The Star Spangled Man Takes Center Stage! (Avengers Movie Project Part 4)

     We're back to covering Marvel movies today, friends. I'll be discussing one of my favorites from Phase one, but one that is seen by many as "pretty boring." I'm talking about Captain America: The First Avenger, and I was honestly surprised by the amount of well known actors that I had completely forgotten about being in this movie. This is a different story from the origins of Thor or Iron Man for sure, as Captain America is a character who wants to do the right thing from the beginning, and he stays with his convictions throughout this movie. Steve Rogers has to be one of my favorite characters from the MCU, and it's very clear as to why even from this first iteration of the character. He is so likable and has so much charisma right off the bat that you really want to root for him. We also get to see how World War II played out in the fictional comic universe, which I always think is kind of interesting, in addition, we see a lot of old cars, uniforms, and technology. This movie is the earliest that the MCU has ever gone chronologically, and I think it makes for a really interesting time, especially when considering how this is going to connect with the other characters in modern day. Strap on your shields, because we're going back to New York during the WWII era. 603-499-4065

An Underdog Story

    This movie begins in modern times, somewhere in the arctic. We see a large metal structure sticking out of the ice, and a team uses a laser to cut a hole in the top so they can get inside. Once in the structure, they realize that it's a ship and they uncover a round shield in the ice with a white star on it, and that begins a flashback which lasts almost the entire length of the movie. We see a village in Norway being attacked by the Nazis and an official stealing a blue box from an old man, who is then killed along with the rest of his village before cutting away to New York in this time. Steve Rogers is a typical Brooklyn resident during 1942, though he is certainly not as healthy as many others are. In fact, he's so unhealthy that he's been turned away from enlisting in the U.S. Military several times, to the point where he's begun making up names so that he can get in from another recruitment center. He's jealous of his best friend, James Barnes aka Bucky, who's already been recruited in the army. We see Steve pick a fight with a guy much bigger than he is because he was booing at a newsreel of the troops, and although he's hopelessly outmatched, he keeps standing up, repeating, "I could do this all day." Bucky convinces Steve to go out with him on a double date with two girls to the Stark Expo (Yes, like the one from Iron Man 2, I told you we'd get back to that). Howard Stark is here, showing off a flying car, and we see Steve sneak away to once again try to enlist in the army, though his time he's caught by a German scientist named Dr. Erskine. Erskine is impressed at Steve's tenacity and finally allows him to join the army, putting him in one of the top ranks to be called, saying, "we have all the big guys we could ever need, maybe what we need now is the little guy." Just like that, we see Steve swept away to boot camp, and although he's always far behind everyone else, he never gives up, dealing with more than the rest of them, and often outsmarts the challenges by thinking in a different way. Dr. Erskine, the commanding officer, and Peggy Carter all look over the tests and seem to be judging the trainees for some new project, with Erskine wanting Steve to be chosen, listing him as the clear choice. Through Steve's endurance (and proved sincerity to want to help), he is ultimately chosen. 

