Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the next post in my series covering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, we are going back to the World War Two era as we go over “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Directed by Joe Johnston, this movie stars Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, and Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt/The Red Skull. This movie covers the origin story of how Captain America came to be and how he overcame Hydra and the Red Skull. With this introduction out of the way, let’s get into detail on how the movie went down.
After the Paramount and Marvel Studios logos pop up, we see a truck stop and some people getting out of it. They then walk to the site where the ship crashed (and where Captain America remained frozen in ice for a few decades). They go inside the ship and discover Captain America and his shield in ice. The movie then cuts to 1942 in Norway. A tank crashes into a church and a car shows up with some Hydra people, including Schmidt. They break into the castle and discover that the Tesseract (the Space Stone) is found in a secret room in the church. After they get the Tesseract, the guard and the village get killed before the Hydra people leave. We then cut to a skinny Steve Rogers trying to enlist in the military. He gets rejected and then watches a war short at a movie theater. A heckler is yelling at the short, which causes Steve to confront the guy. Steve then gets punched a couple of times before Bucky Barnes shows up and saves him. Steve and Bucky both attend the Stark Expo. During their time at the Expo, they get to watch a young Howard Stark (played by Dominic Cooper) demonstrate hover car technology before it falls down. Also, Steve again tries to enlist in the military. Bucky tries to talk him out of it, but Steve is insistent on doing it. Dr. Abraham Erskine (played by Stanley Tucci) then talks to Steve and gets him to join the military under a special program. Meanwhile, we see Schmidt and Arnim Zola (played by Toby Jones) experiment with the Tesseract. Their experiment works for now, and the film then cuts to Steve Rogers in special training. We also see Peggy Carter punch someone before we see a montage of Steve and the other soldiers go through the training. The soldiers then try to grab the flag from a pole and fail. Steve then takes down the flag pole and grabs the flag itself, therefore getting a ride back with Peggy. Colonel Phillips (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is iffy about Steve. Erskine is still optimistic about him, however. Steve then covers a fake grenade as a surprise test. We then cut to nighttime as Steve relaxes. Erskine then talks to Steve Rogers about Hydra. During this talk, Erskine selects Steve to go through the Super Soldier treatment, which wasn’t ready when Schmidt went through it. Erskine then offers Steve a drink but stops him from drinking it. Back in the Hydra lab, we see Zola check out pictures of Erskine. Schmidt then orders someone to go after Erskine and kill him before any more Super Soldier experiments are done.
In New York, Steve is taken to the place where he goes through the experiment. In the car, he talks a little bit with Agent Carter before they arrive. They go into an antiques store and go through a secret passage into the lab. We see Erskine and Howard Stark in this scene as Steve gets undressed for the experiment. He is then buckled into the bed as Erskine is announcing the experiment. He gets injected with the Super Soldier serum and Stark begins the experiment proper. Stark wears goggles to cover his eyes as the percentage increases slowly. Steve survives the experiment and becomes a Super Soldier. Everything is all good and well until the Hydra spy disrupts the festivities, shoots Erskine, and runs away with the serum. Peggy shoots at the car but doesn’t quite get him. The spy takes a taxi and gets away. Steve runs after the spy to try and save the serum. Rogers leaps over a fence during the run and catches up with the taxi containing the spy. The taxi then flips over and crashes before the spy exits. A kid is taken by the spy and is then thrown into the water. Thankfully, the boy can swim. The spy then enters a submarine. Nonetheless, Steve gets to him and brings him back up. The spy then dies of cyanide. The worst part was that the vial containing the serum broke. The movie then cuts to Schmidt as he leads a group of guys to the latest experiment involving the Tesseract. Schmidt mentions the power of the weapons. He then vaporizes the guys as a demonstration. Schmidt then yells “Hail Hydra” before everyone who survived repeated him. We then cut to America, where the colonel says that they are taking the fight to Hydra. Steve wants in, but is told to do something else. We then see Steve in a special Captain America skit telling people to buy bonds. A song by Alan Menken titled “The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan” plays during the montage. During the skit (performed in many cities, Steve fake punches a guy disguised as Hitler. After the montage is over, Steve is seen failing in his stage performance without the girls. Steve then gets off the stage before the girls get on stage. Peggy then surprises Steve while it is pouring rain. She tells him that he is worth more than being a lab rat or a performing monkey. Steve then sees a soldier hurt before he is alerted that the 107th unit is being captured by Hydra. Despite orders from the colonel, Steve leads a group of soldiers to rescue the unit (which includes Bucky). Steve jumps out of the plane that Howard Stark is piloting to get near the facility. The plane then escapes the bullets and into safe territory. We then cut to the soldiers that are kept in the jail cells. Steve then beats up some Hydra soldiers and sneaks into the facility. He then makes his trek to where the soldiers are kept while staying safe in the process. Little by little, he frees the soldiers from the jail cells. Schmidt then realizes that something is wrong and all heck breaks loose at the facility. Schmidt pushes a whole bunch of buttons to set up a self destruct system. He and Zola pack up their things before getting out. Meanwhile, Steve finds Bucky and saves him from the facility. The bombs then explode one by one, setting the whole place on fire. Steve then encounters Schmidt, who then reveals that he is the Red Skull before leaving. Both Steve and Bucky get out of the place safely and lead the rest of the soldiers back to base (even though it looked like Rogers didn’t survive). At a medal ceremony, Rogers is nowhere to be found. Stan Lee has a cameo during this short scene.
