An Intelligent Action Film

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2014)

Besides being a great action movie, Captain America is an intelligent film that asks us to consider some important questions about America today and its future role. You will find splendid martial arts and gun fighting sequences.
The direction is great with well put together scene cuts switching perspectives at a frantic pace. The story line is complex requiring our continued attention and keeping us guessing in a whodunnit fashion at points. Captain America is solidly played by Chris Evans with his assistant Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) helping him through some tough predicaments. Comedy relief is provided by some very witty quips at well interspersed intervals . All the weaponry and high octane chases that you could ever expect are here in good quantity, and the special effects are first rate. There are some well imagined futuristic weapons that are probably not so far off from what is being made today.
The film also questions whether America's role as a beacon and example of freedoms are being changed and compromised in the name of a new order. In an age of drone strikes we are asked if taking on the role of world judge and jury tarnishes the principles of justice that have long been tenets of the American ideal. Captain America's old fashioned values clash with a new system where human and democratic controls over the actions of a government in war might be in a process of erosion. The balance between freedom and fear since 911 is acutely symbolized in the final battle sequences. It is no coincidence that you see and hear words like 41st floor and the letter IN-01 in some of those scenes.
At the end of this film I think you will be considering the question of at what point does the erosion of personal freedom and privacy equal the loss of what America once was to the world.