A Round-Up Of Captain America: The First Avenger Reviews...Good AND Bad!

So far, we've seen a selection of good reviews for Captain America: The First Avenger from a variety of trusted critics. Here however are another ten, some good and some BAD. While none of us like to see the big screen exploits of our favourite comic book characters torn apart, the sad fact is, it happens! Taken from Rotten Tomatoes, the following give an overall picture of what we can expect, although you can find more by clicking on the link below. It's worth noting that there are still plenty to come from the likes of Empire and Total Film, while many won't hit until next week due to it being released internationally a little later. Don't let that 59% worry you too much just yet!

For whatever reason, many of the following critics don't actually assign any sort of rating to the movie, but I've included the ones which have. Either way, each verdict makes it fairly clear how they felt about Captain America, and you can read them in their entirety by clicking any of the relevent links.

But "Captain America" is far more engaging when it's about a scrappy underdog overcoming the odds than it is about generic shoot-outs and exploding tanks. It only scratches the surface in trying to examine the perils of premature fame. And in satirizing our country's tendency to fetishize patriotism, "Captain America" doesn't have much that's new to say: We worship and cling to our heroes, whether or not they want or deserve our adulation? Is that it? Still, such a reserved take on the subject might just be preferable to heavy-handed preaching. And we're surely in store for an over-the-top spectacle when "The Avengers" hits theaters next year. 'Til then, this is a nourishing appetizer.

Captain America: The First Avenger is stolidly corny, old-fashioned pulp fun. Directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer), the picture is nothing, really, that you haven't seen before, but it's the definition of a square, competent, deliver-the-goods blockbuster. It's set in 1942, and the World War II trappings — gimlet-eyed Nazis, patriotic newsreels, high-stepping USO shows, the whole earnest spirit of pitching in — are no mere backdrop. The movie is so wholesome it could almost have been made during World War II. Captain America (Chris Evans), the strapping, bionically enhanced U.S. Army soldier-turned-superhero (a character first introduced by Marvel Comics 70 years ago), runs like the Six Million Dollar Man and flies through the air on a motorcycle like Machete. Mostly, though, he doesn't do much that Bruce Willis didn't do in the Die Hard films. He leaps, darts, sneaks around, and socks bad guys in the jaw. He just does it fiercer, faster, with more lightning invincibility. In his winged helmet and leather-patch uniform, he's a one-man commando-squad fighting machine who wields his stars-and-stripes shield — made of the toughest metal on earth! — like a battering ram and a lethal boomerang.

B

More than anything, Captain America is a triumph of tone. A former ILM technician, Johnston did visual effects for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Spielberg’s 1981 blockbuster was a conscious touchstone for his film’s throwback feel and aesthetic. (Another, less deliberate influence would be a previous Johnston film, The Rocketeer.) Captain America embodies the spirit of the old serials, melded with a tongue-in-cheek comic sense and punctuated by action sequences that deploy the requisite CGI fireworks with a welcome measure of restraint. The film is decidedly of its era, but never feels gratuitously nostalgic. And its production design is gorgeous: Red Skull’s lair in particular is a treasure trove of retro-futurist designs, all of which seem directly lifted from 1940s World’s Fair exhibits.

4/5

Captain America, as a proud American, I will never call it The First Avenger, is the best comic adaptation of the summer. X-Men was a darker story with more eye-popping action, but it didn't grab me like this film did. I can honestly say for the first time that I am excited about seeing The Avengers. It looks, from the setup here, that Captain America may be the primary character in that film. I certainly hope they take what Joe Johnston has done so well here and capitalize on it.

4/5

Behind the scenes, screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, working alongside director Johnston, do remarkable -- or, at worst, competent, which is more than you can say for "Green Lantern" or "X-Men: First Class" -- work. Yes, the Skull's pursuit of the great cosmic whatsit that will give him power is off-the-shelf stuff, and the finale is a little heavy on the CGI, and the 3-D is, by and large, unnecessary. But "Captain America" is more than just pretty solid. It's great in spots, good in others, and hits exactly the right tone, combining real history and comic-book mythology in a way where both work together without making us feel burdened by the facts of the former or the trivia of the latter. I don't know if I'll wind up going back to "Captain America" on a regular basis the way I do "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Goldfinger," but I also know it's the most purely enjoyable and breezily brilliant superhero comic-book action-adventure film since 2004 gave us "Spider-Man 2" and "The Incredibles." For the first time in a long time, the promise of a comic-book character's return to the big screen sounds more like an anticipated good thing than a contractually obligated threat.

Captain America: The First Avenger is ultimately held back from being a great stand-alone movie by the role it must play as the final set-up piece for Avengers. None of which should prevent movie audiences from enjoying the things the movie does well, from some great action sequences to more human moments such Rogers being bullied early in the film and the brief but sweet romance between Cap and Atwell, but still leaves a nagging feeling that this film could have delivered something really special. Lastly, fans should know by now never to leave a Marvel movie before the final credits have rolled, as there’s almost an extra surprise that promises, as Stan Lee often did in the comics, that bigger and better thrills are yet to come.

Where other superhero movies are armed with blazing pyrotechnics and over-the-top action sequences, Captain America: The First Avenger leads with its old-fashioned charm. It’s a pity that isn’t quite enough to get the job done. This latest Marvel entry is a self-consciously square piece of entertainment set amidst World War II, and although the film has a decent amount of heart its retro appeal can’t compensate for what is otherwise a rather ordinary comic book film.

I enjoyed the film overall, I’m just explaining why it’s not quite Spider-Man, or X-Men: First Class or even Iron Man. But if the fans of Iron Man can forgive a 15 minute flashback including a Powerpoint presentation of Stark family backstory, they should love Captain America equally, flaws and all.

Red, white and bland, "Captain America: The First Avenger" plays like a by-the-numbers prequel for Marvel Studios' forthcoming "The Avengers" movie, the proper teaser for which lies buried after the words "Captain America will return" in the end credits. While that 2012 tentpole will lump Cap in with Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor and various other superheroes, this one focuses on constructing a blockbuster origin story for one of Marvel's most iconic creations. Although Joe Johnston earnestly attempts to resurrect the WWII-era action figure, with 3D conversion boosting the glossy pic's B.O. potential, his debut adventure comes across as remarkably flat.

That putting such a corpse-obliterating weapon in the hands of everyday Nazi soldiers would have been something of a Holocaust game changer is one of a number of potentially rich parallel-historical details that the film doesn’t care to grapple with. Captain America assembles a ragtag multi-ethnic band of soldiers to help carry out his elite missions, but there’s not so much as a single mention of the ideological divides that plagued the times—and, subsequently, spawned the original anti-Fascist Captain America comics. So what is Captain America fighting for? Apparently nothing more or less than screen time in The Avengers.