Meanwhile, Rogers is now trusted by the higher ups and sets up a team before getting a new shield made by Howard Stark and is made of Vibranium (that shield was hidden under a table before Steve found it. Before the shield thing happens, Steve is distracted by a lady and is kissed by her before Peggy interrupts. The shield is quickly tested by 4 bullets shot by Peggy. We then see a montage of Cap and his team beating up the Hydra guys and Red Skull getting angry. One of the guys sneaks a numb under a tank, which explodes. After the montage is over, Red Skull yells “You are failing” at Zola and shoots another guy. Meanwhile, at a snowy mountain range, Steve and his team (including Bucky) zip line to a Hydra train. They get on and in the train safely before Steve and Bucky get separated. Steve gets past his enemy and saves Bucky. However, an explosion happens and Bucky falls off the train to what was presumed as a death. Zola is captured by American forces and watches Colonel Phillips talk with him while eating a steak. Zola tells him that he doesn’t eat meat. We then cut to Red Skull saying “Hail Hydra” before everyone else repeats him. Meanwhile, we see Steve trying to drink his sorrow away. The serum makes him sober no matter how much he drinks. He is convinced to use Bucky’s “death” as inspiration for stopping Hydra. Cap gets on his motorcycle while taking care of some bad guys. He makes it to the base and beats up more people before getting captured. Cap then gets punched by Red Skull (Cap says “I can do this all day”), but is saved by all of his fellow troops. As Cap goes after Red Skull, he throws his shield, but it gets stuck. Peggy and the others save him from any danger. Cap catches up to the ship thanks to a very fast car. Before he leaves, he kisses Peggy. The colonel stops the car just before it heads off a cliff. Meanwhile, Cap sees that the bombs are heading towards New York and a couple of other cities. He stops the guys from getting on the planes containing the bombs. A plane does depart the ship, but Cap is able to pilot it back to where it came from. He then gets into where Red Skull is and they fight each other. Cap pushes Red Skull onto the lever and brings the ship down before Red Skull is able to put it on autopilot. Cap then throws his shield at Red Skull. The machine containing the Tesseract is damaged due to this. Red Skull then grabs it and gets transported to somewhere in space. After that confrontation is over, Cap tells Peggy that he has to bring the Valkyrie ship down before any bombs go off. He also tells her that he need a “rain check” on the dance that they were going to do together after the war is over (still an emotional moment to this day). After Cap and the ship goes in the water, we see a montage of people celebrating the end of the war. The Tesseract is found underwater and is taken by the good guys. We see Peggy look at a picture of puny Steve and a little boy play as Captain America before the movie cuts to present day. Steve wakes up and hears an old baseball broadcast in a ‘40s style hospital room. Steve escapes outside and runs into Times Square before meeting Nick Fury before the credits roll. The post-credits scene is a teaser for “The Avengers”.
This movie is another solid entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Chris Evans was another perfect choice. He was great as Steve Rogers/Captain America in this movie. Hayley Atwell was also great as Peggy Carter, as was Sebastion Stan as Bucky and Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. Tommy Lee Jones had a couple of deadpan funny moments, but was okay overall as Colonel Phillips. Stanley Tucci was solid as Erskine before the character was killed off. Dominic Cooper was good in this film as a younger Howard Stark. This film had plenty of good action scenes with Captain America throwing his mighty shield (which had some great sound effects) at some bad guys. I also liked the chemistry between Captain America and Peggy Carter. It’s still an emotional moment when Cap sacrificed himself to save everyone else (but is now in present time). The musical score by Alan Silvestri and the song by Alan Menken and David Zippel were both great in this movie. I did like the World War Two setting of the movie. Captain America was created during that time period by two guys named Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. It’s amazing that this character has lasted for pretty much 80 years. This movie did the origin story very well, including the parts where Steve was skinny.
Overall, “The First Avenger” is an enjoyable watch to this day. The action scenes were well done, the origin story with skinny Steve was executed well, and the actors played their parts well. The next movie that will be covered is the conclusion to Phase One: “The Avengers”. That movie will be covered soon. In the meantime, I hope that you all have a great day.
(As always, here is the video from the people at How it Should Have Ended on this movie.)
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