Captain America: The First Avenger is the fifth movie in the Marvel film series which ultimately lead to The Avengers film in 2011 which features several of the characters from prior films including the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and more. Captain America does succeed admirably in introducing the character and preparing audiences for his existence in The Avenger. However despite this and the many promising moments Captain America has, the film as a whole never comes together into a cohesive satisfying whole.
The most problematic issue present in Captain America is the action is simply nothing special. Their action is admittedly rather well staged, but they fell more like a collection of action moments sporadically edited together in the hope that they may wow. This does work when it is intended to be viewed in such a way, for example when Captain America is shown defeating enemies in several locations at different times in a montage it works ever so well. It however does not work when it is in a more straight forward scenes with moments from the same action scene lacking the sense of flow and continuity between shoots one shoulkd expect from an action film, let alone from a film with a budget the size this film commands.
The previous Marvel films where action films but they also contained many laughs as well. Captain America is comparatively devoid of such humour which given the setting does make sense. However it must be said the easiest way to have one pay less attention, or at least care less about the larger leaps in logic present would be to them laughing (and laughing with the film, not at it). This is something the Thor and Iron Man films understood and implemented extremely well, and something that could have helped the few cringe worthy moments present in Captain America be less problematic then they unfortunately are.
Performances throughout are strong as one would expect from the cast present. Hugo Weaving in particular helps the villain seem more threatening then he really should be. It doesn't help that the henchmen are so stupid and incompetent that they make Stormtroppers look like super soldiers. Thankfully the films finale is one of the films strongest points. Both bitter-sweet and providing a level of maturity and emotion that is otherwise not present the ending propels Captain America to be far more memorable then what the rest of the film deserves.
Captain America is not the spectacle film many would have hoped for, and is without doubt the second weakest film in the Marvel series thus far (Iron Man 3 would have to take the 'crown' for the weakest). It however is still a decent action film with a few moments that seem to pull away from the cliché and the fantastic end one well likely be reasonably entertaining throughout. Sadly reasonable is hardly the most positive of comments and Captain America: The First Avenger like the Thor films comes recommended as a decent rental.
What about the 3d?
Captain America, much like all the Marvel films thus far presented in 2d is yet another 2d to 3d conversion and the results whilst not bad aren't anything special either. Captain America is a fairly good conversion and doesn't feature any of the egregiously obvious cardboard cut-out effect moments that are present in Thor. It however also tends to feature very little depth and whilst the 3d adds to the experience the mentioned lack of depth remains problematic. Thus far the only Marvel film worth viewing in 3d has been The Avengers (which was rather spectacular), which is sadly expected as The Avengers along with this film are the only two films that where shoot with 3d in mind.
