Captain America: An Everyday Avenger

I absolutely love superhero movies. Whether it’s Iron Man, The Dark Knight, or The Incredibles. (how can you not love this Pixar movie?!), I automatically get lost in the amazing and unbelievable worlds that these characters live in. All of this and much more have contributed to my anticipation for this summer’s The Avengers.

But before I can see this summer blockbuster, I needed to catch up on the superhero films I missed out on the past year or so, including Captain America: The First Avenger. On one of the first nights back for spring break, my mom and I decided to engage in one of our favorite pastimes and watch an action movie. In this case, one of the few that we both hadn’t seen was Captain America.

Based on the comic books of the same name, Captain America follows Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a young man from Brooklyn who wants to join the U.S. Military during World War II. After several failed attempts – Rogers is declared physically unfit for the military across several state lines – Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) recruits Rogers as a potential candidate for a “super-soldier” experiment in which he will be transformed from a weakling into an army of one – aka Captain America.

Meanwhile, Nazi officer Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) attempts to undergo the same experiment that Erskine is carrying out in the United States. Using the energy force from a mysterious cube, he hopes to power several German weapons to use against the U.S. in the war. He also builds an entire army of men armed with this amazing weapon. Rogers gets entangled in Schmidt’s endeavors, and ultimately wants to help the military defeat this powerful evil army of men.

Although I’ve seen Evans in other superhero roles such as the Human Torch in The Fantastic Four, he fit his role in Captain America very well. He embodies the humble everyday guy who everybody can relate to. Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed with Hugo Weaving’s performance – his accent was on the verge of annoying, and he could’ve been utilized better.

The action scenes in the film were extremely entertaining, especially the first scene in which Rogers has been transformed into Captain America. His chase through the streets of New York is exhilarating – the viewer feels as if they’re really chasing after the villain, and we cheer on Rogers’ new persona as he attempts to capture the villain.

All in all, Captain America was a great predecessor for The Avengers. I can’t wait to see how Rogers interacts with Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow! Captain America paved the way for the upcoming superhero movie in a great way, and made it into something that I'm really looking forward to.