Captain America: The First Avenger is yet another two hours of wasted time at the movies this summer, the latest in a series of origin movies leading up to probably the most over-hyped mega super-blockbuster of all-time, 2012’s The Avengers. After this spring’s Thor and last year’s Iron Man 2 and Wolverine (among many others), Marvel has proved it has no ambitions to make interesting and original films with their beloved characters. It’s disappointing – and the new The Amazing Spider-Man trailer is no promising sign for the future of their franchises (maybe that’s why the villain showed up to his Comic-Con panel drunk this week?).
It’s no surprise- the price tag of production alone suggests depth akin to a kiddie pool, but even that would be a compliment to this complete flat and lifeless attempt at a film. There’s nothing interesting about the period costumes, and there is no character to any of the different cities portrayed, obliterating the ever-important temporal context of the film. The absurdly futuristic terrorist organization HYDRA (the main enemy: apparently when you kill Hitler, all the Nazis evaporate) look so ridiculous, they removes any sense of time period from the movie, you are blatantly aware you’re watching a bunch of highly-paid people wearing a lot of makeup play fighting on an overly-lit sound stage draped in green tarps. To people who argue these summer movies are ‘entertaining’: what’s entertaining about that?
Worst of all, this incarnation of Captain America might be the blandest superhero ever on the silver screen. Chris Evans may have some acting talent, but he seems lost amongst the silly CGI scenery, unable to inject any life into his depressingly one-dimensional character. There is no development of Steve Rogers (Captain America’s government name) into anything past a short-minded blockhead who basically takes steroids to fight super Nazis. There are times where they could have; for example, in one scene, the pre-steroid Rogers gets beat up outside a bar, and later jumps on a grenade in training (an act of “bravery” and one I call “stupidity”).
Why was this man, who has no family, so ashamed of himself? Was he that depressed and desperate to be accepted he would do anything? Instead of exploring this, we watch him stumble through the tired story of the lonely kid who gets superpowers, and then girls like to look at him and he can do anything without consequence. There is nothing unique or realistic here, and as the titular character, the movie’s success rests on our connection to his character. When it’s clear the director made no visible attempt to do this, I must ask: what’s the point?
Disturbingly, there are there only two women in the whole movie, and their only existence to ogle over the buffed-up version of Rogers-who by the way, looks more like Hitler’s Aryan ideal than the Germans he fights against. It’s appallingly shallow and so Michael Bay-esque, Rogers even gets a kiss in the middle of the climatic action scene from the girl who’s eye-banged him the whole movie (seriously, this is a painful 113 minutes). It seems these two women were only on screen to say, ‘Look, girls in the 40’s all looked like pin-up ads!!! Aren’t they fun and emotionally weak in their expensive make-up???’ Any self-respecting woman will feel sick watching this movie, because it is clear there was no intelligent creative female presence involved in this film (or male, for that matter).
Captain America plays like a two-hour parody of World War II propaganda films (similar to those Rogers stars in during his early “celebrity” days as Captain America midway through the film, hawking war bonds)- and even if it had been good at that, I would’ve enjoyed it. Heck, a mere whisper of the racist inhuman super-serum testing done on African-Americans (a storyline from the comic books) would’ve made Captain America stand out among its recent counterparts. However, it’s just another mindless and soulless action movie, with all the visual and emotional appeal of a wet cardboard box.
Look on the bright side: The Dark Knight Rises is only a year away.
Overall: F
Characters and Plot: F
Acting: F
Production Values: D-
Processed Media 