The origin story for the first avenger

Rating: 6/10 (30 July 2011)

I never was really interested in Captain America simply because it seemed to promote the idea of a good empire and put this character at the front of this empire as an ideal for people to emulate. While it is true that in this movie, the person that was selected for the experiment was a small man who did not like violence, but believed in standing up to bullies does give the ideal of what the American Empire is about, but this is in many cases an idealist vision that hides the greed and corruption that is rife.
However, I am not intending on using this as a criticism of the American Empire because this is not what this movie is about. It is a super hero movie, and does create the American ideal of the superhero (in fact it appears that the superhero genre arose from the US in the 30's, during the Great Depression). The idea is that this world has a lot of evil and bad things happening, things that a mere mortal is unable to fight, so there is a desire for a 'super hero' to fly down out of the sky and deal with the evil that we ourselves are unable to deal with. Maybe this comes from the Christian heritage of the United States were the belief is that at a time in the future Christ will return, coming from the sky and being visible to everybody. It is that inate desire of us to see Christ return and make right a fallen world.
Captain America is the continuation of the Avengers story arc, though in the comics there are a lot more cross overs. The heros are mortals that are changed and become super human, while the mutants were born that way. However it appears that in the films the mutants and the heros are separate. I am told that Logan (Wolverine) was a member of Captain America's Howling Commandos.
As a film it is enjoyable, and if there is a theme it is that even the smallest and weakest in society can rise up and become a hero. It is interesting that after he is turned into Captain America, he is turned into a propaganda tool for the US government, going around entertaining troops and attempting to sell war bonds to the public. However it is when his friend is caught by Hydra that he tosses the actor mask aside and becomes the superhero.