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Captain America: The First Avenger

And we begin the pattern of Captain America movies having subtitles from the beginning.

Given that this movie was released at the end of Phase 1 before Avengers, it begins in the 'present', and acts as a flashback. Cap's origins are done well - we get to experience weak Steve Rogers. He's short and weak. Reminds me of myself, but with less charm. Also, we get to meet Bucky from the beginning! Fans are like 'omg, it's him'.

Anyway, Erskine is a total boss and was written well enough to make you upset when he gets canned. The buildup as we learn how good a dude Rogers is solid, and we get to see Nazi Elrond go super bad, which is a really effective way to get him introduced. Peggy Carter is also added in pretty well - well casted, well acted, and you get the feeling that she doesn't just want Steve for his future muscles. Speaking of which, he gets used to his new body really quickly.

The montage of him being the stage show is meh. It has some good moments, but it's more of a plot setter, and not particularly enrapturing. The plot really doesn't do a whole lot until Cap decides to go behind enemy lines, directly proving wrong the line about "you're just one man". This scene, while done well, has some bad moments. Cap meeting Skull is good, but the reveal of his face being... the Red Skull, is kinda lame. Simply because his Elrond face was too good that him taking it off felt odd because it wasn't telegraphed enough. Erskine talked about extra changes happening, but it felt more... odd that the guy just had a red head. Also, the stakes with him and Bucky escaping were a little too high for this point in the film.

Getting his new shield is kinda cool. Peggy getting mad at him is a little silly and unnecessary. Stan Lee's cameo was pretty solid... got a funny line out of it. Joining up with the Howling Commandos and Dum Dum is a fun nod to comics fans as well. The combat after Cap gets his shield is pretty great, and I wish they had a little more of it before the film ended, but oh well. And then Bucky dies! Oh no D: It's so sad when someone dies off screen.

The climax of the film was done pretty well, although the pacing was maybe a bit stunted. Everything occurring in the bomber was great, including Red Skull's defeat, as well as the <strikethrough>infinity stone</strikethrough> Tesseract falling into the water. Even though Cap's descent into the water was sad, it was mainly only sad for Peggy because we knew Cap would be alright. And I'm very glad they still kept the romance on the early stages - the two obviously cared a lot for each other, but didn't go so far as to "I love you". That could have been written poorly, and it luckily wasn't.

The ending to the film was done pretty solidly as well. Cap reappearing in the 21st century and running around Times Square was solid, and like with Iron Man, the film ended with a pretty good one-liner.

Overall, the villain was WAY better than Iron Man's, and it did a good job at introducing the Tesseract, but the film was a little long and dragged a bit at points. While very good... it just doesn't quite hold my attention well enough to be placed above Iron Man.
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