Captain America: The First Avenger | 100 Movies Bucket List

 

I was really excited for this one.

This is my favourite origin story in the entire MCU, and my favourite trilogy. But while I watch the second and third movies a lot, I don't really go back to this one, so it was nice to see it on the list.

And as usual, with every time I watch this movie, I loved it.

It starts in a really interesting place, already setting up for the future of the franchise as well as laying the groundwork for the characters we'll be interested in for years to come.

Speaking of characters, Steve Rogers is such a fascinating one. The film really gives us the opportunity to get to know exactly who he is and what his motivations are. Before he even starts to become a 'hero' we are rooting for him and invested in his story. 

But of course, the characterisation makes it clear that he's a hero before he becomes one, and that's one of the reasons I love this story so much. Particularly looking at earlier superhero movies, for me Steve is one of the only characters that didn't have significant character development from the start of the film to the end because he was already a complete, fully-formed hero. The transformation didn't change who he was, which is why it's so easy to feel a connection with him.

It also spends a good amount of time with him before any transformation happens, which is great because we really get to live in a grounded, realistic world before this officially becomes a 'superhero' movie.

And even then, the story stays really grounded and rooted in reality.

Because even after the transformation, this movie is still set during WWII, it's still a simple story with simple characters at the forefront, the villain's motivations are easy to understand and follow, and all-in-all this would have still been pretty much the same story if the main character happened to be called something other than Captain America.

I loved that all the characters got personalities. It would be so easy to make this first film entirely about Steve, leaving everyone else by the wayside to assist in the telling of his story, but this movie is a lot of people's stories - Peggy Carter, Bucky, Howard Stark, they all get their time and become important characters in the franchise moving forward because this movie gave them the space to breathe.

But this is also down to the amazing actors who play them. The film stars Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Toby Jones and Stanley Tucci and they are all perfect in these roles. 

But it's also nice to see the ones who have totally come into their own with their characters since this film - particularly Sebastian Stan who is now one of the most prominent faces of the MCU.

One of my absolute favourite things about this movie is that it ends in a bad place. Nothing is wrapped up neatly, at least one character we've grown to love is dead, the world is a completely different place to where Steve left it and we're just as disorientated as he is. The movie takes a risk, relying on future movies to fix the problems. But as a standalone, it's great that it ends in a really unpredictable way.

So yes, I love this film. It's the origin of some of my absolute favourite MCU characters, it does a great job of leading us into the rest of the franchise, and even by itself it's just a great movie. And as much as I deeply love the two sequels, there's a special place in my heart for the first one.