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Captain America: The First Avenger is a triumph of art decoration and special effects that unfortunately forgets to tell a coherent story. The movie begins nicely enough (though the CGI creation of Steve Rogers as a 98 pound weakling completely creeped me out and took me out of the movie at times) as 4H reject Rogers, is recruited to be injected with a super soldier serum created by a German scientist working for the allies (nicely played with humor by Stanley Tucci). Everything seems to work right in these early scenes up until the creation of Captain America. I'm not sure why what happens next happens, but after Captain America is created he is able to heroically stop a Hydra agent from stealing the serum, but because that same HYDRA agent blew up the lab that created Captain America he's going to be the only super soldier. SO instead of using him as such, an opportunistic senator uses him to sell the war effort as a mascot where the real Captain America is turned into a comic book hero and movie star (I'm surprised a digitally inserted Bob Hope didn't make an appearance at the USO event). Of course this embarrassment allows Steve Rogers to redeem himself later in the eyes of his commander Col Chester Philips (played as expected by a surly Tommy Lee Jones) and would be love interest Peggy Carter (lovely, but bland Hayley Atwell) when he goes behind enemy lines to rescue soldiers captured by HYDRA, including his best bud Bucky Barnes (nice foreshadowing here of what he would be become in current Marvel continuity : The Winter Soldier) and the group known as The Howlin' Commandos who are even less developed here than The Warriors Three in Thor.

A good comic book movie needs a great villain to succeed and though any movie that has Hugo Weaving in it can't be all bad I was rather disappointed in his Red Skull. He looks great, but the character is just a one-note run-of-the-mill cultured Nazi looking to conqueror the world, this time using the recently discovered Cosmic Cube ...er make that the Tesseract...which here ties in to Norse Mythology which of course ties into Thor and I assume, eventually The Avengers.  Weaving's opposite is Chris Evans, who looks great but has all the charisma of a wet sponge; as Captain America he makes a great Human Torch. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have created a curiously muted Steve Rogers/Captain America. I would expect Steve Rogers to feel like a fish-out-water in 2011, but in 1943 this guy should be inspiring allied troops with words and actions, but the writers provide no memorable or stirring speeches or dialogue, but there is a lot of action

I was hoping for some kind of Alistair MacLean type mission impossible for Captain America and his Howlin' Commandos, but all that's presented is a series of action sequences that don't really add up to anything, nothing ever feels like a real threat because the threat is ridiculous in the way it's portrayed. Eventually the sad reality dawns on you, as you're watching the inevitable mano-a-mano confrontation between Cap and Skull on a out of control plane, is that this whole movie has simply been a setup for The Avengers. It's also a little disheartening that the continuing adventures of Captain America will probably take place in modern times, rather than in war torn Europe against Nazi crud like the Red Skull or Baron Zemo.

Like I wrote in the beginning  the art/set decoration and makeup and special effects are terrific and I enjoyed Alan Silvestri's score and on that level the movie succeeds, but director Joe Johnston, once again isn't able to deliver a complete movie. That's always been his problem. He brings a gee-whiz retro sensibility to many of his movies, but too often his stories sit like lead balloons, promising more than he can actually deliver. To paraphrase Twain he's a filmmaker that knows the words, but not the music. The movie really misses one of those signature Jack Kirby drawn scenes where Cap seems to be battling an endless horde of villains that always seem on the verge of overwhelming him, but never do.  He's a safe bet for a Hollywood studio; a middle of the road filmmaker who's not going to offend anyone nor bring much of his own personality into a movie he directs.

Make sure to stay through the end credits again...