![]() ![]() That’s right, we don’t start with Steve Rogers in his own movie because building to The Avengers is more important. How it got into a monastary in Europe is not important, I guess, because the Tesseract is the macguffin central to The Avengers. And we get that somewhat, but when the movie flashes back for the first time, we are introduced to some creepy Indiana Jones music as Hydra steals the cosmic cube, the Tesseract, which we learn, was the jewel of Odin’s treasure room. I guess some backstory is necessary to understand who Steve Rogers is, how good his character is, and just why he became a hero. But then they had to flashback to the 1940s. Seeing the Captain America shield in ice was so much of a fanboy moment that the ice scene was fine by me, mainly because of the length. ![]() The opener to The First Avenger does have its charm though. They could have done so much with a classic 1940s guy stuck in the modern day, but instead, they spend the whole movie telling us the World War II history of Captain America. ![]() They don’t deal with the man-out-of-time or his feelings or any of his confusion with the new world at all. The First Avenger glosses over what happened in The Avengers #4, the discovery of Steve Rogers in ice, in the first five minutes. In effect, they defrausted Cap and The Avengers were off. Stan Lee had to invent, or rather, re-invent, a reason for this and it was perfect. This all changed in The Avengers #4, when the heroes unearthed Steve Rogers from ice, just as in the movie. Captain America did have comics published during the 1940s, but war comics fell out of favor and Cap was sent off to limbo when his series was cancelled in 1954. Stan Lee quite possibly gave Captain America the best shoe-in to modern day comics ever, ushering him in as a man-out-of-time, an untarnished patriot, and a genuine, unabashed hero. Most of the movie is carried by Chris Evans, but even that isn’t saying much. Most of the characters are underdeveloped and some of the effects need help. It doesn’t start with a big action set piece as in Star Wars and it certainly doesn’t end with a bang. The movie doesn’t follow the typical action movie formula. Hell, the subtitle is The First Avenger for God’s sake. ![]() That’s what this movie’s one big problem is. It is good planning, but leaves some of the features unsupported, existing only to bring us The Avengers. I think this movie was envisioned the moment Marvel came up with their “movie universe” idea, where each of the main features would march their way across the yellow-brick road until they got to The Avengers. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but the weaknesses stick out like a sore thumb. Looking at the Marvel movies in general, I’m not sure which is the worst of the bunch, Thor the Original Snore, Iron Man 2: Stupidity Boogaloo, or this movie. When seeing this movie, I was already a comic book and superhero fan, so I was going to enjoy some parts of it, there’s no doubt about that, but I’m not sure if the casual viewer gave this movie a chance compared to the beloved Iron Man franchise. With The Winter Soldier right around the corner, I take a look back at Captain America: The First Avenger and ask myself if this movie really does suck-ass. ![]()
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