"Quite possibly the biggest surprise of 2011."
Believe it or not, "Captain America: The First Avenger" is easily the surprise of the summer, if not, the entire year. Even though I hate to admit I was wrong, I was one of the many who unfairly wrote this film off as a disaster before it was released. He's never been one of my favorite Marvel characters, but the reason was mostly because I thought Captain America was a character who'd be very tough to make a decent film of. But I'm glad I'm standing corrected, since I enjoyed it a lot, and it's good to see that all the individual "platform" films leading to the actual "The Avengers" films have been great.
Believe it or not, "Captain America: The First Avenger" is easily the surprise of the summer, if not, the entire year. Even though I hate to admit I was wrong, I was one of the many who unfairly wrote this film off as a disaster before it was released. He's never been one of my favorite Marvel characters, but the reason was mostly because I thought Captain America was a character who'd be very tough to make a decent film of. But I'm glad I'm standing corrected, since I enjoyed it a lot, and it's good to see that all the individual "platform" films leading to the actual "The Avengers" films have been great.
The storyline was simple but effective, the cast performances were good, the lead characters were memorable & had dimension, and it had a smart balance of both heartfelt dialogue & awesome action sequences with acceptable comic relief here & there. But perhaps my personal favorite aspect of the film was the 1940's setting & costumes. It was a rare pleasure to experience in a Marvel film, and it was executed both very elegantly and genuinely. My ONLY complaint was that I would've loved to see more scenes between Captain America & Red Skull, their shared scenes felt a bit too rushed and short.
I know I'm against 3-D in cinema, so please don't think I'm being bias, but I honestly didn't see anything that would be remotely special in 3-D, so I'd suggest saving your money and seeing it in glorious 2-D.
"Captain America: The First Avenger" isn't up to par with Marvel modern classics such as "Spider-Man", "Spider-Man 2", and "Iron Man", but then again those films are VERY difficult to match. It still, however, might shockingly make my current Top 10 of 2011 (I'll share that soon). Overall, it's a really good film, and I highly recommend it. I am now completely stoked over "The Avengers" film next year.
Score: 4/5
