By Dan Little
So I think the trailer pretty much told us the story, but I will revisit it quickly here. Chris Evans plays scrawny, but willful Steve Rogers during the 1940s at the height of World War II. American military scientists are playing around with technology that will allow soldiers to perform at unprecedented levels. Meanwhile an evil villain, as all great superhero stories must have, by the name of The Red Skull (see it, you'll figure out why) is attempting to harness a power too dangerous to be unleashed. The US army performs secret training to find the one guinea pig to test out the supersoldier technology on and Steve Rogers wins the ticket due to his integrity, tenacity, and for being the most noble superhero since the original incarnation of Superman. The rest of the story is pretty by the numbers. Go rent it.
Once again I feel the need to address something at this point. Captain America, like Thor, or X-men, or Scream, or Aliens or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a genre film. It belongs, obviously, to the genre category. Genre is this great little toolbox some storytellers utilize to convey their ideas when traditional storytelling would make it audacious. So very often within a genre we find the story structures are very similar, it is in the details that we find the newness whether in characterization, themes, or purely setting you must evaluate a genre film by the rules which it is made. Just because from the moment you sit down you know, or at least are pretty sure, how Captain America will end does not make it bad, weak, or even average. It is this fresh, or maybe even freshly retro take that director Johnston and the writers have decided to take that makes Captain America stand alone next to all the other Marvel and DC films out there. Steve Rogers is unique to most heroes. Most heroes we see i.e. Spider-man, Thor, The Hulk, are forced into their powers as men undeserving of their gifts and learn to grow into them to become the hero. People like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne use their money to become heroes while working out some personal issues, and you the trend. Steve Rogers is already a hero from the moment he sets foot in frame. He is noble, just, brave, and kind, he just lacks the physical ability to be that hero. Here is a tale in which the hero earns his powers before he gets them, and never sits around and ponders whether with great power comes great responsibility because his only intention is to do what is right and what is just. This may sound boring from a writers perspective, but truly they do something lovely here with the character. Steve Rogers has a strange depth of humanity that its brought on by Chris Evans who never plays the role for laughs or irony, he is fully committed. Dropping his beefcake image, we see an actor of great sensitivity and vulnerability as love is Captain America's weakness, and so we see it in Evan's eyes.
The storytelling in itself is also of great delight. More than any Spielberg film or action adventure film I have seen in recent years, this film recalled the original Indiana Jones films with its period, humor, and great action set pieces. The whole film has a gee-whiz quality and none of the over-rought brooding of most contemporary hero films. Here is a film that dares to say anyone can be a hero, but no one will give you the shot until you prove it first.
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