A Look Back at Captain America The First Avenger

As the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is upon us, I thought I would take a look back at the first installment.

I was legitimately impressed by Captain America: The First Avenger; this is mostly because I was probably looking forward to this the least of all the MCU movies.  Cap isn't a character who translates very well to film.  A lot of it is that costume; he's one of the most garish supehroes: decked out in red,white, and blue and, if that wasn't subtle enough for you, he has a big frickin' 'A' right on his forehead.

But, somehow, this movie manages to work.  A big tip of the hat should be given to the film's production team and director Joe Johnston for hitting the perfect tone for the film.  In many ways, Johnston was the perfect man for the job: he served as a second unit director on the Indiana Jones films and helmed the woefully overlooked The Rocketeer so he is no stranger to blending WWII iconography with fantastical stories and the golden aged nostalgia of the latter was particularly necessary for Captain America: The First Avenger.

This is one of the keys to making Captain America: The First Avenger work.  This is not the real WWII we are seeing; it is not meant to be Saving Private Ryan. Instead, Johnston gives us one of those Norman Rockwell-esque propaganda posters come to life.  Throughout the entire film (with the exception of the last few moments), everything has a slight golden hue to it.  This recalls not only the 'Golden Age' of comics but also a 'Golden Age' of America.  We often refer to the generation that fought the war as "The Greatest Generation" and this film paints an idealized portrait of the era.  The golden hue hints at a rose tinted vision of the past.  This WWII era America had no Japanese internment camps and, apparently, had already desegregated its Army (something that wouldn't happen in reality until the 1950's).

The second element that makes the film work is its emphasis on an often overlooked element of the Captain America's character: his origin story.  What makes Marvel characters great is it isn't the powers or the costume or gadgets that make them but, as Professor Erskine so kindly points out in the film, "who you are underneath."  And The First Avenger reminds us that, deep down inside, Steve Rogers is this skinny little guy who wouldn't back down from a fight.  Not because he was too stupid or because of some deep-seeded need to commit violence but simply because he doesn't like bullies. He stands up for what is right even when the odds aren't in his favor.  In many ways, he's a stand-in for every skinny little comics nerd who got pushed around. He's every kid who wishes they were stronger, not so they could get even, but so they could stand up for what's right. He's the kid who gets himself beat up for standing up for the even smaller kid. This is the film's heart and Chris Evans deserves endless praise for managing to pull off a character who is innocent without being naive.