Good Characters and Performances

Rating: Null/10 (26 April 2012)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Good comic book adaptation about Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a small, asthmatic boy who keeps getting rejected from the Army but that changes when a scientist (Stanley Tucci) thinks he might make for a good experiment. After a few drugs are pumped into him, he becomes a tall, strong fighting machine and gets the new name of Captain America. CAPTAIN America: THE FIRST AVENGER isn't the greatest comic book film you're going to see but for the most part I think there's a lot more good here than bad. In fact, there are only a few problems I had that kept the picture from being better but more on that in a bit. I think the film made the right decision to try and be something more than just loud explosions and I thought the build-up of the Rogers character was pretty good stuff. I thought the first thirty-minutes being devoted to his "small" side made you feel for his character and eventually want to see him in battle. I thought the screenplay developed most of the characters pretty well, which was certainly a plus. Another good thing the film has going for it are the performances with Evans really standing out in the lead. Through the special effects, the small version of his character was quite believable and Evans certainly had enough personality to make you feel for his character. The supporting players including good bits by Tommy Lee Jones, the before mentioned Tucci, Hayley Atwell and Sebastian Stan as the best friend. With all of that said, something I had against this film and many mainstream action picture is that it runs way too long. Coming in just under two-hours it wasn't unbearable or anything like that but I think a lot of times things just seemed to get expanded for no good reason.