It starts with a terrific concept: Gung-ho patriot Captain America (Chris Evans) fighting for his country when its enemies and their motives are a murkier business, and even S.H.I.E.L.D. might be infiltrated by bad guys. The story wrestles copious material into a cohesive form, including Cap’s place as an ideological man out of time, yet this is also a super-hero adventure that at times it feels like
The Avengers Lite, with Black Widow, Nick Fury and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) joining the action. It’s most similar, though, to
Iron Man 3, which similarly maximized the unique qualities of its central character before eventually resorting to a far less interesting blow-everything-up finale. That’s the tension in Marvel movies: Even comic books have the luxury occasionally of devoting an issue to character-advancing narratives that don’t demand the same rigid blockbuster structure.
By
Scott Renshaw