[xrr rating=5/5]
It was a sweltering Friday afternoon, I had just finished making the world pretty (one lawn at a time) and the sun had been beating down on my balding head for a solid 10 hours. I needed to cool off… and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a showcase cinema and eight tiny movies playing inside.
OK, so they weren’t tiny movies. As a matter of fact the movie I was going to see was a blockbuster. That film was “CAPTAIN AMERICA: The First Avenger.”
Now if you are at all familiar with me, you may know that I am a science fiction geek. That’s not to say that you won’t catch me at an “artsy-fartsy” independent film, but when these big budget sci-fi flicks hit the theatre, I’m the first in line to see ’em… seriously. I’m the first one in line and when people try to cut me, I shake my head, laugh out loud and say, “I don’t think so.”
Here I am, all fired up to see the comic book superhero tear apart the big screen and I was a tad bit let down. I was expecting a great story, but it just seemed to putt along, like a hybrid Prius moving lazily in the right lane as the big boys buzz on by. That’s not to say I hated it. I didn’t, I just thought there could’ve been more.
The movie stars Massachusetts native Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, a.k.a. “Captain America” – a scrawny kid who wants to join the army so he can help his fellow brothers fight the Nazis in World War II. His problem is, he’s got asthma, and whole bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember right now, but basically he reminded me of ME in high school (note: i weighed 92 lbs. as a senior in high school…). Anyways, he meets up with a scientist who can make him into a super-soldier and thats where the movie takes off. His nemisis over in Germany is the menacing “Red Skull” played creepily well by Hugo Weaving (you may remember him as the bad guy in the suit and sunglasses in the “Matrix” trilogy).
There are some great action scenes and Captain America’s suit is wicked cool, but his best weapon is his trademark shield. He can do anything with his shield. He throws it at people and kills ’em, he can knock weapons out of soldiers hands with it and no matter what, whenever he tosses it, it comes back to him like a boomerang! Man, I love that shield! I would take a woman to a romantic dinner on that sheild, it’s that cool.
So to sum up for you all, “Captain America” is good. Definitely worth seeing. But what you really want to see comes out next summer when the four superheroes (Ironman, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, and Captain America) team up and fight crime in next summer’s blockbuster “The Avengers.” They showed a preview and it looked amazing! So get yourself out to the movies so we can talk about ’em! God bless you, and God bless America!