Genre: Action
Director: Joe Johnston
Stars: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Samuel L. Jackson
**1⁄2
Captain America was always among the least modern of the Marvel Comics heroes, born of Second World War jingoism rather than 1960s idealism and angst.
So it’s entirely fitting that his Marvel-branded movie debut should seem from another age, in a film skillfully wrought by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer).
Set in 1942, with Nazi bloodlust graphically represented by the loathsome villain Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Captain America: The First Avenger looks as if it were made to shown as an old-time movie extravaganza, complete with newsreels. It’s non-ironic and retro cool.
Chris Evans, who also plays the Human Torch in Fantastic Four films, stars as the Steve Rogers, the scrawny U.S. soldier turned biofreak behemoth.
Steve is not only a one-man army, but also a walking recruitment poster in his stitched-together Captain America tights, which of course are red, white and blue.
As creation sagas go, Captain America tops two other starters from the superhero summer of 2010, Green Lantern and Thor, and dovetails nicely with his coming turn in next year’s The Avengers.
