Johnston’s film works with that and at times thrives in it.
CAPTAIN AMERICA THE FIRST AVENGER MOVIE SCRIPT MOVIE
Maybe the movie could have used a little more 1942 and a little less magic cube from outer space, but the movie is in a sense beholden to its genre. Johnston puts the period specific skills he learned making movies like The Rocketeer to good use here, mixing a dizzying array of World War II era iconic imagery with sci-fi strangeness. That First Avenger looks glorious is only a bonus. After a summer watching superheroes with power rings and mutant mental abilities, there’s something refreshing about watching a guy defend truth and justice with only his fists and big chunk of American metal. When the movie settles down to really let an action scene develop though, it truly soars, and does it in fairly simple fashion. It’s a testament to just how good that reel is, I suppose, that you’ll want more of it. Some of Cap’s earlier exploits end up being reduced to a highlight reel, in which we watch him blowing up Hydra installations. If there’s any complaint here, it’s that he doesn’t spend more time on them. Cap’s on a collision course with their leader Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and along the way Johnston blasts fast-paced, but infinitely watchable action sequences across the screen. These Nazis have mastered technology beyond the normal Hitler loyalist, and calling themselves Hydra, they run around blasting Allied troops with laser guns. It does.Įventually Captain America ends up in the thick of World War II, fighting a Nazi splinter-group headed by a nefarious super villain. Erskine believes that only a weak man knows the true value of strength and gambles that giving it to Steve will only make him a better man. Played with gentle wisdom by Stanley Tucci, Erskine recruits Rogers for a super soldier experiment he’s conducting with the army. They don’t want a 90-pound weakling with chronic asthma, but Dr. Though America is in the midst of World War II and desperate for warm bodies to fill out uniforms, Steve is so small and weak that he’s repeatedly rejected by the draft board. The special effects used here to turn buff Chris Evans into a diminutive midget, are nothing short of stunning. He’s too little even to be a soldier, let alone a heroic one. Instead the movie starts by showing us who Steve Rogers is, and then once it transforms him, focuses entirely on showing us the man he’s become. If Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) spends any time after his transformation from scrawny wannabe to mega-muscled hunk on testing the limits of his new abilities, we never see it. When it comes to Cap’s abilities, the movie barely discusses them. Captain America is less interested in its character’s super powers than in what it took for him to get them and how he’ll use them. Maybe it works so well because it’s also the first Marvel movie that doesn’t feel as though it set out to be a superhero movie.