Oh Captain, my Captain!

Rating: 6/10 (9 October 2017)

"Captain America: The First Avenger" is an American (of course!) 2-hour movie from 2011 and the first of so far 3 films about the world's first Avenger. Or lets say with the world's first Avenger in the center of it all as Chris Evans' character also showed up in other recent Marvel movies. The cast includes many known names such as Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci, who are fun as always, especially in their scenes together. The main antagonist is played by Hugo Weaving who you certainly know from the Matrix trilogy. And if you take a look at some other cast members, you will find the likes of Hayley Atwell for example who got her own series afterward. In terms of the story, it is almost always entertaining and rarely just another generic superhero film. I liked how they emphasized the American military aspects, for example that we see the Captain attack with an army of soldiers and some are killed because this is war. It fit the character nicely unlike for example in the Avengers movie where he is a lone wolf character like the others. But back to this one here: There are moments like this like for example the TLJ steak scene (and I am saying this as a vegetarian) and many others like the brilliant "Star Spangled Man with a Plan" sequence that should have won a Best Song Oscar or how we see the Captain struggle to gain the forces' respect and support on one occasion especially.
The transformation was also handled nicely all in all. The weaker components? Well the villain character was not really that memorable apart from his (transformed) looks of course, but I wouldn't blame Weaving for that. It's not that bad though. I also was not too fond of all the girls/romance parts and honestly I could have done without the Peggy Carter character completely, but then it would have been 100% sausage fest and I can see how they didn't want that. I am not sure if I disliked the actress or the character, but something didn't feel right there. To end the review on a positive note though, the way it should be, let me say that the way in which they connected the end of this film and the beginning of The Avengers was handled very competently and it fit really well together, even if I admittedly will never really be too fond of SLJ as Fury, even if I adore the actor in other projects. The positive in this Captain America movie is definitely more frequent than the negative and that's why I think it is a good watch. A must see actually for American patriots and Marvel film buffs. Go check it out if you are among the not too many who haven't already. In my opinion, this one gets even better on rewatch. I think I liked it less during the first time I saw it as now I am even curious about the sequels and I think Evans was a really good casting decision for the central character.