    We find out that Erskine has created a serum for super soldiers that has only ever been given to one man, the Red Skull, who is the head of the Nazi's science division, Hydra. Erskine informs Steve that he's going to become a super soldier as well, though there may be some side effects, as the Red Skull's flesh actually burned from the serum. Steve receives the serum after being prepped by Erskine and, with the assistance of Howard Stark, the serum is bonded to his DNA successfully. Steve is suddenly extremely muscular, much more fit than he was when he went in the chamber. Unfortunately, with the government agents that come to watch the procedure, an undercover Hydra agent also comes and sets off a bomb, then shoots and kills Dr. Erskine. He then steals the serum and runs off. He gets into a car, with Steve in hot pursuit after him, immediately showing off just how much of a success the serum was. He's able to run as fast as the car is traveling, as well as jump over tall fences as he travels through the New York streets. Steve catches the man with the help of his new physique, but the Hydra agent kills himself with a cyanide capsule, choking out his last "Hail Hydra," and the last samples of serum are destroyed. Without Dr. Erskine around to vouch for Steve, the government benches him and decides just one man wouldn't be enough to change the world, so Steve begins doing a tour across the country to promote the sales of war bonds as Captain America: The Star Spangled Man with a Plan. Steve stars in many propaganda films about WWII while not actually being able to help on the front lines. With his "Star Spangled" costume and shield, he eventually goes overseas to do a show for the troops where he's made fun of and ridiculed by the soldiers he's trying to protect, and he realizes that he's really not doing what he hoped to be. He soon hears that the group that Bucky was assigned to has been captured and taken to a Hydra prison and gets the help of Howard Stark and Peggy Carter to fly him into the enemy airspace so he can rescue them. He quickly saves the POWs, prompting Red Skull to blow up the base when he sees what Captain America can do. Steve returns to the camp with the men in tow, in addition to a tank that they stole from Hydra. It ended up being a major success and Captain America finally begins getting the respect he deserves. Howard Stark makes him a shield out of Vibranium, the rarest and most resilient mineral on the planet, and Cap goes to war against Hydra and the Red Skull.

    Along with Cap, his friend Bucky, Dum Dum Duggan and the Howling Commandoes all achieve many victories against Hydra, until Bucky eventually falls off of a moving train and dies. Steve takes this extremely personally, and though he was feeling invincible for a while, this really gives him a reminder of his mortality and the people he cares about the most, namely Peggy, who he's been developing a strong relationship with for essentially the entire movie. Behind the scenes at Hydra, Red Skull has been developing technology from the Tesseract, the blue box that we saw him steal at the beginning of the movie, and is planning on overthrowing Hitler and making Hydra the true global superpower. With the new technology, the Hydra soldiers are able to disintegrate their enemies in a blue flash, and they're building up more and more troops and weapons for their ultimate plan. What is their ultimate plan? Thanks to the cooperation of Dr. Arnim Zola, a Hydra scientist that is captured by the Allies, they are able to intercept it. It turns out that Red Skull wants to control the world and he has the means to do it. They're essentially going to fly a giant plane over key points in the world (especially the U.S.) and drop Tesseract bombs on them, which are basically Nukes. Captain America and Co. go to the Hydra Base to stop the Red Skull's plan, but the plane takes off, only allowing Cap to get on to stop the bombing run. Here we see the big fight scene between Red Skull and Cap, two men with the same power set but on opposite sides of the coin. Eventually Steve is victorious when the Tesseract is hit, then it absorbs Red Skull when he touches it, then melts through the hull of the plane and falls into the ocean. Cap is left to pilot the airship, but they're already so close to land, Steve determines that the only way to save lives is to crash the plane into the arctic. He steers it down as he and Peggy discuss the plans for a date that they know will never come, until Steve's radio goes silent. The plane has gone down and all the people have been saved.

    We see the end of the war come, children and troops parade through the streets, and the world mourns the loss of Captain Steve Rogers, none more than Agent Peggy Carter, who becomes one of the founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D. Suddenly, however Steve wakes up in a hospital in New York, listening to a baseball game on the radio. An agent walks in and tells the Captain that he survived the crash and he's back home in 1942, but Steve knows that's not the case, as he was at that baseball game that is being broadcast on the radio. He runs out of the room and discovers he's on a set and breaks out of there, taking out S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as he breaks out of the building and into Times Square in modern day New York. Nick Fury arrives on the scene to meet him and informs him that he's been asleep in the ice for about 80 years, which leads Cap to remember... "I had a date." Just like that, the final piece in the Avengers puzzle slides into place, by some miracle arriving just in time for when the Avengers are needed most.

