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"America" the Dutiful

Hold on to your capes, comicbook fans. "Captain America: The First Avenger" is the best page-to-screen comicbook adaptation since "Batman Begins". There, I said it. Let's face it: comic adaptations ain't easy. There are some that are fun ("Thor", "Iron Man", "Hellboy") and some that are not so much ("Green Lantern", "Daredevil", virtually everything else). Then there are those select few that you feel could not only stand the test of time, but that could hold up a franchise (the Raimi "Spider-Man", the Nolan "Batman", the Donner "Superman"). This new "Captain America" belongs to that last rarified category. Much of the credit - and there is plenty to go around - rests on the shoulders of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the writing team behind the "Chronicles of Narnia" series. Despite clearly being saddled with bookended sequences that strip any real stakes from the film, the script is clever, funny, respectful of the source material, and good enough to make you look forward to seeing the Captain again.

Set in 1941, the film plays like a throwback to the kind of action movies they don't make anymore (and what a shame that is). It makes sense then that the film's director, Joe Johnston, had a hand in one of the best of the genre: "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (he shared its Oscar for Best Visual Effects). "America" strikes a similar balance of action and humor, with a formidable love interest thrown in for good measure (once again, though, you can skip the unnecessary 3D conversion). And of course, the bad guys are Nazis. Actually, in this case, they're even worse than Nazis. The villain is Red Skull (Hugo Weaving - playfully merging Agent Smith with a Schwarzenegger accent), the evil head of HYDRA, Hitler's "deep science division". Harnessing the power of the Tesseract - some kind of mythical MacGuffin out of the "Thor" universe - Red Skull wants nothing less than world domination.

Thankfully, the good guys have Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). Oh sure, initially he's a 98-pound weakling (played by Mr. Evans via some first-rate visual effects - though they should have altered his voice as well). But thanks to a magic serum by Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci, in full Obi-Wan mode), Steve is transformed - or, rather, inflated - into a bulgy super-soldier (don't worry, he buys his pants from the same store as The Hulk). He's also given a nifty shield made from "vibranium", from "Iron Man" forebearer Howard Stark.

The film has great fun taking Steve on a journey from medical novelty (he performs in USO shows) to real American hero (sorry, G.I. Joe). Along the way, he earns the respect of a grizzled Colonel (Tommy Lee Jones, phoning it in but with a really good connection) and the love of a hard-nosed special agent (Hayley Atwell, making the most of the playful banter).

At the center of it all is Mr. Evans. Though he has played a superhero before (Johnny Storm, in the forgettable "Fantastic Four" franchise), he has never shown the depth of character on display here. Like the film, his Steve is patriotic without being pandering. He's not motivated by a blind love of country, but by a respect for those who give their lives in its service - specifically a boyhood friend (Sebastian Stan). Dr. Erskine's serum is said to amplify the recipient's character, "the good becomes great, the bad...worse". Mr. Evans makes you believe he's worthy of the responsibility, not just of the serum but of a legitimate superhero franchise. That's something to root for.