Review: Don't miss 'Captain America'

Film: Captain America: The First Avenger

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Samuel L Jackson
Rating: ***

 

With World War II in full swing, Steve Rogers (Evans), a scrawny Brooklyn boy wants to do his country proud but a list of infirmities make his enlistment an impossibility. This is until Dr Abraham Erskine (Tucci), head of the military's top secret super-soldier project, sees Rogers arguing with his friend, the suave lothario Sgt James Bucky Barnes (a far cry from the Robin-like, teen-aged side-kick from the early comics). Erskine believes Rogers, inspite of his physical debilitations, has the stuff that dwarfs the brute strength that is blindly sought after during times of crisis---true selflessness and the will to stop bullies in their tracks. Speaking of which, the man whom Erskine previously tested his serum on, Johann Schmidt aka the Red Skull (Weaving), by harnessing the power of the gods , is seeking to further the cause of HYDRA, his Nazi division which he envisions will supercede the Third Reich itself.

 

Rogers is the physically-enhanced ubermensch with a difference. He can leap higher, run faster, punch harder, but he knows who deserves to be on the receiving end and eschews the egoism Schmidt represents by putting his brothers in arms and his country before himself. With his merry bunch of men, (assembled from the distant reaches of the Marvel Universe) Rogers is the only force standing between the Red Skull and world domination.

 

Evans, as Captain America, displays a wider range of emotions compared to the Human Torch character he essayed in the unwatchable Fantastic Four movies. In fact, his might be the most human and vulnerable depiction of the steely-eyed hero. Tucci, who affects a German accent as Dr Erskine, brings a certain compassion, warmth and wit to the screen. Jones, too, was well cast as the crusty archetypal armyman Col Chester Phillips, a man initially sceptical of Erskine's judgement.

 

Complementing the sequel of the war to end all wars with seemingly space-age aircraft and bizarre occultism, the film doesn't take itself as seriously as the comics and a good deal of humour is sprinkled about. Our hero himself is reduced to a caricature pontificating about the value of war bonds while being flanked by dancing girls in a nation-wide awareness campaign immediately after becoming a Super Soldier. But, the hard-headed officer Peggy Carter, a woman far ahead of her times , believes he was made for much bigger things (well naturally, with his near physical invulnerability, why should he be reduced to a political tool?)

 

With 3D that leaps right of your screen, Captain America captures the look and feel of 1940s New York with a dusty sepia tone and Art Deco architecture and the ashen desolate battle fields of war-torn Europe. While Cap dons a smarter, more realistic costume, there are several winks to the comic books such as mad scientist Arnim Zola's introductory shot which subtly foreshadows his future as a robotic entity.

 

All in all, Captain America is definitely more than a mere prelude to the upcoming Avengers film. A fun movie, it ranks higher than the predictable Thor and Iron Man 2 in terms of action and humour. Don’t miss it.