Captain America: The First Avenger

What to make of Chris Evans? He’s been in more ensemble films that you can list, but any charisma he shows in such outings appears to disappear in the few lead roles he has had. Usually these above the title outings have been in fairly low key films, so Evans and his agent must have been toasting success long into the night when he landed the plumb role of Captain America. Though (unsurprisingly) big in the States, the rest of the world hardly raises an eyebrow when to comes to old CA, which means the film already had a problem in that it doesn’t have the built in audience that other super hero franchises already have. The main question then is does the film do enough for non-followers? Probably not, but if it’s no-brainer Friday night entertainment that you want then this could be the (superhero) film for you. Steve Rogers (Evans) is a young man keen to enter military service to aid America during World War II, but he is rejected due to his ill health. Frustrated, he finds himself agreeing to undertake a secret experiment in which he will eventually become the eponymous hero. From there on in the films somewhat flimsy premise has Captain America taking on Nazi super villain the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). I say flimsy, as the film can’t escape the feeling that it has been clearly rushed into production prior to the release of the Avengers movie next year. The choice of the Nazi’s as the bad guys just feels lazy and the screenplay is just a case of joining the unoriginal dots. The film is very heavy on the special effects (1600+ of them) and they help and hinder the film in their own various ways. The “shrinking” technique used at the start of the film to show Rogers’ puny body is very impressive, but the CGI doesn’t help in other areas, especially in terms of judging Weavings performance (though Weaving seems to spend most of his films spent behind a mask these days). The over use of effects also mean that any scenes of peril are completely devoid of tension. What of Evan’s though? Sadly, it’s hard to tell. He’s fine as usual, but his performance gets lost amongst all the mayhem. On the plus side you can say that this is a film for all the family to enjoy (it clearly has its roots in Indiana Jones – CA's director, Joe Johnston, was art director on a couple of those films, fact fans) and it does have a number of very funny moments (including Tommy Lee Jones providing some comic relief as a gruff Army instructor). The film is almost the perfect reflection of director Johnston’s career. His films always have that “safe pair of hands” feel, are usually enjoyable without ever hitting any real quality highs and will be on very few people’s DVD shelves. Add Captain America: The First Avenger to that list.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict

Some nice moments, but this is as standard a superhero film that you’ll ever see. Rating: 6/10.