It is 1942, America has entered World War II, and sickly but determined Steve Rogers is frustrated at being rejected yet again for military service. Everything changes when Dr. Erskine recruits him for the secret Project Rebirth. Proving his extraordinary courage, wits and conscience, Rogers undergoes the experiment and his weak body is suddenly enhanced into the maximum human potential. When Dr. Erskine is then immediately assassinated by an agent of Nazi Germany’s secret HYDRA research department (headed by Johann Schmidt, a.k.a. the Red Skull), Rogers is left as a unique man who is initially misused as a propaganda mascot; however, when his comrades need him, Rogers goes on a successful adventure that truly makes him Captain America, and his war against Schmidt begins.1
I loved Captain America: The First Avenger, it’s a really good story on morality and how the best person for a leader is not always the strongest, but the one best suited mentally. I walked in to this movie completely blind to the story, so I was very confused seeing Captain America in 1940s New York when I’ve seen clips of him fighting Spiderman on TikTok, but I really liked how they ended up bringing him to the modern day through an iceberg and not some type travel stuff like I had been thinking while watching the movie.
I really like how Steve is introduced to everybody as a scrawny asthmatic kid who can’t make it into the army; it automatically gives us this idea of Captain America in our minds before he even becomes the hero, but instead of making him seem weaker it really just adds to his character and backstory. Him being used to being the weakest or slowest of the group makes him a lot more humble than say, the billionaire Tony Stark, and his determination and lack of ability to back out of a fight is amplified by the super serum, so if it were a different person receiving the serum, it may not have been as successful as it was with Cap.
I also like Steve’s arc with becoming Captain America; with him going from nothing more than an attraction to a real war hero. He was happy to travel the world and bring up morale through his shows, but I loved when he found out his friend Bucky had been captured by HYDRA that he went and saved all of the captured soldiers, defying orders. I also really enjoy the costume change in this part of the movie; his original costume looked very similar to the comic version of the suit which was nice, but it made it pretty clear why they don’t typically use the comic versions of the suits for the movie adaptations; it didn’t look very serious, definitely more like a halloween costume than any suit ment for fighting.
We also get to see the beggining of multiple different aspects of the MCU, including HYDRA, Bucky or The Winter Soldier, Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark or Iron Man, the Super-Soldier Serum, and the Tesseract, which makes this movie pretty important if you want to have a good idea of the story of the movies. I do like how all of these things are introduced pretty organically, however, different from Iron Man 2, where I feel some things were added in last minute just to allude to future movies.
I also really like how they introduced Captain America into the 21st century. The whole scene of him waking up in the 1940s-themed hospital is really eerie, and when it’s finally revealed that he is in the middle of Times Square in 2011, the 70-year difference in technology is extremely obvious and disorienting. Doing it in Times Square is also a really good way to show the distinct change, but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when thinking about it logically. I don’t see why Nick Fury thought it would be a good idea to put him in a ward in the busiest part of the country and not expect him to find out he was in 2011.
Overall, however, Captain America: The First Avenger is a really good movie and introduces a lot of important aspects of the MCU and future movies. I reccomend that anybody who wants to watch any Marvel movies watch this one aswell so they get some background on the universe as a whole.
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