Movie – Captain America:The First Avenger
Another of my childhood superheroes bought to life in the 21st century. As a little girl trying to keep up with my elder brother’s superhero comics, my interest is only raised by the shield decorated with the American flag, which seemed to protect him from everyone/everything.Other than that, I don’t remember the stories so what makes Captain America stand out now from superheroes with actual powers (flying, stretching, turning invisible, seeing through walls/clothes etc) is, well just that, no actual powers. It’s like Iron Man in the sense that it’s the equipment with the powers. In this case, the skinny, sickly, asthmatic, wannabe soldier is transformed into Captain America via a scientific experiment.Iron Man makes an appearance, or at least Tony Stark does – he makes the impenetrable shield. What I love about the story is that it is a war time action flick above all else so it’s the action rather than super powers that makes it compelling. Whereas I came out of seeing Iron Man with the same conclusion I did on this – it’s surprisingly good – this one relies less on the boys own fantasy and more on the action and war story. Although he still has to get the girl, of course.Oh and it’s left wide open for the sequel and a joint effort with Iron Man – or is that the cynic in me? Let’s hope that the sequal doesn’t disappoint in the same way, only good things about Iron Man 2 are Mickey Rourke’s bad Russian and AC/DC and both are featured far too fleetingly8½/10 – Action flick of the year so farSmile factor 10/10 - faultless [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JerVrbLldXw&w=560&h=349]