Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: The First Avenger

Chris Evans’ admis­sion that he entered ther­a­py before film­ing Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: The First Avenger revealed that mus­cu­lar Bosto­ni­ans have a sen­si­tive side, but it also point­ed to the amount of pres­sure rest­ing on Marvel’s fig­u­ra­tive shoul­ders ahead of 2012’s The Avengers.

He’s icon­ic, but an anachro­nism, so how can the Star-Span­gled Avenger – even his nickname’s naff – hope to appeal to audi­ences as much as Robert Downey Jr’s lacon­ic Iron Man, or Chris Hemsworth’s mighty Thor? More­over, can this pre­cur­sor to The Avengers main­tain enough inter­est in a super­hero super­group that’s been very slow­ly assem­bling since 2007 to make Joss Whedon’s ensem­ble effort a hit?

Thank­ful­ly, the answer to both ques­tions is a resound­ing yes. He might not get to punch the real Hitler, but Evans does a superb job as the skin­ny stu­dent-turned-super sol­dier. Whether he’s stand­ing up to bul­lies with a head that’s evi­dent­ly too large for his 90lb body, strug­gling to inspire troops at a pro­pa­gan­da ral­ly or tak­ing out umpteen Nazis with his star­ry shield, he’s like­able and, despite the car­toon­ish aspects of the char­ac­ter, genuine.

Direc­tor Joe John­son – whose appoint­ment struck fear into the hearts of fan­boys every­where – mar­shals the sto­ry with only minor glitch­es to cre­ate a stir­ring and know­ing­ly con­ven­tion­al adven­ture. A cli­mac­tic sac­ri­fice nods to Pow­ell and Pressburger’s A Mat­ter of Life and Death to set up Cap’s snowy fall and mod­ern res­ur­rec­tion and, unlike Jon Favreau’s over­cooked Iron Man 2, you’re left gen­uine­ly eager rather than apa­thet­ic to see the final assem­bly of The Avengers.

It’s by no means per­fect, with need­less 3D mud­dy­ing the by-the-num­bers third-act action and jeop­ar­dis­ing what’s sup­posed to be a fist-pump­ing come­back scene, while the vil­lain­ous Red Skull is ris­i­ble to look at. Despite Hugo Weaving’s fine Wern­er Her­zog impres­sion and arro­gance, he’s also a drain on the oth­er­wise rip-roar­ing pace of the script. A major death feels utter­ly mean­ing­less giv­en how lit­tle time we spent with the char­ac­ter and Team Amer­i­ca fans will strug­gle not to smirk when Tom­my Lee Jones’ gruff Colonel Phillips seems to press the ​‘Val­mor­phanise’ but­ton dur­ing a chase scene.

In terms of tone, how­ev­er, Cap­tain Amer­i­ca is dif­fi­cult to fault. John­son wise­ly plays up the Sat­ur­day morn­ing ser­i­al aspects of the char­ac­ter, patent­ly ref­er­enc­ing Raiders of the Lost Ark, bring­ing Hay­ley Atwell’s assets to the fore and let­ting Lee Jones and Stan­ley Tuc­ci rev­el in the lim­i­ta­tions of their char­ac­ters. This summer’s oth­er stand­out super­hero film, X‑Men: First Class, might have touched on revi­sion­ist his­to­ry and racial prej­u­dice but Cap­tain Amer­i­ca is, right­ly, much more con­cerned with der­ring-do, hero­ism and chuck­ing Nazis out of planes.

While the CGI used to por­tray Rogers as a feath­er­weight weak­ling doesn’t always work, Dominic Cooper’s Amer­i­can accent is some­how ham­mi­er than Clive Owen’s in Sin City and the restora­tive qual­i­ties of the ​‘super serum’ seem sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly ques­tion­able, in truth these short­com­ings are insignif­i­cant. Cap­tain Amer­i­ca is a fast, thrilling and unashamed­ly old-fash­ioned adven­ture and Evans didn’t need to sit on the psychiatrist’s couch – he’s brought an Amer­i­can hero to life in style.