Captain America: The First Avenger

Rating: 6/10 (1 May 2012)

From director Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III), with Superman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man the superhero of this Marvel comics based film has a very iconic costume, and I was keen to see what it would be like. Basically, set in 1942, World War II has begun, and Steve Rogers (Fantastic Four's Chris Evans) from New York City is keen to join the fight, but he has been rejected a few times because of his health and physical problems. It is only after overhearing a conversation that Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) helps him enlist in the army, the scientist has recruited him for a new "super soldier" experiment, with Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) and British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) also keeping an eye on him. Phillips is for a while unconvinced, but Steve's conviction and self sacrifice change his mind, and before the real experiment treatment goes ahead Steve is warned of what happened to Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) who suffered bad effects after an imperfect version. While Schmidt and his sidekick Dr. Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) are harnessing the energies of the powerful tesseract cube, Steve goes through the super soldier treatment, with special serum injected into his body with doses of "vita-rays", and he emerges from the chamber bigger and muscular than before. The success of the experiment is short lived though when Schmidt's assassin Heinz Kruger (Richard Armitage) kills Dr. Erskine, and destroys the formula tubes, and Steve goes after him in a big chase, but the assassin kills himself with a cyanide capsule before he can be questioned. With the experiment lost Steve is given a position so scientists cannot study him and rediscover the formula, he is given a colourful stars and stripes costume to become "Captain America" and promote war bonds, before hearing his friend James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes (Sebastian Stan) may be in trouble. Steve has Peggy and Howard Stark, Tony's father (Dominic Cooper) take him behind enemy lines to rescue Barnes and other captured soldier, also meeting Schmidt who reveals his true face under his skin mask, a skull-like red face, hence his other name "the Red Skull", and they all return to base. Next Steve, Timothy 'Dumb Dumb' Dugan (Band of Brothers' Neal McDonough), Gabe Jones (Derek Luke), Jim Morita (Kenneth Choi), James Montgomery Falsworth (J. J. Feild), and Jacques Dernier (Bruno Ricci) attacking other bases run by the evil organisation HYDRA, and Stark gives Steve an experimental circular shield made of rare vibranium, an indestructible metal. A mission on a train sees Barnes fall to his death, and they capture Zola, and he gives them information that leads them onto a mission to stop Schmidt using weapons of mass destruction on American cities, and in the process of the fight the tesseract is damaged. Schmidt handles the powerful cube, and dissolves into bright light, while the cube melts the floor and falls to Earth, and Steve is still in the plane, and with no way to land it safely with the weapons on board he starts it heading to the ground in the Arctic. Stark is seen finding the tesseract in the ocean, while Steve awakes in a 1940s style hospital room, but he recognises a radio broadcast he already heard, and he breaks out of the fake scenario to find himself in present day New York, Times Square, and meeting S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who reveals he has been asleep for 70 years. Also starring Harry Potter's David Bradley as Tower Keeper and Stan Lee as General. I thought it was odd that Evans was cast as another Marvel comics hero, having already been The Human Torch, but it is actually a really good choice as he is straightforward and determined, Weaving is a good power crazed villain, and Jones gets some good moments as the concerned Colonel. The story obviously sets up that he is the first Marvel hero in history, and will lead onto Avengers Assemble, the story is pretty easy to understand with the world destruction trying to be stopped concept, less so with the political war stuff, and the special effects accompanied with good fights definitely keep you engaged, an entertaining wartime action adventure. Good!