So I Watched: Captain America (2011)

I came into this MCU rewatch with preconceived notions of which films would be The Good Ones and The Bad Ones, but after Iron Man 2 clawed its way back into my good graces I'll admit that I was thrown off, and even a little worried that Captain America - which I often recalled as the best MCU movie - would also break from my biases.

Yeah no it's still the best one, go figure.

When you watch all of Phase One's solo movies a pretty clear formula emerges.

Captain America is kinda fascinating as a result, because it's clearly aware of the formula and either actively worked to subvert it, or are knowingly using it for dramatic effect.

Steve Rogers is, unlike the other Phase One protagonists, a pretty good guy. Despite severe asthma and what's implied to be polio, he has an incredibly strong moral core and innate desire to Do Good that he refuses to let go of even as his body - and many, many other people - fight him on it.

From the word go he's different from the other white boys that permeate Phase One because his character development has functionally concluded. He starts the movie as a heroic spirit who cares so much about The Little Guy that he's willing to throw himself on a live grenade so as to minimize harm, and these character beats are carried all the way to the credits basically unaltered. The key difference is that Steve completely lacks anything material that could advance his station. As a chronically ill young man in WW2 New York his lifespan would normally be measured in months and he completely lacks for wealth, genius or magical prowess to offset this. Much ink has been spilled about the changes to MCU Spiderman's backstory, but I can ultimately understand why: We already have a sickly nerd from Brooklyn.

But what I find especially compelling about Steve in this movie is that the writers truly understood the assignment. Any story involving Cap in the "present day" (whether this is the 60s or the new 20s or anything inbetween) is likely to invoke the concept of a "man out of time" but in this movie they've taken a different stance on that. As an unenhanced human Steve is already a man out of time in the sense that his lifespan isn't going to be very long; he maligns the idea of going to work in a factory and there's just enough subtext there to make it clear that he has no real interest in dying of a coughing fit from severe black lung and that his desire to join the Army is moreso to die nobly than to live gracefully. As a supersoldier he's out of time in a much darker sense, being a man who clashes quite fiercely with his 'superiors' and cares intensely about his fellows, which sticks out given that he's the living propaganda tool for a nation that preached absolute deference to military command and a "by any means necessary" approach to warfare. He is, in all regards and at all times, an Other.

It's not hard to feel a distinctly transgender angle with the whole showboy thing, too. Steve is, after getting a body he considers ideal, immediately tossed into the spotlight as an Example and his newfound autonomy is instead bent into serving US financial hegemony. The chemicals and procedures they provide him give them cause to say that his body and personhood are state property, something he and his sole confidant chafe against. Hits doubly hard if you also have a chronic condition that bisected your dreams down the middle and left them to drip uselessly into the gutter. But what do I know, I'm just Ham. Awawa.

What I appreciate most re: the film's depiction of the US is that it's decidely not caked in American exceptionalism like the last few. Captain America makes it pretty clear that America isn't really unique, that other countries are capable of both self-serving jingoism and shady research that destroys lives and tramples over those who build it. Steve and his fellows are ultimately pawns, but they are pawns that're facing off against other pawns. He embodies America in no other sense that, like the American Dream, he's a concept that people can rally around when disheartened, and quite critically he's not embodying it by choice. This is, mercifully, an element that's retained in the sequel.

After four films of the female lead being the male lead's caretaker, it's deeply relieving to watch Captain America and find that the romance between Peggy and Steve is an actual give-take-push-pull romance with a real dynamic rather than the unsettlingly maternal vibes from past movies. The narrative doesn't push Peggy as someone that Steve is owed and on several occasions they even invite one another's ire. Steve is, despite the impressive physique Chris Evans cultivated, a socially awkward nerd who has no real idea how to deal with people on the micro level, and Peggy is a guarded yet sympathetic officer who struggles with being coached into being a stern, detached woman (in a hyper-misogynistic 1940s society) despite being achingly human. It's great, and this is more important than it sounds as otherwise the significant portion of the runtime dedicated to them.

It feels like I'm repeating myself whenever I say "the acting is good" but unlike Thor and Iron Man 2, I don't think the cast of Captain America need to elevate the script; it's good enough on its own. A combination of a small cast and camerawork that feels almost voyeuristic in how intimate and lingering it gets combined with a wonderful blend of drama, bathos and the odd Actual Joke to make a movie that's such a good watch, I had to wait a full day before starting the writeup so I could let the "maaaan that was a good fuckin' movie. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck." feelings drain out of my system. It loves its internal callbacks and while many of them will go on to get milked to death, as will The Callback as a storytelling device across the whole MCU, it's at its most effective here. He really can do this all day. The period drama framing elevates it, as there's no fighter jets or helicopters to take all the fun out of action sequences and we even get the MCUs first real on-foot chase sequence that isn't in Hulk. It's almost like these can be fun when you're not mimicking Jason Bourne.

What I ultimately love about this movie is that it's a tragedy. Steve ultimately loses out on his chance to have a life with a functioning body, being thrust forward in time through no fault of his own. Peggy will go on to live a life of her own but will inevitably expire before any potential reunion. Bucky, initially MIA, will eventually come back but as a functionally different person with unfathomably deep scars. While there will be reunions in later movies, these people are ultimately broken and discarded, damaged in ways they will never heal from, and dragged into the spotlight for whims that might align with theirs but will be enforced upon them either way. It's bleak. You could honestly end off an MCU watch-through here and come out with the messaging that superheroics are a gristmill and not something to aspire to.

Also, two points I feel like noting but can't organically insert anywhere: I wish more MCU movies had the confidence to include a musical number, and damn Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper look good in everything. No wonder Bucky blows his back out.

Anyway, next is The Avengers, which is going to be a critical make-or-break for this rewatch because I quite pathologically loathe everything Joss Whedon touches and I'm not sure I have it in me to endure him character assassinating basically everyone for the sake of his ego. Like, how bad a director do you need to be to character assassinate Bruce Banner? He has one character trait. Fuck, dude.

Oh, and on the MCU Ranking it gets the #1 spot. Expect it to stay there for a while.