by Paul Honke

Captain America is one of the oldest American comic book characters. He became popular back in the 1940’s to help sell war-bonds in WW2. One of the most recognizable moments in Cap’s history is an issue in which he punched Hitler (Go, Cap! Punch his moustache off!). This is when Captain America became a serious figure in pop culture. And like many things that get popular, they made a movie about him–in the 90’s. Needless to say, that original movie was worse than a five-hour storytime with Chris Tucker, Edward Cullen, and the Annoying Orange. But luckily the recently released First Avenger is very good and does a great final set up for the “Avengers” coming out next summer.

First, let’s talk about Cap’s awesome origin. Skinny kid named Steve Rodgers wants to be in the military in WW2 except he has basically EVERYTHING wrong with him: asthma, bone problems, 99 pounds, you name it (it’s a miracle he’s not flying in the wind at that point). However, he makes up for his shortcomings with a lot of heart. (I mean, who else tries to register for the military again and again with a new identity every time?) This attitude impresses a scientist who asks him to be a test subject to create a super soldier (you know for SCIENCE). The experiment works, but the scientist dies, so now Steve is the only super soldier. And now you have a scrawny kid from Brooklyn transformed into basically an Olympic athlete times three. During the war he gets frozen in the Antarctic and is then thawed out in the 21st century. Now that’s an origin story.

So on to the good things about the movie: the action was intense and kept you interested. Yes, the “weapons of the gods” were weird, but hey they still kicked rear ends.

I enjoyed the cheesy style of this movie. Usually a movie being cheesy is bad, but this is a superhero movie taking place during the 1940’s. It’s supposed to be cheesy and I got a kick out of it. This film’s atmosphere reminds me of the “Rocketeer,” which is a good movie too. Additionally, my favorite actors were Howard Stark, Bucky (whose chemistry with Cap is good) Red Skull (Hugo Weaving makes a convincing Nazi–which is kinda creepy) and Chris Evans as Captain America himself.

The special effects were pretty great as well. I can’t tell if they just used CGI to change Chris Evans’ body into a midget, or if they just placed his head on a small body. Either way, it was pretty cool.

If there is one thing I do like in a movie, it is a strong female lead, and this movie provided one. While not as strong as Pepper Potts in “Ironman,” Hayley Atwell as Sharon Carter was portrayed as a no nonsense yet likeable character. I also liked the Howling Commandoes. While they were only seen during the second and third acts, I thought they provided good humor and cool action scenes. Red Skull was probably the least developed Marvel villain, but Hugo Weaving portrayed him fantasticly, and any problem with him just disappeared with Weaving’s great performance.

Now onto the bad thing:  the second act. The second act in this movie felt rushed. I wished it had been written longer because it was producing some really good fight scenes. Compared to the greatly written first and third acts, I just felt that they were skipping around a lot in the second act. The Howling Commandoes didn’t get that much screen time and I felt that they deserved more.

Other than that, this movie was a blast. The star-spangled man has a plan: to be one of the best summer movie of 2011. Sure, X-men First Class was better, but this is right up their in my top five. I give this movie four out of five red white and blue stars. (By the way, I want Cap’s shield. Now that’s a weapon of mass destruction. Oh, and the “Avenger” trailer is shown in the post credit scene, so look it up on youtube.)