MCU Sunday #5: Captain America: The First Avenger

 

Preface: As promised last year, I plan to review every single currently available movie in what is known as the  Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) over the year 2024. These will appear in order of their release over that time period. This is the fifth installment. (Oh, and by the way, after I've exhausted all of the currently available MCU movies I will be rounding out the year with some of the other available movies made from the Marvel comics pantheon)

Notes: In each of the MCU installments you will be seeing references to two recurring events that occur in nearly every MCU movie.

Where is Stan Lee?: Stan Lee was the driving genius behind Marvel Comics.  He usually shows up in a cameo.  Sometimes these are so quick you gotta be sure you don't blink. Occasionally he gets a line  of dialogue.

And the Credits Roll: You should always stay in the theater for the credits when watching a MCU movie, because during the credits and at the end there is a teaser (or two) that is worth the wait.  Often they were a teaser for the next installment of the films.

MCU Sunday Part V:

Growing up, and reading the comics that my father stocked in his store, one regular addition he got each time was Captain America.  As I recall I didn't really connect with Captain America.  He was too much like Superman to me, a goody goody fighting for truth justice and the American way, without the foibles that usually accompanied my favorite characters.  That's just my memories here 50 years down the road.  Perhaps he did have some inner demons to battle like Spiderman and the fantastic Four, but, coupled with what I saw in those occasional attempts to transition him to TV, I never really saw anything that made him something I could identify with.

Of course, by the time I came upon him he was already established as a full blown superhero.  Perhaps if I had gotten in on the ground floor and saw him as a struggling weakling who really wanted to be a part of the heroes he saw going off to war (against the Nazis in WWII), I might have felt something.  After all, I wasn't raised as a "hate the war machine" person.  Even if I had been old enough at the time I would not have resisted the draft or run off to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War.  I even tried to enlist when I came of age back in 1980.  Unfortunately, post-draft and Vietnam War, the Armed Forces were more selective and I failed the physical.

But the character never really appealed to me.  Watching the first 20 minutes of Captain America: The First Avenger however, brought back that childhood upbringing, and, yes, if I had been of age in the 40's I too probably would have done whatever I could to get into the war effort.

Captain America had it's share of potential stars and wannabes trying to get the role.  As mentioned previously, future Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt was among those being considered for the role.  Among others was Sebastian Stan who would still make it to the cast, albeit as Cap's buddy Bucky.

Captain America was the final role needed to be established in order to have a complete cast for the upcoming plans for the first Avengers film. Interestingly enough, a couple of The Avengers characters did not actually get their own solo debut films until later, but they still made it to that first movie.

At this point in my viewing I have determined that, at the end of the cycle of running through the films in the MCU saga, I am going to rank the movies in order of the most appealing to me.  Why? Because, if you remember last week I said I thought Thor was the best of the lot.  But after watching this one, I begin to feel my rating was premature. Mainly because, by this fifth film, Marvel Studios finally got the protocol right.  We don't want a buttload of exposition and dramatic repartee.  We want action, and lots of it.  Captain America harkens back to those old war movies from the 60's I'm so fond of.  Screw the interaction of characters developing relationships.  Let's see things blowing up and the battle ensue.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011):

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is the epitome of the All-American boy. He is a gung ho  advertisement for the "do it all for your country" ethos that was a part and parcel of American life in the days of the United States entry into World War II.  Unfortunately for Steve, he has numerous physical defects (among which is asthma, which I too suffer).  Thus, even though he is absolutely dedicated to trying to become a soldier, he is consistently rejected as 4F (the designation for men and boys who the government considers not quite up to snuff for the armed services).

 

 

 

After his first rejection that should have been it.  But Steve nothing if not determined.  He has manufactured several identities over the past few months in order to try again. (Illegal, but when you have this much gung ho spirit, some things are not  quite as important as others). He is approached by a scientist, Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who manufactures a 1A rating for him so he can get in.  Erskine has a motive.  He is seeking a candidate for a program to create a super soldier.

 

 

 

In basic training Steve continually comes in dead last at all of the physical requirements.  But his spirit is still there. To wit: one of the best scenes in the early part of the movie is when Col. Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), who has some misgivings about the Erskine program, tosses a grenade into the crew of soldiers. Everybody dives for cover except Steve, who jumps on it to protect the others.  The grenade is just a dummy one, of course, but it convinces Erskine that his candidate is exactly what he is looking for.

 

 

 

Eventually Steve is selected as the candidate for the experiment, even though Col. Phillips has his hopes set on another.  But as Erskine points out, the other candidate is a "bully" and Erskine wants someone who has more of a good nature.  The serum is a success, but in the process a spy from Hydra blows up the lab.  Who is Hydra?  Well, at the onset Hydra was a subdivision of Hitler's scientific sector, but the leader of Hydra, Dr. Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) has bigger ideas, as we will discover.

 

 

 

Steve shows his metal as a physical specimen by chasing down the spy, but as all spies do in these kinds of movies, commits suicide before capture.  But since Steve has shown what he can do he expects to be sent to the front lines.  But instead he becomes a poster boy for the drive to sell war bonds. Which, as you can probably guess, doesn't sit well with Steve. (Or for any real soldiers he encounters for that matter).

When Steve learns that his buddy, Bucky (Sebastian Stan) is among a group of soldiers captured by Hydra, he enlists the help of Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) to fly him into enemy territory where, now as Captain America for real,  he single handedly rescues the prisoners and they all escape.  During the battle Cap meets his nemesis on the side of Hydra, Dr. Schmidt, who reveals himself as the villain Red Skull.  Red Skull escapes to fight another day and Cap returns with the force of prisoners he freed.

 

 

 

Where is Stan Lee? After the rescue, Captain America is due to receive a medal of honor. But since he has other plans, another person appears on stage to inform the presenter that Cap is a no show.  In the audience is Stan as an officer who apparently thinks the second person is Cap and says "I thought he'd be taller."

The end result of Cap's success is that Brandt finally sees the potential that his super soldier has. Brandt tasks Cap to take the fight to the source, the base of Hydra and Schmidt?Red Skull himself.  Although Brandt has a team he is assembling to help Cap, our hero wants his own team, which, as you can probably guess, is composed primarily of the soldiers he helped rescue. Including his best friend Bucky.

The action takes place in various locations, one of which includes trying to capture Dr. Zola, who is on a high speed train.  During the battle to take the train, Cap loses Bucky, who falls from the train into a chasm.  Although they succeed in capturing Zola, Cap is of course devastated by his loss of his friend.  Which serves to make him even more determined to stop Red Skull.

Ultimately a confrontation occurs between Cap and Red Skull on board a plane headed for the East Coast of the States, armed with the advanced weaponry created by Zola and Hydra.  While Cap and Red Skull battle, they managed to damage some of the ability to control the plane. And the power source, the Tesseract (the be all and end all that drives much of the rest of the sagas) is lost.

When Cap defeats Red Skull he tries to take control of the plane, but has to ditch it in the Arctic in order to save the world.  Stark and team find the Tesseract, but all attempts to figure out where Cap landed fail.

In the aftermath, Steve wakes up in a hospital room where a baseball game is being aired on the radio.  Steve is immediately suspicious, because the game was actually one he had attended in 1941.  It turns out that 70 years have passed since that ditch effort in the Arctic and he is now in the 21st century (present day).

 

 

And the Credits Roll: Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson approaches Steve as he is working out in a gym and tasks him with joining a new effort where his help is needed.  (At which point, in the theater, you got a preview of the next film in the saga, The Avengers).

 Well, folks, time to fire up this old relic of a Plymouth.  (Talk about living in the past..)  Drive safely.

Quiggy