Captain America: The First Avenger (On Netflix)

A great taste of the superhero 1940s world. Of course this is nothing like what actually happened in WWII. There was no Tesseract (how did Red Skull know what it was called in the first place? If I remember correctly, everyone called it the Cosmic Cube until someone corrected them.). Since Stark wasn't around, no one had massive weapons that we don't even have now.

Synopsis: During WWII, the United States creates a Super Soldier, Captain America, to help with the war effort and eventually to battle with Hydra and its leader Red Skull.

Chris Evans - who also played the Human Torch in the Fantastic 4 movies - is a stout-hearted Steve Rodgers an a strong Captain America. His character is constant, shy, humble, bashful, and self-sacrificing. The CGI with his thin body is sometimes distracting as it looks like his head is much bigger than his body at times, but it's not enough to ruin the film. Although there is little major character development due to the fact that there is a huge montage of battles that probably covers years, it is easy to see that through those fights Captain Rodgers gains a bit more confidence in his new body.

Hugo Weaving plays Red Skull (and evil Hugo Weaving). He's very much channeling his Agent Smith from The Matrix series. Red Skull's goal? Trying to take over/destroy the world. Of course! Hugo Weaving has tried this before with previous villains he has portrayed. Red Skull is a bit boring,  and not really threatening to the point of being campy. Casting an unknown or someone who has a little fame, but not enough to be globally known would have been better. Furthermore, why wasn't he speaking German to his German scientist? They used subtitles in Norway for Norwegian, why not German?

Sebastian Stan plays Bucky Barns, the best friend. It's a cliche part because of the movie trope that in war movies the best friend always dies. Since Bucky is absent through most of the movie and doesn't do much, there is not much to say about him. He seems to be a ladies' man and he flirts a bit, but those scenes are very few. Hopefully he will have a bigger part in the sequel, which probably takes place during the montage of battles in this movie.

Natalie Dormer plays Peggy Carter, who is the strong female type - and British for some reason. She is there to play the love interest. That's about it.

Tommy Lee Jones plays Colonel Chester Phillips (or Tommy Lee Jones or Agent K). He's hard core about the war, and it's obvious that he's tired and has seen far too much fighting. Philips probably participated at the end of WWI as well, which adds to his tiredness. This shows when he is forced to write letters of condolences to families on the home-front; he hates writing them and being the bearer of bad news.

Minor characters of note:

 Dominic Cooper plays Howard Stark. Being Robert Downey Jr.'s dad probably has its perks. Cooper definitely tries to channel a bit of RDJ's charisma (and succeeds in the scenes where it's used), but Howard seems to be much more put together and concentrated than Tony.

Toby Jones plays Dr. Armin Zola. He gives Red Skull weapons made from the Tesseract's energy. He also feels guilty that his creations are being used to destroy (well, duh, they're weapons and you gave them to a madman!). Since he also plays the Dream Lord in Doctor Who, it feels like the Tesseract weapons are really reminiscent of Dalek weapons.

Very tiny character parts:

Richard Armitage has a bit part as Heinz Kruger. He doesn't do much except be the gateway guardian (the first step into the actual plot/rising action) for Steve Rodgers.

Overall, the film was enjoyable.

Rating: 3/5