Oh Captain my Captain

Captain America: The First Avenger

DIRECTED BY: Joe Johnston
STARRING: Chris Evans, Stanley Tucci, Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones
CERT: PG

It’s another Avengers story. It’s another superhero origin tale. You’re on the comic book merry-go-round that doesn’t stop and you can never, ever get off. I hope you’ve said your goodbyes.
There’s only one reason for this film to exist. Well two, but fattening the studio wallets is a given. The other reason is to put another piece in place for next year’s superhero convention, when Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and other assorted abnormal individuals get together to do whatever it is they’re going to do – besides selling tickets and action figures.
It would be nice to think they will entertain their fans and casual viewers while they’re at it, but you can’t go expecting that kind of thing. Mind you, Captain America makes a decent enough stab at it. His moment in the spotlight could have been much better but it’s a long way from being the worst comic book movie of the year.
It opens in the present day, when an arctic exploration team makes the discovery that will lead us to next summer’s big do. Meanwhile, we’re off to the past – to 1942, when Uncle Sam is sending his boys across the sea to give Hitler a hiding.
Steve Rogers (Evans) is itching to join the fight, but every time he tries to sign up, he’s turned away. Steve is a proud patriot but he’s a tad on the weak side, a skinny little boy badly in need of a few sandwiches – a scrawny physique he achieved thanks to the wonders of computer technology.
Poor Steve gets a hard time of it and is on good terms with humiliation but the lad doesn’t go entirely unnoticed and finds himself in a unique boot camp under the considerable boot of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones).
Here he comes to the attention of scientist Dr Abraham Erskine (Tucci), a man in the business of mixing exotic serums and Steve is the man chosen for his big new military experiment – creating an American super soldier. So our puny friend is strapped into the Frankenstein chamber (designed by Iron Man’s daddy, Howard Stark – sure who else?), is zapped with the magic formula and emerges in supersized form as Captain America.
So off he goes to kick a few thousand Nazi asses. He has a crew of ethnically diverse buddies and there’s always best friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and lady friend Peggy (Atwell) to lend some support. But mostly the good Captain is a one-man army, dishing out righteous retribution with his star-spangled shield.
The Germans aren’t going to take that lying down – not all of them anyway. The Nazis have tried their own super soldier serum, but the result isn’t pretty. With a shot of the happy juice, ex-general Johann Schmidt (Weaving) is transformed from a man who perhaps had serious psychiatric issues to begin with, into a man whose fury and power lust make the Fuhrer himself look like harmless Uncle Jonjo.
With a bit of DIY facial surgery, mad Johann becomes the Red Skull and embarks on a mission of destruction – with a little help from a handy magical cube. And as you have probably guessed by now, there’s only one fella who can stop him.
There’s nothing particularly special about Captain America – certainly not when the action starts and the design department takes over. Director Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) handles it competently, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before – except that the hero is fighting the Third Reich, as opposed to a mad goblin, or some monster made of old televisions. Which I suppose is something.
It’s what happens in the early stages of the film that really works, when Johnston and his writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (The Chronicles Of Narnia) take the highly unusual step of developing a character. You can’t help but have a fondness for misfortunate young Steve – and you miss the little runt when he becomes Captain America, a knucklehead with all the charm and personality of a bullock.
So having done very nicely in making Steve a hero worth rooting for, Chris Evans finds himself back in the kind of bland superhero mode he may have thought he left behind on the Fantastic Four set – and is outshone by Hugo Weaving as the snarling megalomaniac. As performances go, nobody else does anything exciting enough to stand out. Stanley Tucci is his usual reliable self, Hayley Atwell does the nice job required of the love interest and Tommy Lee Jones is, well, Tommy Lee Jones.   
And when all is done, the ending is a bit dull. But hey – the needs of the many and all that. Though of course, we are speaking mostly here about the needs of Marvel Studios, who need their Captain preserved for future use.
In case we didn’t know that, some of his fellow heroes turn up in another post-credits sequence to make sure we get the hint.
That we won’t have to see any more of these is just one more reason – perhaps the biggest reason of all – that next May can’t come a moment too soon.