Where I Was Sunday Afternoon

I pried myself away from my air conditioner long enough to catch Captain America: The First Avenger at the New 400 Sunday afternoon.

What did I think, you ask? Here it is, even if you didn't ask:

Captain America is one of those comic book characters who, even though he's been around for over 70 years, hasn't fared all that well in live-action interpretations. The 1944 serial is exciting and all, just as long as you haven't ever read a single Captain America comic book in your life. If you have, though, you quickly realize that the screenwriters took the name of the character and that's about it. The pair of '70s TV movies are pretty awful--it's probably for the best that Cap was never picked up for a TV series--though the second film at least had the great Christopher Lee as a terrorist. And the less said about the 1990 version intended for the big screen but dumped on home video and cable, the better. (Two words: Rubber ears.)

In short, Captain America: The First Avenger could have been truly craptastic and still been better than every version that preceded it.

But it's not craptastic. It's not bad at all. In fact, it's the most enjoyable super-hero movie in a year drowning in them.

This Captain America takes place almost entirely in the 1940s (except from the modern-day sequences that bookend the film) and gets that period detail right (as you'd expect in a film directed by Joe Johnston, whose previous foray into super-hero territory was the underrated 1991 film The Rocketeer). While the screenwriters and production designers take liberties with Cap's story and costume (as you'd fully expect them to, especially with that costume, which was made eminently more practical and battle-ready for this movie), they remain true to the the main character: A skinny, sickly kid from Brooklyn who only wants to serve his country, but is turned down for enlistment again and again until a kindly German scientist (Stanley Tucci, in a sweet performance) physically transforms the kid into a super-soldier. Even in the body of a physically perfect specimen, though, he's still that earnest kid from Brooklyn, wanting to do the right thing and take the fight to the bullies who started it.

Chris Evans does a nice job underplaying his role as Cap/Steve Rogers, though that consequently means he's a bit dull. Fortunately, he's surrounded by colorful performances by crusty Tommy Lee Jones, smart and beautiful Hayley Atwell, tough-as-nails Neal McDonough and batcrap-crazy Hugo Weaving as Cap's nemesis, the Red Skull. Weaving's performance is the closest to over-the-top-and-back-again, but he's playing a superpowered lunatic with aspirations to godhood, so he can't really underplay and still convey the madness behind the Skull's wild eyes.

Most importantly, Captain America: The First Avenger is, for the most part, a fun summer movie (though there is some personal tragedy in there for Steve Rogers, and a whole new world awaiting him in the Avengers movie coming next summer). Sit down, chew your popcorn with your mouth closed and enjoy the air conditioning.