The Shield isn't the only thing with a Star

    This movie has tons of star power, and to talk about this movie, I feel it's disrespectful to not discuss the people involved in bringing it to life. Chris Evans I truly think is the perfect guy to play Captain America, even though I was skeptical of him after he was the Human Torch in Fox's Fantastic Four movies of the early to mid 2000's. He has such charisma and what seems to be genuine kindness that he brings to the role in spades. Hayley Atwell plays Agent Peggy Carter, a sassy British lady who takes no nonsense and genuinely cares for Steve in a way that really warms the heart. Sebastian Stan plays Bucky Barnes, Cap's right hand man who meets an unfortunate demise, and does a great job of acting like an older brother who quickly finds himself in the shadow of his younger sibling. Dum Dum Duggan and the Howling commandos do a great job with what they're given, even though it's not much. If you think about the Warriors three from Thor, it's the same basic thing here, just relying on stereotypes so they don't have to develop their characters much past, "the black guy can translate different languages" and things like that. Tommy Lee Jones plays the commanding officer in the army, and he brings his usual dry humor and deadpan mannerisms to the role in great ways, as he always does. Stanley Tucci is Dr. Erskine in this movie, and honestly I didn't even recognize him the first time I saw it because he does a fairly convincing German accent, and he doesn't exactly look like himself. Once you know who he is, however you can definitely see it. Tucci is always hilarious and great in his roles, but Erskine really is like a father figure to Steve, and when he dies, it is shocking and sad to see him go. The incredible Hugo Weaving plays the Red Skull in this movie, and truly anytime he steps into a role, he does a great job. He's probably best known for Elrond in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy or Agent Smith in The Matrix series of films, but he is also incredible here. Toby Jones plays Dr. Arnim Zola, who is basically the Red Skull's right hand man, but he does a great job of playing a scared lackey who appears to not be 100% convinced that they're doing the right thing here. Samuel L. Jackson is barely in this movie, once again, but I always just love seeing him in there, and the same goes for Stan Lee, who makes yet another cameo as you'd expect.

Who wrote that jingle, I wonder?

    During the scene where Steve is going around selling war bonds to the U.S. civilians, there's a song playing as the montage goes on. The first time I saw the movie, I got it stuck in my head, though I wasn't sure why it was until many years later. In 2013, Alan Menkin and Richard Sherman did a concert at D23 where they both played tons of their songs that they wrote for Disney Movies, shows, rides, etc. If you don't know, Richard Sherman and his brother, Bob, wrote such songs as, "It's a small world after all," "Winnie the Pooh," and all of the music from Mary Poppins, whereas Alan Menkin wrote music for almost all of the animated Disney movies from The Little Mermaid until Tangled. In this concert, Alan talked about how Marvel had approached him while they were in the early stages of making the Captain America film to make a little song in the style of 1940's marches about Captain America. He then sat down and played "The Star Spangled Man with a Plan." No wonder that tune was such an ear worm! This point is really neither here nor there in how I feel about this movie, but I have such huge respect for Mr. Menkin that I'm just happy that he wrote it.

    As I said, Captain America: The First Avenger is possibly my favorite movie out of Phase one. I just love Cap as a character and want to see him succeed however he can. He's also the last Avenger that we meet before The Avengers, which is the next movie I'll be talking about. He brings a lot to the table and this movie as a whole is extremely different from Thor which was very different from Iron Man 1 and 2. It's more of a War movie than a Superhero movie, but it's still really good and held up by great performances all around. My Dad really liked this movie and though he wasn't as big of a fan of Steve as Tony Stark, he liked him a lot as he seemed like a really stand up guy. Honestly I think the romance between Steve and Peggy has to be my favorite out of all the Marvel movies, which is also what makes it so tragic that they're the one pair that simply can't be together due to... inopportune timing, which seems like a cruel joke to put here.

    Captain America has to be my favorite avenger, and I was just really happy to see him brought to life on the big screen when this movie came out. On top of all the Nazi-bashing action lies the creation of a hero that shows sometimes the little guy is the right guy to bet on. Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I really appreciate your support as always and I hope you're all doing well. I've been your Self-Proclaimed Cap fan, and I'll talk to you all next week!