Captain America: The First Avenger

This is a surprisingly fresh take on the whole superhero thing, probably due to the fact that it really doesn’t feel like a superhero movie. The narrative takes its cue from the pre-MTV style of filmmaking, allowing the first half of the film to play out according to the demands of the story rather than the action beats. Here we meet 90-pound weakling Chris Evans moping over being repeatedly rated 4F while his buddies are marching off to die fighting the Nazis. He has the heart of a lion trapped in the body of a house cat. Fortunately, a German ex-pat scientist (Stanley Tucci) has developed the technology to restore Evans’ bobble head from his CGI un-hanced stick figure back to the actor’s original pile of muscles. Throw in a bunch of racially diverse sidekicks; Tommy Lee Jones being Tommy Lee Jones; and a Brit hottie (Hayley Atwell) making cow eyes at Evans. Oh, and there’s the hero’s first nemesis, Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), commanding the first army of neo-Nazis. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13