The best thing about the new Super Hero Action Blockbuster Thriller is that it isn’t as bad as one might expect. In fact, on a scale of one to five, with five being the best this one is a very strong four. Another good thing is that even though its in 3D they don’t throw things at you to make you duck. In fact, there were only two scenes we noticed when things came out of the screen and into your popcorn. For a film that’s about 121 minutes long, that ain’t bad.

 

First of all it’s a clear cut battle between good and evil, with the good guy being sharply defined and staunchly steadfast and the bad guy being absolutely horrendous. In fact, the bad guy is so evil Hitler almost comes off as mischievous by comparison.

 

Set in World War II, the Nazi’s are taking over Europe and the evil German scientist wants a lot more.  Puny Steve Rogers desperately wants to join his buddy Bucky Barnes in the Army. But Rogers is a little guy who has spent many of his years on the contact side of a punch and the Army evaluates him as 4F.

Rogers comes to the attention of Professor Abraham Erskine, a scientist working for the US Army developing a Super Soldier in a project named Project Rebirth. Erskine’s counterpart in Germany is Dr Armine Zola who has been recruited by Johann Schmidt, the leader of Hydra whose army is vicious and looks like Robocop meets Darth Vader. Schmidt once had worked with Dr. Erskine and had forced Erskine to give him the first dose ever made of a serum that would convert a man to a Super Soldier. No need to elaborate on what happened to him taking a dose of untested – unproven serum. You know what always happens when the bad guy greedily overdoses on a serum meant for good. In this case not only did it make Schmidt bad – it deformed his face to an ugly skull like red – ergo the nickname Red Skull. Aren’t these people clever?

Our hero did not get deformed however. The result is a buffed out super guy with a body that could put the Governator to shame. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Erskine Steve Rogers is conscripted into the program to make a Super Soldier in spite of the protests of gruff and tuff Col. Chester Phillips who eventually comes over to Steve’s support seeing what a swell guy he really is.

And Steve really is a nice guy too. He agrees to put on a cheesy costume with blue tights, a stars and stripes shirt, a form fitting skull cap with two little wings and a shield that looks like a Target logo with a white star in the middle and he goes off prancing with a bevy of leggy chorus girls to raise money for the war effort.

Then SHE comes in. You know there’s always a “she” in the picture, and in this case she is Peggy Carter who is in charge of selection and training of the Project Rebirth recruits. She tells him, “Is this what you really want to be doing?” and Steve has to think very hard. Do I want to continue to stay with my team of a dozen lovely young women with short skirts and sexy legs, dancing and traveling with them all over the country and probably getting lucky with a snap of my finger? Or should I go behind the trenches, risk getting killed, get dirty, get shot and eat bad food and possibly get caught and have to eat (ugh!) sauerkraut?

What a choice! Nevertheless, Steve is nothing if not loyal to his country and he opts for – you guessed it – the front lines - and sauerkraut. She probably gave him a third choice to run off together but her English accent was so thick poor Steve never understood her.

So Steve goes off to fight and his group shines even though grossly outnumbered and outgunned, since Hydra has developed weapons that even in 2044 would be advanced. How they pulled it off in 1944 is pure movie magic, but, hey, nobody said this was a historical bio-pic.

You always know how each conflict is going to end, and even in the nail biting climax when he goes off hanging from the wheel of a yet to be invented stealth airplane there is a certain comfort knowing that Captain America will somehow prevail.

This feeling actually prevails throughout the entire film. It’s pleasantly unabashed in its treatment of evil vs good and pulls no punches in letting you know where it stands.

There is some very credible acting, especially by Tommy Lee Jones as the Colonel and of course Chris Evans as Captain America, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter augmented by a great performance by Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine. Hugo Weaving is wonderfully evil as Red Skull/Johann Schmidt and Sebastian Stan fills the bill for “Bucky” Barnes. We also loved Toby Jones as the German Scientist Dr. Armin Zola. Don’t blink at the end or you’ll miss Samuel L. Jackson in a brief cameo where Captain America is suddenly thrust to the present time.

This film has Dominic Cooper as industrialist Howard Stark, a hot shot arms supplier to the US Government. Can you say Tony Stark of Iron Man? There is a passing resemblance between the two.

So the bottom line is that for an action hero this is a fun movie where the main character is clearly loved by the audience and the villain is definitely hated. This may sound a little off-beat but guess what – they don’t make movies like this any more. Not too often anyway.

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