Captain USA, Here To Save The Day

Marvel Studios, it would seem, have hit their stride. After a couple of misfires with the tepid Incredible Hulk in 2008 and last year’s bloated Iron Man 2, they’re back with a vengeance in 2011 with Thor, and now Captain America The First Avenger.

Yep, it’s yet another superhero origin story, but this one is enlivened by it’s World War II setting, unusual for the genre. Joe Johnson, on a roll from The Wolfman, brings the same level of energy, retro style and technical expertise he brought to that movie, although the action set-pieces don’t work as well as the self contained set pieces in his 1991 classic The Rocketeer.

The script is fast paced, skipping years at a time as we follow Cap’s genesis, provoking the same reaction as Marvel’s X-Men First Class earlier in the summer where you felt the film could stop in any time period to explore the hero’s origins in greater depth. Visually, it has a rich, darkly noir-ish feel but the script is light, fun and frothy…even when the stakes are raised and the tough get going. In fact it’s probably Marvel’s lightest superhero movie since 2002’s Spider-man… not that it’s a bad thing in the slightest.

Chris Evan’s deviates from his normal cocky persona to portray Cap (aka Steve Rogers) as a do-gooder, straight as an arrow hero, but the fish-out-of-water element of being a nerdy, inexperienced-with-women weakling in a super human’s body makes him all the more interesting. Tommy Lee Jones, in a return to blockbuster movies, proves his star wattage by having the most fun he’s had in years while Hugo Weaving devours the screen with a theatrical, manically evil performance as The Red Skull. Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci and Neal McDonough add spirited support while posh totty Hayley Atwell is a beautiful and buxom distraction as love interest Peggy.

There’s a few dodgy ILM effects which detract from a largely excellent job, Alan Silvestri’s non-electronic orchestral score is the best thing he’s done in years while the geekgasm retro-future production design evokes 1940’s serials as well as Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow. Top it all off with a neat future day coda and a post credits trailer for The Avengers movie, due next summer, and you have one of the best all-round pure entertainments of the year.