Captain America: The First Avenger
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
Joe Johnston’s period piece is the most old fashioned movie in the canon, and it profits from it. Steve Rogers starts as a four foot nothing kid from Brooklyn played by a digitally trimmed Chris Evans, and the movie’s smartest decision is spending its first hour on the man before the muscle: the back alley fights he loses, the flag pole stunt he wins, the reason Dr. Erskine picks him. The serum amplifies what is already there.
The 1940s production design is a pleasure, all newsreel grain and World’s Fair sheen. Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter gets the best love story the MCU ever managed, and Tommy Lee Jones strolls through collecting laughs as Colonel Phillips. Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull is a serviceable Nazi nightmare even if the mask limits him.
The flaw is the third act montage. Once Bucky falls from the train, the film fast forwards through the war like a trailer for a longer cut, and the emotional math of the finale depends on scenes we never got. The plane landing in the ice and the wake up seventy years later still land hard.
The best pure origin story Marvel produced. Our score: 7/10.
Seasons
Season guides coming soon.
