Captain America is a Three Star General

Rating: 6/10 (23 July 2011)

Does America need another hero? Not a dark brooding hero like Batman. Nor a cocky scientist like Iron Man. Certainly not a weenie teenager like Spider Man. But a hero who wants to be a hero because it is the noble thing to do, to sacrifice himself for God and Country. I think we need someone like that to lift our spirits right now. Is that hero going to be Steve Rogers?
But who is Steve Rogers? Rogers (played by Chris Evans) is a skinny, asthmatic kid from Brooklyn who is trying his hardest to enroll in the US Army during World War II to fight the Nazis. His intentions are honest; he hates bullies and wants to help stop the Nazis. He is discovered by Doctor Erksine (played by Stanley Tucci) who recruits him to be involved in an new experiment to make a super solider for the Army. Rogers willing accepts. Things aren't easy for him in boot camp, although he has heart, he is still a weakling. Think of him as the Rudy of the super hero world. He also has Col. Chester Phillips (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who doesn't want him in his Army. To fix all of this Rogers is injected with a serum to turn him from a bean pole to a mega man in literally minutes.
After the experiment Rogers doesn't become the super hero Captain America we know today. He is in a holding pattern, the Army finds no use of him and he becomes a pitchman selling war bonds in musicals traveling across the US and war torn Italy.
Meanwhile, in Nazi occupied Europe, Super Nazi Johann Schmidt (played by Hugo Weaving) is on his quest to find a blue cube of power so he can supersede from the Nazi army to take over the world himself. He even started his own army, HYDRA, who has a strong belief in folklore and mystical powers.
While in Italy Rogers finds out that his best friend is trapped behind enemy lines and soon he makes a daring decision to save him from HYDRA. It is here Rogers truly becomes Captain America and leads his troops home. It is also revealed that Schmidt has a secret similar to Captain America, they both were experiments of Dr. Erskine. While Rogers became Captain America, Schmidt's experiment didn't go as well and he became Red Skull (I think the name says it all).
The director, Joe Johnston (Jumanji, The Rocketeer) takes a lazy approach to establish Captain America's heroics by gluing together a montage of fight scenes with no real story to back them up. We see a lot of action for a few minutes then go back to the rest of the story of Captain America on the hunt for Red Skull.
Should you see this movie? Sure, being part of the Avengers series makes it somewhat necessary to see it before next year when the Avengers movie is released.
As with Iron Man and Thor, it is still a good stand alone movie (Note to Iron Man fans: we are introduced to Tony Stark's father in this film). There is enough action, humor and romance to hold the story together.
Jones is the stand-out actor in this troupe with his stern but humorous delivery of his lines. He gives the film some pick up when Evans' lines are falling flat.
Spoiler alert: Unlike the other films in this series, don't waste your time waiting for the secret clip after the credits role.