Critics Salute Captain America

Captain America: The First Avenger, starring Chris Evans, isn't exactly deserving of 50 stars, but as far as superhero flicks go, it's an enjoyable, if somewhat enhanced, period piece. Just don’t expect Dark Knight-quality stuff.

• "Captain America, like its unapologetically corny hero, is propelled by unpretentious and plucky ingenuity,” not to mention a “winningly pulpy, jaunty, earnest spirit,” writes AO Scott in the New York Times. “Enjoyably preposterous” and “occasionally touching,” “its goal seems to be refreshment rather than reinvention.”

• “From its antagonists to its art direction, everything about Johnston's movie has a been-there, seen-that familiarity,” writes Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Yet Evans' clean-cut idealism and objectives make old-fashioned patriotism look fresh.”
• While the film “delivers comic book action that should satisfy Captain America’s fans, old and new,” others may wonder, “‘Is this all there is?’” notes Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter. And "let’s not even bother to compare this to Christopher Nolan's Batman series."
• Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern observes that “in its early stretches,” Captain America “brings a spectacular sense of design to the World War II era.” But its “action grows ponderous and repetitive.”

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