Marvel Cinematic Universe: CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

In eager anticipation of Marvel Studios' AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, I'm re-watching every entry in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (MCU) thus far, from IRON MAN to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and then sharing my views on each one as a film and within the context of the MCU and movie landscape.  At the end of each essay is a list of "Easter eggs" that connect the pertinent film to other films in the wider MCU, and a "Top 5" of the best five parts (a scene, concept, actor, character, etc.) in each movie.  The final step in setting up the universe for the "Phase 1" grand finale, MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, to play in was to go back in time to the 1940s for the story of "the world's first superhero" (according to Agent Coulson in THE AVENGERS), CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER.  [Please note, this review contains spoilers].

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Released 22 July 2011
Directed by Joe Johnston
Starring: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Richard Armitage, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Kenneth Choi, Samuel L. Jackson
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action.
124 minutes
Merit: 3/4
Steve Rogers came of age in an era of global turmoil, and despite a bevy of physical deficiencies, he wanted nothing more than a chance to serve his country.  Recruited for a top-secret program by Dr. Abraham Erskine, Steve's frail body is transformed into the ultimate super-soldier, the powerful and heroic Captain America.  Now the world's greatest hero, he wages war on the evil HYDRA organization, led by the villainous Red Skull.

Captain America has been around since before Marvel Comics became Marvel Comics.  Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and first published in Captain America Comics #1 by Timely Comics in March 1941, eight months before the attack on Pearl Harbor flung the United States into World War II.  An All-American New York boy born to immigrant parents, Steven Rogers was a frail artist but was chosen as a test subject for the "Super-Soldier" project and became Captain America.  His debut comic book cover famously and very, very dramatically depicted Captain America, clad in a red, white and blue outfit with a bulletproof shield to match, socking none other than Adolf Hitler on the jaw in the middle of a Nazi war room.
Joe Johnston is ideally picked as the director of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, the pulpy WWII adventure that introduced the Avengers' captain to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Johnston is an Academy Award-winner, but not for directing.  Johnston won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on 1981's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, beginning his career in Hollywood as an effects artist for George Lucas' effects workshop Industrial Light & Magic and then as an art director, working on all three films of the original Star Wars trilogy, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and HOWARD THE DUCK.  He cut his teeth on directing as a second unit director for *BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED (produced by Steven Spielberg's company Amblin Entertainment), and made his official directorial debut making Walt Disney Pictures' effects-driven family film HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS.  He also directed a box office disappointment for Disney called THE ROCKETEER, also a pulpy WWII-era adventure.

THE FIRST AVENGER opens in the present day, when a derelict aircraft has been discovered poking through the Arctic ice, a red, white and blue circle showing through the ice.  Back in 1942, a few months after the official entry of the United States into the war, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a scrawny young man with a laundry list of health issues, but is desperate to join the fight against tyranny.  After multiple rejections, Rogers is noticed by Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a scientist who fled Germany at the rise of the Nazis, and is developing a revolutionary experimental program to make an army of "super soldiers".  Chosen for his inherent goodness by Erskine to be the first test subject, Rogers is physically transformed into a more-than-perfect physical specimen, but with the assassination of Dr. Erskine and the resulting loss of super soldier formula, Rogers is reduced to being an Army mascot.  A Nazi super soldier experiment, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), aka the Red Skull (so named for the ghastly deformities resulting from the early stage experiment), commands a Nazi deep-science cult called H.Y.D.R.A. however, and having gone rogue from even the Third Reich, has come into possession of an ancient Norse relic that has given him the power to carry out his plans of global domination.

