Smart and Fun... An Absolute Blast! A True Hero!

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2011)

Another perk of serving our country... an advance screening of a great film! Intelligent comic-book popcorn epics are rare and this one is definitely a cut above the usual fare. Besides being a tremendously smart and even emotional film, it's also refreshing to see a lead hero be just that... a hero. Steve is no morbid vigilante or narcissistic self absorbed anti-hero. He's the real deal. His tough life hasn't made him bitter or jaded. In fact, it's done just the opposite. He's needed to develop character because his body didn't develop. This is the key to Cap both in the books and in the film. Heart and character trump the physical elements and are what truly makes the character itself special. Even after he's given the great gift of being a "super soldier," he still continues to do the right thing. It's not to prove anything to anyone other than himself because he has a high moral code. I love the fact that they choose his character for the experiment because he wouldn't take advantage of the gift. That's smart writing. Cap's first assignment from the U.S. government is to be the centerpiece in a traveling USO show, building morale and raising money for the war effort. Eventually, he finds he's wasting his new abilities and NEEDS to break away on his own to fight the Nazi menace. This brings him to conflict with the awesomely diabolical Red Skull. The Skull is one of Marvel's best crazed villains and they captured that perfectly. Here, the Red Skull was a guinea pig for a similar Nazi super soldier experiment that went very wrong. These clashes and confrontations are everything they should be and more. Shades of gray are great in film (and there are those tones present here) but sometimes it's good to have character of pure heart, pure integrity and true morality take it to what history and everyone knows was pure evil. It's refreshing to sit back and root for the ultimate good to take it to the ultimate bad guys. It's why I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark and it's why I now love this film.
I enjoyed every single minute of this wonderful film!