So where to begin? At first I was a little apprehensive when I found out that they had cast Chris Evans for the role of Cap, since I've never seen him in anything all that serious and lets face it, Captain America is a pretty big deal. But I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by how things turned out.
In my opinion this may be the best Avengers movie yet. Blasphemy! I know! Thor didn't offer too much competition, but that really wasn't its fault since Thor has never had the most interesting plots anyway, unless you've got a real thing for Norse mythology or something. Please allow me to clarify though: Thor was not bad in any way really, it just wasn't great either and it just ended up somewhere in what I consider to be a respectable sort of middle area, being better than mediocre, but not as good as great. Anyhow, the Iron Man movies were good, but they didn't have one advantage Captain America uses to the fullest: a little thing called world war 2.
The other Avengers movies so far have had to struggle in some respects because they had to generate their in-film realities from scratch to a certain extent. In the case of Captain America, the cinematic reality has already been created many many times, I mean seriously, how many WWII movies do we have? And some of them were actually pretty good too. To it's favor, Captain America essentially has a very well made pre-rendered reality and atmosphere that's been built up from all the other WWII movies that have already been made. There is a wealth of cinematic information about how to make this type of period piece and it shows in the atmosphere of the film which feels both familiar and believable. There is one exception to this: I'm sure WWII history buffs that see this film will scoff at all the inaccuracies in this and every other WWII movie. But in my opinion, the reality of Captain America is very thorough and has plenty of depth.
One of the things I liked most about the movie was the casting. Not just the leads, and Chris Evans did pretty well, but maybe that's just because I was scared that he would perform terribly, but the supporting cast was one of the best I've seen in a while and in a superhero movie to boot! The character of Howard Stark is interesting and really helps to build the contiguous reality of the Avengers and I'm really happy for that, since continuity is going to be a big deal for the avengers going forwards. I must say Dominic Cooper was a solid choice for the role, but for some weird reason he reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio. Hugo Weaving is a terrific choice as the red skull (I am not spoiling anything, if you didn't know, you're just willfully ignorant at this point) as he has proven himself to be an excellent villain before in some other film I just can't seem to recall...........
So anyhow, the basic breakdown is this: good atmosphere, believable acting, solid action, and actually pretty good plot. Initially I wasn't sure how they were going to tie it all in with the other Avengers threads, but now it all meshes rather nicely.
Important notes: The 3D is pretty good, so it's worth the extra $3 or so in my opinion and you DEFINITELY want to stay after the credits and I mean ALL the way after the credits. It seems like they might have done the same thing that they did with the Hulk where they put the teaser right at the end, but they have a little something extra after the credits and it is AMAZING! Won't say another word about it.
So go see it, it's great and check it out in 3D, they did a lot better than they did in Thor in my opinion and being in 3D was supposed to be a big part of the ad campaign for Thor, go figure.
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