CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER review: Old Fashioned Storytelling & Modern Action Thrills

rating: 5

Our second review of Captain America: The First Avenger after Mark Zhuravsky's original. After Thor, Captain America looked destined to be the hardest sell for Marvel Studios as a major summer event movie. Not because he's an American hero in an era where we are cynical about such things, but because, under cold analysis, his powers aren't all that fun. Alongside some of the Silver Age heroes of the Marvel Universe, Captain America is really pretty boring. He's super strong and agile, but then so is Spider-Man - and that guy can sling webs and scale tall buildings. He can throw his big metal shield around, but that's not exactly much when put next to, say, Wolverine's adamantium claws. Cap's real claim to fame is that he once socked Adolf Hitler on the jaw and he's very much mired in that past. Funny then that Captain America: The First Avenger should be one of the best Marvel Comics movies so far, right up there with Sam Raimi's Spiderman and the first X-Men movies. In terms of storytelling discipline and thematic coherence, it is without doubt the best film made by Marvel Studios. Director Joe Johnston, who I've now officially forgiven for Jurassic Park 3, absolutely nails this big-screen adaptation, attaining the perfect balance between fidelity to the comic books and establishing the hero for a new audience. With a screenplay from Narnia film scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFreely, Johnston winds back the clock to tell the story of weedy Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) - an honourable, kind-hearted kid from Brooklyn - who dearly wants to sock Adolf Hitler on the jaw but isn't given the opportunity on account of his weak frame and sickly constitution. However, impressed by his persistence (he attempts to enlist in five different cities), bravery and nobility of spirit, an exiled German scientist, Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci, who has quietly become Hollywood's most watchable character actor), decides to use him as the test subject for a US government backed super soldier program that is hoped will win the war. The result is a newly super-strong, super-athletic Steve Rogers, though he is not thought fit for front line duty by a stern, sceptical colonel (Tommy Lee Jones) and instead politicians use Steve as a poster boy for selling War Bonds - being given a cheesy uniform and the name "Captain America"; a brilliant idea which enables the film to both address the propagandist intentions behind the character's real-world creation and justify his in-film adoption of a superhero persona. Here the highlight is a camp and incredibly fun USO show, with chorus girls and a catchy musical number composed by Disney veteran Alan Menkin. However, Steve didn't sign up for this singing and dancing lark and, with the help of love-interest/British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Iron Man's future dad Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), he soon decides to disobey orders and become a real-life hero in the theatre of war. What's startling is that Johnston gets through all of this and more with such economy. There isn't a baggy scene on it and the whole thing is carried off with a tremendous sense of style - with the director clearly the perfect fit for this sort of nostalgic fare, as anyone who remembers his 1991 The Rocketeer will testify. And the filmmakers do this with one hand held tightly behind their backs, as the needs of the upcoming Avengers movie dictate where this film must end - meaning the filmmakers not only have to work the hero's entire backstory into this two-hour movie, but also have to condense most of his 1940s history in the process. It's a wonder that the film isn't a total mess, yet it hits every major beat in the hero's backstory and leaves just enough of an implied gap between the on-screen events to allow fans to fill in Cap's further adventures themselves. This includes his fighting alongside Golden Age sidekick Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and culminates in him battling the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving doing his best Werner Herzog) - his evil, Nazi equivalent. As with all superheroes (even the really overpowered ones) making them exciting has much more to do with imaginative use of the powers than the powers themselves, and on this front Captain America is astounding, as new situations are constantly found to utilise his limited move set. The action scenes are consistently impressive, with the good Captain deflecting bullets with his shield and flinging it at his opponents (with, I have to admit, some really well deployed 3D). He moves around with a great sense of kinetic energy and seems to have burst from the panels of a Jack Kirby comic, with none of the colour and wonder of those simpler times sacrificed at the alter of "realism". This is an old fashioned action yarn painted in the broadest brush strokes. There are nods to comic book fans, who'll recognise many of Cap's butt-kicking US Army companions as members of Sgt. Fury's Howling Commandos, and who'll chuckle as various memorable comic book covers are recreated, but these bits of fan service don't intrude on what is an incredibly tightly focused and smartly written movie. It's smart, not in terms of rapid-fire Aaron Sorkin-style dialogue or any sort of gritty social commentary, but in terms of storytelling and structure. Whilst a lot of the dialogue could be seen as incredibly cheesy, it's no more cheesy than anything you could imagine reading on the pages of a 1940s comic book. Stylistically it all fits together nicely, benefiting from a director who favours composed static shots over shaky cams and rapid cutting. This isn't a post-modern take on the material, but an affectionate love letter to it. This is a film which revels in the inherent cheese of its character - as we see him leap through explosion after explosion unscathed and racing around on his motorcycle - but without winking at the audience. It's not played for irony, in fact the best thing about Johnston's Captain America is that it's completely earnest. Of course, the film has comedy relief and even some genuine laughs, but Chris Evans' Steve Rogers is played almost completely straight. Other characters make jokes about his shrimpy pre-experiment figure, but Steve himself is on the level. When asked why he wants to kill Nazis he delivers what is, for me, the film's key line of dialogue: "I don't want to kill anybody. I just don't like bullies." Laugh if you want but that's a glorious sentiment at a time when cold-hearted revenge movies are at a premium. It also serves to ensure that Steve's wish to go to the front isn't because he is some kind of wide-eyed boy adventurer who never read any Wilfred Owen. Furthermore, this is what separates this Captain America from hundreds of meat-headed, overly-macho action heroes. He isn't an alpha-male douchebag, he's a little guy motivated by a desire to protect the weak from the strong. His motivations are pretty much that simple and it makes for a likable, surprisingly compelling character, with Evans a thoroughly engaging presence from beginning to end. You could be forgiven for cringing at the very idea of a flag-waving American superhero, but don't let that stop you seeing Captain America: The First Avenger because that isn't what Steve Rodgers represents at all. He might be draped in the flag but he's not some cocky, unquestioning ultra-patriot. He fights for a naive idea of what America represents rather than what it might actually be - and there really isn't anything wrong with that, especially in a WWII context. Strange as it may be, I was even taken with the love story element by the time the credits rolled around and the effect that could have on the character going forward. Speaking of the credits, you might want to stick around through them. Not only for the next obligatory Avengers teaser, but because the credits themselves are stunningly realised, with famous US WWII propaganda posters rendered into 3D in a way that is far more tasteful and interesting than that might immediately sound. Tightly paced, cleverly structured, as kind-hearted as its hero and as unapologetically fun as anything you've seen at the mulitplex in years: move aside Tony Stark, Captain America is ready to lead The Avengers. Captain America: The First Avenger is released in the UK on Friday the 29th!