Movie review: Captain America – The First Avenger (2011)

It’s time for Captain America as July is almost coming to end. It’s a superhero film by Marvel Comics which is famous in creating several other comic-based superhero films like Spiderman, Iron Man, etc.  The film tells the story of Steve Rogers, a short, thin and weak man who is transformed into super soldier Captain America to help the war effort. However, Captain America must stop Red Skull (the villain), Adolf Hitler’s ruthless head of weaponry and leader of a terrorist organization, who intends to use a mysterious tesseract energy-source for world domination.

As the setting of this marvel superhero is back in 1942 during World War II, Captain America is considered the first superhero emerged in the world from the comics, and hence getting the name as ‘the first avenger’. Do you know that Marvel is going to release a new film soon entitled ‘Avengers’ which will gather most of its superheros into a single film, for an epic battle with the much stronger villain. It is even hinted at the end of this film that it is a prequel to the upcoming ‘Avengers’ film which Captain America will be part of it. Here below is the official trailer of the movie, ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’:

I don’t need to explain much on the story of the film as to prevent spoilers as well as it is pretty much expected and obvious what this film will deliver; some extreme action scenes of fights, clash and explosions added with some humours which cracked the audiences out. I did laugh at several moments by a few hilarious scenes, especially at the beginning of the film when the thin and weak soldier is not yet transformed, and when people are questioning his ability in army forces. The action scenes are impressive, but not at the part of the final clash between Captain America and Red Skull which I find it is too simple and quick (with Red Skull suddenly vanished to the universe). Not all action scenes are just created with mainly CGI effects, with many portion showing the real fighting action by the Captain, Steve Rogers portrayed by Chris Evans.

I have to compliment on Chris Evans for his best ever performance after I have known him from Fantastic Four. He had a greater role here as he is the Captain America, the main lead of the film. The character’s development of the film is shown very well, hence giving sufficient screen time for him to shine from a thin guy to a muscular guy. The audiences would certainly pay attention towards his character which is given a depth, good enough for a two-hours movie. His solid performance steals the whole show. As for the villain, the Red Skull portrayed by Hugo Weaving, I find his performance not well done, a better actor should be casted for such a potential character that is ruined by Hugo at this point.

I would like to praise the editing jobs done in showing how skinny Chris Evans is in the beginning of the film and how muscular and ‘big’ he is after being transformed. Yes, Chris Evans did a great job in going for a diet for his earlier acting before going for gym for his performance after the transformation, but obviously, computer did major role there. Thumbs up to Chris for his effort in doing so, and to the whole production team for making the movie quite a successful one. On the other hand, I find that the film did extremely well in bringing the whole setting back to 70 years ago during World War II.

However, I find some parts in the film to be a bit illogical, like the part when the died doctor leaved no notes at all in operating the transformation mechanism which lead to only a single ‘Captain America’, and not many (which would be then damaging the whole point of having only a single Captain), the part when Captain America is saved and slept for almost 70 years just to reach to the modern days to be continued with the upcoming ‘Avengers’ film. There are some other illogical parts but I’m still okay with it…as the whole point of superhero film already came in being illogical at some sense. Out of 10 points, I would gave this one 7.2.

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