Despite the flag on his chest, and the jingoistic Hollywood traditions he echoes, Steve Rogers has become a mainstay of international popular culture.Ī character named "Captain America" doesn't achieve this global feat by leaning in to nationalism. Even his second solo outing, The Winter Soldier, made twice as much money globally as its predecessor, and that was without the help of Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark. #CAPTAIN AMERICA THE FIRST AVENGER MOVIE CRITIC REVIEW SERIES#Certain territories still drop "America" from the title some fans simply know it as the "First Avenger" series - America's marketability hasn't exactly improved in recent years - but Captain America has since been part of four (soon to be five) billion-dollar box office hits. It's been eight years since Steve Rogers made his big-screen debut. He was resurrected in The Avengers #4 as a man out of time, after which he became a regular fixture of the team, thus giving birth to the origin story seen in the MCU. The "real" Captain America, a righteous protector, had been frozen in ice since World War II. Though, when the character was brought into the Marvel fold in 1964, this flag-waving "Commie Smasher" was retroactively revealed to have been an imposter. In the 1950s, he spent several years punching even suspected Communists in the face before his Timely Comics series was cancelled. The idea of Captain America as a nationalist symbol is not without precedent. As much as comic writers like Ed Brubaker might attempt to subvert his "America First" nationalist image, the character's big-screen stories are often open to political interpretation, a continued problem with Marvel's reliance on metaphor in a way that lets real-world structures off the hook. This perception holds true even for Americans unfamiliar with modern Captain America stories. It's an arguably more black-and-white setting compared to the complexities of modern geopolitics - the kind of complexities the Iron Man films try (and often fail) to capture - providing both the Star Spangled Man and the larger Marvel Universe a framework for their outlook on heroism. This has been his role in the comics for most of the 21 st century, making him a vital addition to a film series so steeped in post-9/11 military parallels.Ĭaptain America's movie origin, like that of his 1940 comic book counterpart, begins during World War II. Broken down to his basics, he's the benchmark for righteousness in an ever-shifting political landscape, even when that righteousness is called into question. Steve Rogers is the moral center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a dynamic that holds true even for films he doesn't appear in. In a creepy but seamless special effect, Evans’ head is placed on a skinny body that deep, serious voice of his gives the character gravitas and heart.”īox office estimates put Captain America: The First Avenger on par to earn between $55.1 million (which Fox’s X-Men: First Class, based on another Marvel property, opened to in June) and $65.7 million (which the Marvel-produced Thor bowed to in May).(Welcome to Road to Endgame, where we revisit all 22 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and ask, "How did we get here?" In this edition: Captain America: The First Avenger attempts to establish Marvel's moral compass.) Evans, who starts as Steve Rogers before morphing into Captain America, “is a scrawny kid from Brooklyn with dreams of military glory who keeps getting rejected each time he tries to sign up for service. “But as Steve Rogers, a weak young man who gets turned into the husky Captain America by a dose of Super-Soldier Serum, this part brings out an appealing earnestness and humility in the actor that is certainly not business as usual in the comic book superhero genre.Īssociated Press film critic Christy Lemire writes that Evans “brings an earnest dignity and intelligence” to the movie. “Evans has gone the Marvel route before, playing Johnny Storm/The Human Torch in a pair of Fantastic Four movies,” he gones on. Captain America: The First Avenger is not the film to change your mind, but it does have something the others do not: Chris Evans in the title role.” Jackson as Nick Fury, you would be more than forgiven for feeling you’ve seen enough. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan writes, “If you’ve seen more than one Marvel Entertainment film, survived the standard cameos by Stan Lee and the obligatory appearances by Samuel L. STORY: Captain America: The Reviews Are In!
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