Title: Captain America: The First Avenger

Opens: July 22, 2011

Thank goodness for superheroes. How would we ever defeat the Nazis without them? The easiest way to have done this rather than allowing the American phase of World War II to drag on for 3-1/2 years would have been to enlist Captain Marvel. After all, Captain Marvel and his doppelganger Billy Batson were created in 1939 and could have gone to war just when Poland was invaded. Just a quick Shazam and the rest would have been history. Instead, we used Captain America, who was created seventy years ago in March 1941, in time to take resolute action during the war, but unfortunately not given the option of saying a magic word that would allow him to fly and to be invincible. Instead Captain America was just another guy, but a guy built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, able to leap from building to building and from one side of a collapsing bridge to another. Unlike Billy Batson, Captain America was in love—with a young, beautiful woman who speaks with the King’s English. He keeps her picture with him unbeknownst to her: who knows what could have happened had he not been motivated by a dancing date he set for one week ahead of what would be his greatest triumph!

Given that the target audience for “Captain America: The First Avenger,” may lack a sense of history, most would not realize that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created the title figure not simply as a good read for comic-book, er, graphic novel fans during the forties but as a distinct kind of propaganda to drum up patriotism. More catchy than the generic photo of Uncle Sam’s pointing at us, convincing that he needs us, the comic served as a lightning rod to young Americans, encouraging them to sign up—though the long lines at recruiting booths on December 8, 1941 may not necessarily be entirely credited to Simon and Kirby.

In a marvel of special effects technology, Chris Evans in the role of Steve Rogers has been shrunk in the early scenes to a ninety-pound asthmatic with hypertension, given a 4-F (physically unfit) rating by the medical examiner—who tells him that he saved the young man’s life. Eager to serve his country, he makes the rounds of draft boards, lying about his identity, enough to impress Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who is working on a military experiment. Rogers would be injected with a drug that will buff him up as no steroid known since has been able to do. He will emerge as the most powerful soldier ever to fight against Hitler. Instead of an assignment to the front, he must first put up with clowning around with a bevy of cheerleaders to raise money for the war, encouraging the public to buy war bonds. He is even hooted down by soldiers who want him to step aside: “Bring back the women!” With the blessing of Col.Chester Phillip (Tommy Lee Jones) and the support of the beautiful Corporal Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), he flies to the front, liberates 400 prisoners along with his best friend, Bucky (Sebastian Stan), zaps a tons of Nazis, but dedicates himself to crushing Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving). In a James Bond scenario, Schmidt has little interest in a German victory or in Hitler. Taking to heart the myths of the old German gods and the occult, he has created a group, Hydra, and with the help of a magic cube taken from a Norwegian hiding place he creates laser guns that vaporize human beings on impact. “Hail Hydra” becomes the war cry of his cult.

The two-hour popcorn movie is loaded with explosions, with some almost mystical Alpine scenery (though it was filmed in London, Manchester, New York and a couple of British studios), but don’t expect much real history to seep through—nothing to make the young ‘uns in the audience realize that World War II was largely between the U.S. and Germany, not between the U.S. and The Soviet Union as most of my high-school students had thought.

There’s nothing here that stands out from similar creations—Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk—and Chris Evans will never be confused with Maurice Evans, though Stanley Tucci comes across with an outstanding performance as a German-American whose work on Chris Evans is amusing and believable. But under the direction of Joe Johnston, who, with “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” on his resume must have been right at home watching the transformation of Steve Rogers into Captain America, the movie comes across well enough as an expensive work with lots of jobs for make-up artists and 300 extras. The biggest drawback is those infernal 3-D glasses, difficult to wear over your regular specs while they darken everything on the screen and are of no benefit whatever.

Rated PG-13. 121 minutes. (c) 2011 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

Overall: B