Marvel Studios had a plan in 2011, and it ran through a scrawny kid from Brooklyn. Captain America: The First Avenger arrived as the fifth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, directed by Joe Johnston from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. It runs 124 minutes, and it does the one job a franchise prequel has to do: make you care about the man before the shield.
Trailer, via Marvel Entertainment.
Steve Rogers Gets Rejected in New York City
The film opens in the present day, with scientists in the Arctic pulling an old aircraft from the ice. Someone is frozen inside. A circular shield sits nearby. Then it cuts to March 1942, and the movie’s real business begins.
Rogers is a frail man from Brooklyn, rejected by the U.S. Army for his small stature and poor health. He keeps trying anyway. While attending the Stark Expo, an event held by engineer Howard Stark, Rogers attempts to enlist again. Dr. Abraham Erskine overhears him telling his best friend James “Bucky” Barnes that he wants to fight for his country, and lets him in.
Erskine recruits him into the Strategic Scientific Reserve for a “super-soldier” experiment, alongside Stark, Colonel Chester Phillips and British MI6 agent Peggy Carter.
A Grenade Test Settles the Argument
Phillips does not believe Erskine’s claims that Rogers is the right man. Then Rogers jumps on a grenade during a test. It is not a complicated scene, and it does not need to be. Phillips is convinced because the audience is already convinced, and the film knows it.
Erskine then tells Rogers his own history: he was a scientist under Johann Schmidt, until Schmidt took a prototype of the super-soldier formula. It gave him superhuman strength and painfully changed his appearance. That is the Red Skull, and it is the cleanest piece of origin storytelling in the movie.
Hugo Weaving Steals the Tesseract in Norway
Schmidt, a Nazi lieutenant general and the leader of Hydra, opens the villain plot by stealing the Tesseract from Tønsberg in German-occupied Norway. The relic carries untold godly powers. Schmidt and Dr. Arnim Zola use its energies to fuel Zola’s inventions and Hydra’s planned worldwide offensive.
Schmidt finds Erskine and sends assassin Heinz Kruger to kill him. Kruger kills Erskine and flees with the last vial of the formula. Rogers pursues and captures him.
He would crush the Olympics. Any Olympic sport he’s gonna dominate. He can jump higher, run faster, lift stronger weight, but he can be injured.
That is Chris Evans on the limits of the character, and it is the right note. Evans signed a six-picture deal after declining the part three times.
The Cast Carries the Middle Stretch
Tommy Lee Jones plays Phillips with the weariness the part needs. Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter holds her ground in a room full of men. Sebastian Stan makes Bucky matter in a handful of scenes. Stanley Tucci’s Erskine is gone too soon, which is the point.
Dominic Cooper, Toby Jones, Neal McDonough and Derek Luke fill out the ranks. Samuel L. Jackson shows up as Nick Fury.
A 1997 Concept, Released in 2011
The film started as a concept in 1997, scheduled for distribution by Artisan Entertainment. A lawsuit disrupted the project and was not settled until September 2003. In 2005, Marvel Studios took a loan from Merrill Lynch and planned to finance and release through Paramount Pictures.
Jon Favreau and Louis Leterrier were interested in directing before Johnston was approached in 2008. Casting ran from March to June 2010. Production began in June, shooting in London, Manchester, Caerwent, Liverpool and Los Angeles.
What Actually Works Here
The first half is the best half. Johnston shoots the transformation straight, and the visual effects company Lola used several techniques to build Rogers before the serum. The change lands because the film gives the audience a small, specific man to watch first.
The back third is weaker. The Red Skull is a fine physical threat and a thin character, and Hugo Weaving gets less to do than the setup promises. Hydra’s worldwide offensive never feels as large as the war around it.
The Tesseract does the heavy lifting as the object everyone is chasing, and that is fine. This is a film about a man who never gives up, and the tagline says so: “The one who never gives up awakens.”
Key facts
– Release year: 2011
– Runtime: 124 minutes
– Director: Joe Johnston
– Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
– MCU film number: fifth
– Audience score: 7.0/10 (23,207 votes)
– Casting period: March to June 2010
– Lawsuit settled: September 2003
Captain America: The First Avenger is a solid, well-cast origin story that does right by its lead. Evans plays small before he plays big, and that is what the film needed most. The villain problem is real, and it is the part worth watching on a rewatch: Weaving has the face for the role and not enough scenes to use it.
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