Pass the Popcorn! review

Rating: 6/10 (2 April 2014)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is hitting the theaters in my country in a few days, so I decided to (mainly because some characters re-appear in the sequel) look back at Captain America: The First Avenger, the last solo Marvel movie that came out before The Avengers. On my first viewing, Captain America: The First Avenger struck me as one of the weakest and most forgettable movies of Marvel Phase I. I hoped my initial impression would change upon this viewing. Unfortunately, it didn't.
Set during World War II, the movie follows Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who wants to join the army but is rejected because of his health and physical issues. His luck, however, changes when he meets the mysterious doctor Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who helps Steve join the army despite his disadvantages. During his military training he shows intelligence and bravery, and doctor Erskine enlists him in an experiment, which goal is to create super soldiers. After the experiment is successful, Steve's body completely changes (he gets much taller and stronger), and soon he becomes Captain America.
Captain America: The First Avenger can roughly be divided in two parts, with the first one ending when Cap puts on his suit and starts punching Nazis. The first part of the movie, which is almost fully devoid of action sequences, is the origin story and with its interesting character development, setting and plot, is much superior to the second part. Chris Evans (in spite of how silly he looks before the super soldier experiment) is a fantastic choice for Captain America and truly does a remarkable job. Hugo Weaving, who's always great at portraying villains, is (at least before he reveals his true face) good as the movie's bad guy Johann Smith aka Red Skull. The rest of the cast (mainly Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell) don't fall behind these two. During this part, Captain America: The First Avenger is a decent and enjoyable period movie, which sometimes is more than enough to entertain. And then, the second part of the movie happens.
The second part of Captain America: The First Avenger is more or less a montage of dumb action sequences, explosions and people killing each other. During this part, the movie's cheesiness becomes apparent and makes the movie look more stupid than it should. Scenes of a ridiculously looking villain (let's face it – no matter how you portray Red Skull, he'll still be somewhat ridiculous) and a ridiculously patriotic protagonist punching each other in the face, while speaking awful lines of dialogue, come almost as an insult after the movie's solid first part. While there is some lighthearted humor here and there, overall the movie should have taken itself less seriously than it did (for the right amount of serious and unserious, look at the first Iron Man movie). By taking some of its silly elements too seriously (the Red Skull, the Hydra, the patriotism) and by having too many action sequences tightly packed, the movie overall undermines its full potential and it ends up being forgettable and of rather poor quality.
Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/