Once more into the breech, dear super-heroes

Rating: Null/10 (2 August 2011)

Of all the super-heroes bounding out of Hollywood at an ever-increasing rate, none is more quintessentially stars-and-stripes than Captain America (can you imagine a Captain Britain or a Captain Russia?). Unlike Superman or Thor, his powers do not emanate from another world but from our own scientists. Unlike Superman (Metropolis) or Batman (Gotham City), his locale is not a fictional city at an indeterminate time, but the United States and Europe during the Second World War. So this is a mixture of "Raiders Of the Lost Ark" and "Inglourious Basterds" with lots of allusions to "Star Wars".
Original, it ain't. But it's visually impressive and lots of fun. Like "Thor", it was converted to 3D in post-production but, unlike "Thor", I chose to see it in 2D and, by all accounts, lost little.
Taking the eponymous role is Chris Evans who is no newcomer to super-hero movies, having starred in the two "Fantastic Four" films. Some clever visual effects - there were no less than 1,600 in the movie - make him much smaller and thinner at the beginning and beef him up big time after a huge surge of electricity, the staple ingredient of all transformations since Frankenstein. Poor Hugo Weaving always seems to be the bad guy (remember "The Matrix"?) and here looks suitably devilish as Red Skull, the leader of Hydra. It's always a delight to see Tommy Lee Jones who has some of the best lines and it was welcome to see a competent female character as portrayed by English actress Hayley Atwell (whom British viewers may know from the TV mini-series "The Pillars Of The Earth").
If Captain America was the first avenger, be assured that he will not be alone for much longer. He will be joined by Thor, Iron Man and others in the forthcoming movie "The Avengers" which is the subject of mini trailer at the conclusion of the credits.