Beautiful origins story

Rating: Null/10 (5 October 2013)

To me, both this and Thor feel a lot alike as movies. They're both movies about the main side characters of The Avengers film. Because lets face it, the main characters of The Avengers are Loki and Tony Stark. They're the heart and soul of the film, they're the driving force behind the plot and Tony's films are the ones that set the tone for the rest of the films. That's not to say that Captain America and Thor are not important characters, hence why they both got their own damn movies, which are both used to introduce plot points that would become important later on. With Thor we got Loki and with Captain America, we got the Tesseract.
And yet, they're both very different experiences. Thor happens in the span of a few days, focuses on a single town, mostly, and the scope of its events is rather limited. It focuses more on the chemistry between its characters and the responsibility needed to be a leader. Only the last one of those is present in Captain America. In this movie we are pulled into the World War Two, the fate of the entire world is at stage and there's not a lot of character interactions going on. It's more about what needs to be done, not about how these two will get along as people. And don't get me wrong, both approaches are fine and I love Thor as a film, but I must admit that as a movie, this one is a bit stronger, just because it tells us more about both the character of Steve Rogers and about the rest of the world. It works both as an origins story and as a period piece about the war.
The best thing about this film is by far Chris Evans. He plays his role perfectly, at first coming of as vulnerable yet determined scrawny kid, who wants to make a difference. You believe in his blight, trying to get enlisted, but just being too weak to be considered. But as soon as he steps out as Captain America, you'll buy it. He IS Captain America, his sheer presence just screams it at you.
And I quite like the rest of the cast as well. Hugo Weaving has the slight problem of being too, well, Hugo Weaving, but that's what you get when you hire the man, and it's not like it's a bad performance. It's just a bit... campy, if you will.
The plot itself would work just fine as a standalone film, but I like how tightly they bound it to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe mythos, while still doing their own thing. You can see how the events of this film would affect the later events and would eventually lead to The Avengers. Though I must admit that the Hydra as the villain organization doesn't work quite as well as it could - I'm sorry Hugo, I know you're trying to be intimidating - but it's a nitpick at best.
I like this film. It's one of the stronger Marvel films to date and I have high hopes for the sequels. It works both as a period film and as a superhero film and if you're a one of either, I'd give it a watch.