March Marvel Madness: CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

Greetings, True Believers! Welcome to March Marvel Madness! Every day this month, I'll be looking back on a theatrically-released movie based on the characters of Marvel Comics. It's all to commemorate the April 4th release of the next Marvel film adventure, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Today, we're looking at...

Fuck yeah!

Captain America: The First Avenger is the fifth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor. Set during World War II, this film stars Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, NY who wants nothing more than to serve his country. Alas, he is rejected time and time again, leaving him to watch his best friend, James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan), go off to war without him. Attempting to cheat his way into getting drafted, Steve ends up being chosen by a scientist (Stanley Tucci) to partake in an experiment which turns the weakling Rogers into the ultimate soldier. However, instead of being sent into battle, Steve is reduced to touring the U.S. as a propaganda cartoon known as Captain America. While on a disastrous USO tour on the front lines, Rogers takes it upon himself to prove his worth to the troops by rescuing his buddy Bucky and his Howlin' Commandos from the Nazi's own super-soldier, The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). With the help of a British agent (Hayley Atwell) and inventor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Steve transforms his cartoon alter-ego into a fighting symbol of freedom.

Captain America: The First Avenger is Marvel Studios' own Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's an old-fashioned, rip-roaring, pulpy adventure inspired by movie serials from the 30s and 40s. It's got everything: good guys, bad guys, dames, chases, fistfights, etc. And it's not all played for goofs, like in 1999's The Mummy. Marvel certainly chose the right guy in director Joe Johnston to genuinely bring that sensibility to the silver screen. Johnston's no stranger to this kind of entertainment, from working with visual effects on Raiders to directing Disney's 1991 film, The Rocketeer. And Chris Evans- no stranger to Marvel characters- perfectly embodies Cap's heroic spirit. While a few visual effects turned out a little ineffective, there are those such as the ones used to transform Evans into the thinly, meek pre-Cap Steve that are just mind-blowing.

Released in the summer of 2011, this was the Captain America film I had hoped to see when I saw a teaser trailer for a Cap movie back in 1990. Twenty years and a few Indiana Jones wannabes later, Captain America: The First Avenger proved to be worth the wait.

Captain America: The First Avenger

4 1/2 out of 5 Cap Shields