Captain America: Worthy of the Name

If you’re going to paint the stars and stripes on your shield and run around calling yourself “Captain America,” you had better have some idea of what America means. Even Superman, the very essence of American identity, doesn’t traipse around with an “A” for America on his uniform. Happily, the movie “Captain America: The First Avenger” excitingly tells the story of the wartime hero and ably articulates an ethos of America as a good-hearted strongman who stands up to bullies. It fails, however, to take the extra step to greatness.

Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans reduced by the magic of Hollywood to a 90 pound asthmatic, frets in Brooklyn while his countrymen spill their blood on the 1942 battlefields of  World War II. Rated 4H for any number of sickly reasons, Rogers repeatedly applies for the army, hopeful some half-blind doctor will approve his service. “There are men laying down their lives,” he tells his able-bodied friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), “I got no right to do anything less than them.”

His wish is granted by a German refugee scientist Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci). As the doctor and an English rose of an intelligence agent, Carter (Hayley Atwell), get to know the person inside the featherweight frame, they see a hero. Erskine selects Rogers as his first great soldier, turning him into, um, Chris Evans, complete with bulging muscles. Erskine insists that Rogers stay true to the “good man” he is. With power, says the doctor, “good becomes great. Bad becomes worse.”

Bad became much worse in the person of Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), an earlier creation of an unwilling Erskine. For Red Skull, Hitler’s Nazi party is only a minor step to even greater power and destruction. Captain America, with his Hogan’s Heroes-esque platoon of sidekick soldiers, must stop his nefarious plans.

With a nifty combination of sci-fi technology and retro cool, the movie feels a lot more like a vintage comic book than many adaptations. Special effects aren’t quite eye-popping but are the quality you expect from a summer blockbuster. The 3D doesn’t add much, so stick to 2D. A nice romance with plenty of chemistry stays purely PG-13, as does the rest of the squeaky clean movie. Plus, the Captain earns his superhero stripes with an act of noble self-sacrifice that reminds us why we love those men in tights. These factors make it an excellent movie to enjoy with the kids.

The history of Captain America, the movie character, both echoes and spoofs the history of Captain America, the comic book character created by Marvel in 1941. A morale boosting, patriotic hero released in the height of World War II, the comic book denizen faded away in the 50s, to be later revived as part of The Avengers superhero team. This film is part of Marvel’s years-long campaign to tell the backstories of The Avengers before uniting them in their own franchise. The movie exploits this history, poking fun at his 50s era costume and placing him front and center in a spoofy red white and blue musical propaganda show “The Star Spangled Man.”

Real heroes, the show says, don’t spout off about patriotism. They get in the trenches. Captain America in a show is a joke, but storming Red Skull’s factories of doom with brave but ordinary soldiers, he is the embodiment of American heroism.

When Red Skull, whose sense of superiority drives his devastating actions, confronts Captain America, he asks him “What makes you so special?” The weakling-turned-human-tank answers “Nothing. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.”

In other words, all men and women are created equally superheroic. For all his super strength, Captain America is no greater than every G.I. on the battlefield. Actions make one great, not accidents of birth.

He also knows why he fights.  “So you want to kill some Nazis?” Erskine asks the scrawny boy at their first meeting. After considering the question, Rogers answers meditatively “I don’t want to kill anyone, but I don’t like bullies.”

Which is why Captain America, as a metaphor for America, works nicely. The country founded on the radical preposition that all men are created equal stands up for “the little guys.” A puny, new nation suddenly found itself powerful and muscly in and after the World Wars. The question became would it stay true, as Erskine urges, to the nobleness within.

It all adds up to a solid good movie. It’s a little disappointing because “Captain America: The First Avenger” could have been a great movie if it had gone a little farther.

Nods to America’s mistakes play more like disavowing them. The Captain’s band includes a Japanese soldier from Fresno and a French-speaking African American alum of Howard University. Extremely minor characters, they minimize 1940s racism. In better hands, we would have gotten a sense of Americans overcoming their very real divisions to unite in a common cause. The biggest disappointment, however, is that the film remains firmly grounded in the ethos of the 40s.

America - the nation not the superhero - desperately needs someone to tell us who we are now, seventy years after VE Day. Do we still fight for the little guy? Captain America – the superhero not the nation – never feels any internal struggle. He never becomes tempted, with his amazing muscles and invincible power, to become the bully himself. Thus, he never gets a chance to reject bullyism anew. Our self-doubt in 2011 is rooted in the question if we are the world’s bully or if we are the world’s hero. The same question in Steve Roger’s heart could have elevated the movie to the level of “The Dark Knight.”

While “Captain America: The First Avenger” thoroughly entertains and doesn’t make any America-loathing missteps, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.