Captain America: The First Avenger was always going to be a challenege. The titular character has a reputation for being cheesy and if not done right could have put a dent in the up till now strong world building done by Kevin Feige and co in the MCU. Cap is the 5th film in the MCU and by now we are familiar with the modern super hero world. This is why I think taking us back to WW2 and the beginnings of Hydra and SHIELD was an inspired choice. Having established the good and evil organisations in the previous movies we care enough to make them a big focus in this movie, takingsome of the spotlight off Cap.

 

The beginning of the film introduces Steve Rogers, a small and weak man with ambitions to join the army and fight the war against te Nazi's. He is refused entry over and over and is frustrated at not being given a chance, when those around him are enlisting. That is until a German scientist named Dr. Abraham Erskin meets Rogers at a chance meeting and gives his stamp of approval realising that Rogers has the heart of a man who could make a difference.

 

Skip forward to training and Rogers proves himself as a man with principles and courage unmatched by his colleagues which prompts Erskine to choose him for an experiment to become something more. While all this is going on we find the villain of the movie Johann Schmidt/Red skull played by the always excellent Hugo Weaving. All his initial scenes play like an Indiana Jones movie. I always wonder if this was intentional or purely a result of mixing magic and Nazi's. Red Skull is the founder of Hydra and aquires the Tesseract, a jewel from Odin's treasure room which he uses to try and build weapons to take over the world. Weaving is strong in the role and in my opinion is second best villain in the MCU only to Loki. He is a conventional bad guy searching for power but his involvement in creating Hydra mixed with Weavings sinister portrayal makes for interesting viewing.

 

Around thirty minutes into the movie Rogers enters Howard Starks lab (played by Dominic Cooper). I am glad they did not wait too long, the weakest part of this film are the scenes where Chris Evans Steve Rogers is introduced. Chris Evans plays the part perfectly but the fact they had to use his head on a small mans body always distracts me and just does not look right. Having said that it is clear why they went down this road as when Rogers steps out of the super soldier machine we are as suprised as the other characters at the transformation. Introduce Captain America.

 

The next phase of the film is handled beautifully. As mentioned earlier Captain America is a cheesy character and they tackled this by playing up to it. Cap is used as a propaganda against the Nazi's and any cheesyness is used to full effect to influence the war by use of theatrics. Cap grows tired of this and wants some action so when Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell) brings news of his friend (Bucky Barnes) capture he takes it upon himself with the help of Carter and Stark to carry out a rescue mission against the orders of commanding officer Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones). Caps mission is a success and he manages to rescue what is left of the 107th including his friend Bucky Barnes in a clever scene which is a clue of things to come. Cap finds Bucky on an operating table having been experimented on (see Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Having won the respect of his peers he is now given his own team to lead which includes his long time friend Bucky.

 

The rest of the movie plays out more conventionally where, after a run of successful missions our hero is led to Red Skull and a final battle which ends with Red Skull suffering to the fate of his own ambition. There are lots of eggs here which later transpire as cannon. Bucky's experimentation at the hands of hydra and even a scene where he picks up Cap's shield towards the end of the movie could prove to be significant when Chris Evans six picture deal comes to an end.

 

The movie is clever where it stands in the the MCU, it has to come after Thor where the magic and science of the MCU is explored and before the Avengers where the heroes have already been established. The secret to the success of the movie however, as with all movies in the MCU, is the casting and here we are treated to another ensemble. Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell all do a fantastic job. This was the ideal penultimate movie before Avengers Assemble. By now we are all familiar with how the MCU movies end, teasing us with further installments and Captain America: The First Avenger does not disappoint.

 

I was presently suprised by this film. Along with Thor these movies could have begun to unravel the work that came before but the casting and writing, clearly factoring in the mythology of the Marvel Universe makes for an exciting and intriguing origin story. This movie ends up being arguably the most important in the MCU as there is so much going on.

 

Watch out for the ever present Stan Lee cameo.