Political correctness, flamethrowers and Wagner!

Things we didn’t like

Hollywood political correctness and historical revisionism
I know that once you accept the idea of a genetic super-soldier created during WWII you should pretty much accept everything else, but we really had a tough time with the concept of Japanese- and African Americans fighting alongside Captain America and his fellow white GIs.

After all, blacks and whites didn’t fight together in the U.S. military until the Vietnam War and more than 7 000 Japanese Americans were held in internment camps in the States during WWII.

As history buffs it really annoyed the heck out of us!

The Red Skull has no ideology
The villain in the movie, named The Red Skull and played by Hugo Weaving (Matrix, Lord of the Rings), starts out as a loyal Nazi named Johann Schmidt. Later on the Red Skull turns against the Nazi hand which has been feeding him, and he and his Hydra secret organization go rogue.

The Red Skull thus becomes a typical comic book villain who wants power because . . . that’s what comic book villains do! If he had stayed a loyal Nazi it would at least have given him some motivation to be doing what he was doing. It would also explain where Hydra manages to find its hordes of black-clad cannon fodder recruits. After all, then they would have the continued resources of Nazi Germany behind it . . .

Captain America has no ideology either
Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) wants to fight in WWII simply because he “hates bullies.” So much for American patriotism and whatever made that particular generation go to war in the first place. Ideology – except for selling movie tickets – is an alien concept in modern day Hollywood it seems!

Digital skinny 90-pound weakling Steve Rogers (using the same processes used in Benjamin Button) looks like a bobblehead doll.
His head is simply too big for his body!

Things we liked

The retro Boy’s Own designs
We loved those motorbikes. We want that car! And any movie with so many flamethrowers in them can’t be all bad, right?

Captain America is a propaganda tool
Captain America starts off as a celebrity performer at gaudy USO shows to raise funds for the war effort. This at least gives a reason why anyone would want to dress up in tight American flag spandex and fight Nazis. Simply dressing up in a costume like that would be . . . strange.

It looks expensive
This new Captain America looks like a proper movie. If you had ever seen the cheap 1990s movie starring J.D. Salinger’s son as Cap you’d know what we mean!

Chris Evans without a shirt on
Er, just kidding . . . But Evans does give a likeable performance and so does the rest of the cast. Pity they are let down by a movie that seems to lose some plot focus at the halfway point.

Like all good Nazis Red Skull listens to Wagner
Mastermind villains always listen to classical music. Fact.

It’s better than Green Lantern
That’s not saying much, we know, but still . . .