The stylized world of THE FIRST AVENGER is more comic book than war movie, willfully hokey at times, and square like its hero.  For some of his critics, Captain America is just too pure of heart, too guileless, and thus too uninteresting, but it's not like this is a character study.  "Cap" becomes a little more complex in his post-AVENGERS solo feature, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, but even then, it is Captain America's surroundings that are required to be complex.  Cap is an ideal to live up to, and his purity allows him to be pitted against an impure society in social commentary.  THE FIRST AVENGER is appropriately simple however, a pulpy origin that doesn't need to be morally or dramatically complex.  It just has to be fun, and that it is.  Although THE ROCKETEER would make for a more appropriate comparison point, being another WWII rah-rah superhero adventure which Johnston directed, many, including Johnston himself, instead have gone to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  Early in THE FIRST AVENGER, when the Red Skull attacks the Norwegian village of Tønsberg, uncovering the Tesseract, also known as the "Cosmic Cube", and muses, "And the Fuhrer digs for trinkets in the desert," a direct reference to the events of RAIDERS.  Less direct, if even an intended reference, is a moment when Cap, fighting with a H.Y.D.R.A. soldier on an airborne craft, throws his opponent through the propeller.  Regardless of whether it was intended to bring to mind the similar fate of a Nazi mechanic in fight with Indiana Jones, it's really cool in a ghoulish sort of way.
Out of Phase 1, THE FIRST AVENGER has some of the best action, including a prisoner escape from a fiery, self-destructing H.Y.D.R.A. stronghold, and the aforementioned airborne battle.  Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of opportunities for thrills in WWII-era superhero escapades.  For all the spectacular action, the most impressive visual effects work is the convincing placement of Chris Evans' face on a much smaller body double for Steve Rogers' pre-transformation scenes.
Evans, playing Steve Rogers/Captain America, was previously best known for playing Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, in the Tim Story-directed FANTASTIC FOUR and it's sequel, in which he was a minor bright spot in the otherwise very dull and dumb proceedings.  As Captain America, Evans is a much nicer, nobler presence and charming in the most clean-cut way, a character that shows his range in comparison to his often very dark independent film performances.  As the Red Skull, Hugo Weaving does what he does best, gnawing on the scenery as a true pulp menace, and the lovely Hayley Atwell as Cap's lady love and colleague Agent Peggy Carter, is the best female lead of the MCU thus far, outside of Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow.
The last Marvel Studios film in setting up the Phase 1 grand finale of MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, THE FIRST AVENGER is also arguably the most crucial piece, even concluding with a direct set-up; Steve Rogers, awakened from his Arctic hibernation (survived thanks to his supernatural cellular regeneration and metabolism) and thrust into the midst of a modern world, and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) comes to him with a mission.

Easter Eggs to Look For:

• Foreshadowing to MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS: The unnamed "Tesseract", the mystical cube that H.Y.D.R.A. weaponizes, opens a portal to another galaxy which the Red Skull disappears into, foreshadowing the manner in which Loki arrives on Earth early in MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS.  Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) retrieves the Tesseract from the sea floor, and it becomes a major plot point in THE AVENGERS.
• Reference to MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS: Many MCU films feature a post-credits "stinger" scene that leads into an upcoming film, but CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER actually features a short teaser trailer for MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, released less than nine months later.
• Reference to IRON MAN 2: Captain America's tactical suit and shield are designed by Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Tony Stark/Iron Man's father, played by John Slattery in IRON MAN 2, and referenced to in IRON MAN.
• Reference to THOR: The church where the Red Skull uncovers the Tesseract is located in Tønsberg, Norway, which was featured in the prologue of THOR, released earlier the same summer.  The church features an ornate carving of Yggdrasil, a tree pivotal to Norse mythology, which Thor uses to explain the Nine Realms to Jane in THOR.

Top 5 of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

1.  Captain America Takes Down the H.Y.D.R.A. Flying Wing- Basically all of the climactic action in THE FIRST AVENGER, from the moment Cap boards the H.Y.D.R.A. flying wing, somewhat reminiscent of a fictional aircraft from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, to the emotionally-charged crash-down of the craft in the Arctic ice, to prevent it from delivering a WMD payload to New York City, is all some of the best Phase 1 action.  I love how they even leave the wing for a bit, for Cap to fight H.Y.D.R.A. on top of a one-man propeller aircraft, sending one to a ghastly fate in the spinning propeller blades (a death that also calls back to RAIDERS), and then makes his way back to the wing for a showdown with the Red Skull.
2.  Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine- One of the most consistent rules of movies today is that Stanley Tucci makes every movie better, maybe a little, more likely a lot, but no movie that Tucci shows up in is a total loss.  His small role as Dr. Erskine, developer of the Super-Soldier serum and short-lived mentor to Steve Rogers, is in a similar vein to Shaun Toub's "Yinsen" in IRON MAN, a humorous and and heartfelt presence to root the movie's emotional core.
3.  Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America- Chris Evans, like Captain America, is underrated, but he is as well-suited to his role as Robert Downey, Jr. is to Iron Man.  Handsome, charming and a warm personality, but also firm in his standing, so you believe that he can take down just about any opponent, he gets you on his side from the start.
4.  Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter- British actress Hayley Atwell is every bit the classic 1940s beauty, but also the most active female lead in a Marvel movie so far next to Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow.  More a muse for Captain America than a pretty face, and written with sharp wit, Agent Carter is a sturdy, classically-styled pulp heroine.
5.  The Red Skull- Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a sucker for a supervillain with a bright red skull face.

Images via Marvel Studios