Captain America: The First Avenger was clearly made by people with a strong love of the 40's pulp serials. In fact, director Joe Johnston helmed one of the very best 40's homages with The Rocketeer and served as art director on the all time best Raiders of the Lost Ark. Despite modern shading here and there, this is a film that fits with its setting, a true golden age of comics movie.

The film opens in the modern day with the discovery of a plane in the arctic before jumping back to 1942 where we meet the diminutive, rail thin Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans. He desperately wants to join the Army but his sickly condition precludes the military taking him. Attending an expo with his friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), he makes one more futile attempt but catches the eye of Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci). Erskine offers to help Rogers join a special project. That project, of course, is the fabled Super Soldier program headed up by Erskine and the crotchety Col. Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) with the aid of Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).

Of course Rogers gets chosen and is transformed into an impossibly muscled adonis. Unfortunately, a spy working for a previous recipient of the formula infiltrates the procedure and succeeds in shooting Erskine dead. Rogers chases after the spy and becomes a hero. Drafted into the USO, he's dubbed Captain America, given a ridiculous looking but accurate to the first take on the character costume, and serves as a propaganda tool. That is until he learns Bucky has been captured and he sets off in search of his friend.

This leads him to the base of that aforementioned previous recipient: The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). RS has come into possession of a device called the Tesseract, better known to fans as the Cosmic Cube. With it, he has a power source that threatens to wreak havoc on the world. Rogers dons a more realistic take on the costume, takes on a familiar round shield, and sets out to destroy the Skull and his organization, the dreaded Hydra.

Captain America is, for all of its amazing visuals and wonderful action, a film of great performances so I should focus on those first. Cap's always been a difficult character with his intensely noble persona. So it's nice to say that Evans, who was able to pull off a strong Human Torch, absolutely nails the role. His Rogers is a genuinely good and deeply insecure man who never seems to fit in this world even as he proves himself worthy of it. Weaving has already proven many times before that this isn't a hard part for him but he giddily tears into the deranged world conqueror role. As the film's heroine, Atwell brings a radiant charm. Jones is never less than hilarious as his classic military man. As the science men for their teams, Dominic Cooper (as Howard "you might better know my son" Stark) and Toby Jones (as Arnim "my first appearance will make fans laugh" Zola) are superb. Cooper even captures John Slattery's voice.

But on those special effects. First off, the transformation of Evans into a scrawny version of himself is a triumph in and of itself. It makes the bulked up version look like the unreal one. The rest of the effects are up to that level with a refreshingly lower level of CG than in some comic book movies. Lots of actual sets and stuntmen. Kinda missed them. Johnston knows how to shoot this stuff. Loved the 40s details too. I'm a sucker for that era. Also really loved Alan Silvestri's rousing score.

If the film has any flaw, it is a bit disjointed at times. The finale lacks the feeling of being a major finale. But then, nothing can top the truth of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But what's here is very satisfying. OK, Avengers. I'm ready.

This is a one case where every tweak/change from the comic book origin story is an improvement. Bucky isn't a teen sidekick fighting against the Axis, and no tying him to a rocket, and I loved the whole Cap being used as a War Bonds gimmick.

Agreed. The USO plot gave him another obstacle and gave us a logical reason for the Captain America concept. Better than "no fashion sense".

I also enjoyed the reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark as it really set the tone of the movie for me.

Since I love The Rocketeer and enjoy Sky Captain guess what I thought of this film?

My only niggle is that the beginning telegraphs the ending, which drains a lot of the tension from the flick.

Yeah, but if you know exactly three things about Cap, that's already spoiled for you.

The three most commonly known facts:
1) Super-soldier
2) Punched Hitler
3) Frozen into modern times

Yeah, saying the opening scenes of Captain America spoiled the ending is kind of like saying the opening scenes of Titanic spoiled the ending.

Just got back, and I loved it. I loved it even more than I thought I'd love it. The wife and I were laughing and cheering on the team throughout most of the movie. It was an excellent adventure that hit all the right notes.

*Air guitar solo*

Perhaps on this board they are common knowledge.

I bet the common movie goer knows less about Captain American than that. This movie was designed for the common movie goer first, and comic people second.

Darn those common movie-goers not bothering to research the source material before seeing the movie ..... its just darn rude.

All kidding aside, Easy, you make a good point. There's a balance between making a movie that appeals to the fans and to the non-comic-fan movie-goer and Marvel Entertainment, for the most part, seems to achieve that balance.

If a person unfamiliar with Captain America's origin watched the opening scene of this movie they just saw some dudes uncovering an ice buried alien looking craft and finding a neat stars and stripes shield in it. Only a person with some knowledge of the comic would figure out what's going on. I can't see it spoiling much of anything to the uninitiated.

That's an interesting point. At what knowledge point are we expecting people to be? Seems like if they know enough to guess the spoiler from those clues, they already know enough to where it won't matter. Curious.

On top of that, the Antarctic stuff doesn't show up until near the end again. Most people won't be focusing on the first two minutes of the movie still after another hour and 50 minutes has gone by.

I thought they dispatched Red SKull in a quick and strange way, not bothering to explain what happened (is he in Asgard?). But good movie. People cheered outloud when the Avengers trailer came up!

It was quick but my stance: he's gotta come back.

The further I get from this, and with a second viewing, the more I support my initial take: this is a dynamite movie. It's so much fun. It really is a thematic sequel to The Rocketeer to the point where I'm confused why fans were up in arms over Johnston. He has a narrow skill set but it's absolutely this material. He clearly loves the Golden Age as much as I do and it shows in a truly fun CA movie. I love the arc from playing a hero to truly earning the reputation. This is a film with a true hero to cheer for. One fun observation: Cap's new costume actually looks appropriately modern which even more cements this as an early years of Cap story.