Sunday, October 9, 2011

Captain America: The First Avenger - Disappointing at Best


The last movie that I saw was Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was a game time decision to see Apes or Captain America: The First Avenger. Since choosing Apes I felt as if I truly missed out on one movie that I was sure to love. I felt that I had to make it to see Captain America, but after seeing it last night at the Maxi Saver in West Mifflin I am glad that I didn't pay full price for what turned out to be a disappointing movie.

Captain America takes place during WWII as pathetic wimp Steve Rodgers (Captain America) played by Chris Evans is denied enlistment to the US Military for many physical deficiencies. This sets the stage for Rodgers to desperately seek entrance and even though he has no stunning physical characteristics, he possesses the smarts, determination, and patriotism...in other words the "intangibles" to be a great soldier. This allows him to be selected as the prototype for a new breed of super soldiers.

While the story with Rodgers is taking place we see another side of the story which introduces Johann Schmidt, Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving conducting scientific experiments while simultaneously killing naysayers who are against his occult obsessions. Red Skull was a previous scientific experiment and his role is to also develop super soldiers based on ancient superstitions with which Nazi leader Adolf Hitler also shared a fascination.

These two stories ultimately should coincide and leave for a heart stopping action movie, but from my point of view this was never achieved. Both stories took too much time to develop and once they FINALLY came together the two main characters had a short fight sequence and then the movie ended. The movie did a horrible job bringing together why Red Skull wanted to develop his own army outside of Hitler's, how Captain America and Red Skull became enemies, and left no satisfying conclusion. The only idea that tied the two people together was one was an American soldier and the other a quasi-Nazi soldier.

In addition to the story line being so boring, it seemed like it should have been released directly after 9/11 because it seemed like a cheesy patriotism propaganda movie from the 1940's. I rarely fall asleep during movies at the theatre, but I did doze off for the last 10 - 15 minutes and missed nothing as my wife explained what happened. I was told to stay for the credits by the usher and we stayed in order to see the preview for next summer's blockbuster hopeful The Avengers which hopefully will bring some characters with small roles from Captain America together with other Marvel characters together with success.

I am glad that I saw Captain America only because it was on my list. Other than that, I do not recommend Captain America unless you have absolutely no other options.

Pills gives Captain America: The First Avenger 1/6 Irons, the lowest movie review to date.

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