The Grand Marvel Rewatch: Captain America: The First Avenger

Face front, true believers! Welcome to the next astonishing addition to “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” designed to get us all sufficiently amped up for Captain America: Civil War, which comes out May 6, 2016. Each Wednesday, The Cinema King casts his eye back upon the twelve films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and offers five salient observations about the caliber of the films and the way they might play into Marvel’s latest installment in America’s favorite franchise.

Today’s fantastic feature film takes us to 2011 for Captain America: The First Avenger, for some good old-fashioned Nazi-punching.

1. One small step for a man... There’s a surprising sense of scope in this film that never lets us forget that Steve Rogers is just one man in a much larger war, a much bigger conflict that spans all the way back to Thor (note the shared appearance of Yggdrasil, the World-Tree) and much further forward (see #2). And can we just say – what a man! (No, I’m not referring to his pecs, at least not exclusively.) Chris Evans is spot-on as the old-fashioned Steve Rogers, and I love that the movie never laughs at him for his antiquated notions about the world. Instead, he embodies an ideal of heroism that of which our world and his could frankly do with a little bit more.
2. One giant leap for Marvel-kind. As small as the film’s focus tries to be, it downright explodes the Marvel Universe and perhaps might hold the record for most spin-off material. It introduces Hydra and the Tesseract, who persist in the MCU to this day; it gave us Howard Stark and Peggy Carter, who’ve had their own show; and it brings us full-force into The Avengers. I’m almost prepared to say that Captain America: The First Avenger is the most important film thus far in the MCU, insofar as it’s introduced a lot of important elements that haven’t left the franchise.
3. Raiders of the lost tesseract. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is at its best when it’s mashing up genres with the superhero genre like Guardians as a space opera or Winter Soldier as a 70s conspiracy thriller. But The First Avenger does that twice over: it’s a superhero film, which is also a WW2 film, which is also an elaborate Indiana Jones reference. In fact, it’s somewhere between Raiders of the Lost Ark and director Joe Johnston’s second film, The Rocketeer (which you know I love). High adventure mixed with war exploits, it adds up to popcorn cinema, as in the best it is.
4. Such a waste, such a terrible waste! The First Avenger is really entertaining cinema, but it’s a real shame that it’s a world that we can never really revisit. With Cap (spoilers?) frozen at the film’s end and thawed out in the present day, we’ve pretty much resolved Cap’s arc with Peggy and the Howling Commandoes. While most of the supporting cast has surfaced over on Agent Carter, we’ve gotten a little bit of continuity on the WW2 era of the MCU, but Hayley Atwell is such a marvelous performer (no pun intended) that she deserves more big-screen heroics. Ditto for Stanley Tucci, who’s absolutely perfect as Dr. Erskine, but he’s shuffled off fairly quickly, meaning we don’t get to see more of this great screen presence. And don’t get me started on Tommy Lee Jones, who a) I always forget is in this movie, and b) gets the best line of the film with “I’m not kissing you!”
5. Many happy returns. There’s a beat in Thor where Loki lies about Odin being dead, but The First Avenger amps that up by three when it kickstarts the MCU’s refusal to kill most characters permanently. You have Bucky Barnes, who’ll turn out not to be dead; Arnim Zola, who’ll turn out not to be dead; and of course Captain America, who turns out not to be dead. It’s an old comic book cliché, of course, so might we wonder whether we’ll see the Red Skull at some point in the future? Hugo Weaving is not shy about his reticence to return to the role, but if ever a character could be recast it’s this one. Call it “the War Machine precedent” (in being replaced, would we say Weaving got Terrenced? or Cheadled?). In fact, his apparent demise at the hands of the Tesseract, a known Infinity Stone, makes an Infinity War return all the more plausible.

There’s so much more to be said about Captain America: The First Avenger, so be sure to check out my original review. Join me in the Grand Marvel Rewatch over the coming weeks, and hit the comments to share your thoughts about the MCU. And don’t forget to tune in next Wednesday for the next installment, in which we take a closer look at the big one, 2012’s The Avengers. Excelsior!