Captain America the new Superman

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2014)

This movie was better than I thought it would be.
Captain America has usually been done badly on screen and there's the political problem of how to portray a man called Captain America in a world where many people don't like America or its foreign policy. The usual answer is to have everyone talk about how anachronistic he is, how his values no longer apply, how the world is no longer black and white and blah blah.
This movie does just the same but fortunately it gets on with things and keeps moving before you have time to spot the problems. Chris Evans looks uncomfortable and I'm not sure if that's because the character is supposed to be uncomfortable in the setting of the movie or because the actor knows he's the C list character in a B list franchise (The Avengers have the comic book characters that other movie studios didn't want). I will give the benefit of the doubt and say Chris Evans played the confused superman well.
Scarlett Johansson gets to do a lot more and fills the role of the comedy sidekick as well as action hero. Pairing her up with Chris Evans was a good idea and it worked well. Robert Redford stands around doing his man from the 1970s stuff. Samuel L Jackson is the same as always although he is starting to blend into the scenery. The other characters are competent and none of the performances were bad.
The action was fast paced and more suited to an action thriller than a comic book movie and that was a good thing. People are getting shot in large numbers in this movie and there was a seriousness that I appreciated. There were times when Johanssons character appeared to be in real danger and looked scared.
The problems. After the destruction of New York (the Avengers), the damage to London (Thor Dark World), the terrorism in Iron Man and the money spent on Shield (the cost of those hover carriers!)the economy in this universe must be in a shambles and the population traumatized by Alien invasion, men mutating into green monsters and Shield being blown up in front of their eyes. There seem to be no consequences following these huge events. Society seems to move along fine and the shops look full.
Finally with Man of Steel showing Superman to be a brooding over powerful ET who smashes up cities, thinks he's a god and threatens the military it seems like Captain America is the new superman. He's the one who now promotes truth, justice and the American way. Give him Tony Stark's suit.