Pumped

   

* *  (out of five) Captain America. Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, based on the Marvel Comics. Directed by Joe Johnston. 

I guess we must be deep in the reserve bench of superheroes to render into major motion pictures, now that it’s down to Captain America. This guy, you might recall, wears a suit of truest blue and throws a star-spangled shield at his enemies. From his conception, he seemed kind of culturally redundant, because isn’t Superman the real “Captain America”, complete with impeccable American bona fides (he’s an immigrant and a Midwesterner) and super-powers far, far more appropriate to a superpower? And as any gladiator will tell you, you never, ever throw your shield at your opponent, no matter how much you might be tempted to.

            But of course, none of that means Captain America must be a bad movie. In the hands of director Joe Johnston, who has produced some pretty good pulp nostalgia in the past (The Rocketeer, October Sky), at least we’re not in Michael Bay territory here. And in truth, Captain isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just terribly earnest, and predictable, and thus kind of dull. (Fanboys feel free to add a star if you’ve read this far…)

            Of the Captain’s origins little need be said except he starts off as little Stevie Rogers (Chris Evans), a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who desperately wants to get into the fight with Hitler. Trouble is, he’s skinny and asthmatic, so he’s stamped “4F”. That is, until his spirit and virtue are recognized by a top-flight government scientist (Stanley Tucci) who just happens to be hanging around the recruitment center, and inducts Steve into a top secret program to turn scrawny kids into super-soldiers. You know the rest. (Short version: fight, arch-villain, more fighting, over-produced effects, evil plan in motion, last kiss, still more fighting, set up for the next movie).

            Now you might ask, isn’t using dubious science to concoct “super-soldiers” really a Nazi thing? True enough, but the difference is that where the Nazis use eugenics and Wagnerian crescendos to “improve” the breed, we Yanks use old-fashioned industrial know-how—the kind with big hearty knobs and chunky, straightforward dials with labels in plain English. We also start with the humblest of material, the guy who got sand kicked in his face in that classic Mr. Atlas ad. In other words, where their “science” is a matter of privilege, we offer equality of opportunity, where any kid from anywhere can become the bulked-up freak of his dreams. Take that, Adolf!

            Alas, while the body of the new Steve Rogers is cut, his personality lacks any edge at all. That’s intentional, because he’s supposed to represent the generation that whipped fascism, which apparently means he’s a reflexively good soul who never indulges in such modern sins as self-consciousness and sarcasm. And if that makes him dull—well, saving the free world ain’t a job for comedians, pal.

            But honoring the Greatest Generation and genuflecting before its altar are two different things. What makes Captain America special isn’t the body that was built for him, but the character he was born with—in other words, the character our grandfathers describe when they reminisce about a better, more honorable time. There are more appropriate places than a mere movie review to discuss such things, but I suspect that if you also sold Steve Rogers a diet of double bacon-cheeseburgers, pushed a deceptive mortgage on him, and told him to go shopping instead of sacrifice for the national good, he’d end up just like us—fat, foreclosed, and selfish.

            In other words,  it wasn’t the generation that was “the greatest”, folks. It was the leadership.

            A more cynical critic might also take exception to the other subtext here, about taking techie shortcuts. For there’s nothing about Stevie’s physical transformation—(except his augmented height, I guess) that couldn’t also have been accomplished with a six-month gym membership. Captain America not only makes getting an artificially enhanced body definitely sexy (the chicks suddenly dig him), it portrays it as consequence-free, with no real side-effects. (Well, except for the immortality thing…) Not necessarily a helpful message for today’s scrawny kids tempted by HGH and steroids, that.

            Chris Evans, who also played Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movies, gets a second crack at playing a superhero here. But as a guy who gets all the benefits of the ‘rhoids without any of the rage, this is not much of an improvement. Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith in the Matrix movies) seems to be trying to inject some fun into the proceedings as Red Skull, chewing the scenery with an accent that sounds curiously like Werner Herzog’s. Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited) is also on hand, brandishing a decent right-cross and tonnes and tonnes of British sass. It’s just too bad they couldn’t transform her into the super-soldier instead.

© 2011 Nicholas Nicastro