Captain America 2011
This wasn’t a movie I felt like I needed to see, but after seeing The Avengers in 2012, I wanted to get the rest of the story on this character. Almost all of the movie happens during World War II, though there is a link to the present day. I kind of wish they had saved the present day stuff for a sequel, and just let this movie stand by itself as a period piece, but I think they wanted to work Captain America into the 2012 movie.
A lot of the elements are very similar to other Avenger movies like Iron Man. There is a bunch of crazy science and different kinds of equipment, and big, noisy action scenes. It is well made, but it has become a little bit formulaic. However, the different setting sets up some neat things, like a run-in with Ironman Tony Stark’s father. And the wardrobe, props, and weapons are pretty neat coming from that era.
Not everything works really well. The main thing is that they start out with a puny guy and are able to bulk him up a lot to turn him into Captain America. So you either have an actual puny guy and give him fake muscles for most of the movie, or you take a muscular guy and try to make him look puny, which is what they did. But sometimes he looks like he is about four feet tall and off in the distance, even though he’s supposed to be in the same car as another regular size person. Fortunately he isn’t puny for long, but it was a distraction early on. And that puny self sets up a lot of what makes the Captain America character, so they couldn’t really skip over it.
Anyway, definitely worth watching, but not great. I’ll give it a B.
Written: 03 Feb 2013