
When Chris Evans was hired, like a lot of people, I was a little surprised and extremely skeptical when Marvel insisted he was the perfect man for the job. Nothing he's done to date has ever been on this scale, or been this popular. It was a risk he'd never taken. When the movie had finished principal photography, Evans stated that he'd turned down the role twice, he was afraid of screwing it up. He throws himself into this role and it shows. From his first scene to the closing of the film (and the trailer following the credits), Evans' performance as Steve embodies everything that has made this character popular for nearly seven decades (and many of the film classic characters of that era), from the weakling with an unshakeable sense of right and wrong, a powerful young man second guessing his decisions and his place in the world to a soldier with levels of courage that outstrip any common sense, running head first into the gunfire. Evans manages the difficult task of keeping Rogers from becoming a one note character perfectly, avoiding a flag waving cliche (you won't be humming the theme to Team America) and keeping him emotionally grounded in reality. The man behind the hero. He pulled off most of his own stunts to make sure people knew it wasn't a stunt double and hired a personal trainer to get the right physique for the part.
While keeping the movie pretty squarely on its title character, the film provides a fantastic range of memorable supporting characters and talented actors to flesh out the story. Hugo Weaving pulls off another perfect villainous foil for the hero with the Red Skull/Schmidt (maybe he snapped during the exhaustive hours in the makeup chair getting Johan Schmidt's trademark look right). He's evil, arrogant, decisive and, unlike the other Marvel villains so far, has no problem showing his madness. It's easy to tell that Weaving enjoyed every line! Everything about him is done so well that he might as well have walked off the pages of the comics themselves. Haley Atwell's performance provides the boldest, most independent love interest of any Marvel film so far. While holding her own in all the action and in a heavily male environment, she adds a lot of depth to Peggy when she slowly opens up to Steve about her own doubts and fears, giving Steve someone else to lean on. Sebastian Stan's performance as James Buchanan (Bucky) Barnes provides the only departure from the original origin story. In the comics Bucky was a tried-and-true 'sidekick', never really growing out of that one note role until he was reintroduced into the comics a few years ago. Following that more recent tone, Bucky's personality is on equal footing with Steve the entire time and despite his best friends frailty, you never get the feeling the Bucky feel superior to Steve. The two of them growing up as orphans, Bucky is more like an older brother. Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones play my favorite roles in the movie. Jones provides the only straightforward humor in the movie and his deadpan delivery of every line is hilarious! Tucci, despite who little you see him on screen, provides the heart of the movie and becomes a big moral compass for Steve as the movie goes along. He's a quiet, unassuming father figure through and through and his role feels too short in spite of the necessity of its short length.
Looking at Joe Johnston's career, from visual effects work on sciencefiction classics like the original StarWars trilogy and Indian Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark to his directorial debut on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (it's still a great family film) through his last movie, The Wolfman, with themes ranging from period pieces such as October Sky and Hildalgo to fun fantasy stories like Jumanji, (he even made Jurassic Park 3 worth watching), to a fantastic hybrid of the two, The Rocketeer, an amalgamation of World War 2 and pure sciencefiction, he's done good films and quality work, but he's never been a household name. Captain America may have changed that. And looking at his resume, his career may have been leading up to this. He sets the tone for the movie perfectly as high stakes, science fiction period piece that just happens to have a superhero in it. And while providing breathless, high octane action (I flinch every time someone gets hit with the shield), his focus on the quieter moments and the character development draw you in and make the adventure feel more important while still maintaining a sense of fun.
In the end: I may be biased because I'm a longtime comics fan, World War 2 history buff and love a good action-adventure story, but this is probably the best comic movie of the summer and possibly even better than the first Iron Man.
Grade: A+
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