A quick experiment later and wimpy Steve Rogers is turned into the super buff super soldier. Abraham Erskine (played brilliantly by Stanley Tucci), recognises that Rogers has the right stuff for his program. After being rejected over and over again he is finally spotted by a scientist who is working on the super soldier program. When asked if he wants to kill Nazis, he answers that he doesn't want to kill anyone, he just hates bullies.
What he lacks in body size or health he makes up with bravery, heart and a solid moral code. Week, puny Steve Rogers wants to join the army and fight for America. The story of "Captain America: The First Avenger" is simple and for anyone who has ever read a Captain America comic, instantly recognisable. The World War II setting offers Captain America a chance to be a real war hero, in a time when war heroes were celebrated, and to fight a clearly defined, evil enemy that everyone recognizes as a threat. Today it would have seemed tacky to send Captain America to Iraq or Afghanistan. The 1940's wartime era plays into that patriotic symbol theme that is vital for Captain America to work. It would have been easy for the filmmakers to have a short World War II intro and then bring Cap into the modern world like the 1990 Albert Pyun version but we probably would have ended up with a similar mess.
Johnston and his writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, have found the balance to bring Cap to life and one of the prime reasons this works so well was the decision to take the character back to his origins and set it in the World War II era. Did director Joe Johnston ("Jumanji" & "The Rocketeer") manage to bring Captain Steve Rogers to the big screen successfully? The answer is simple, yes he absolutely did.
So this brings us to "Captain America: The First Avenger", the latest in the current series of Marvel films that lead into next year's "The Avengers". Captain America however is rooted in the real world and it would be really easy to make this a nauseatingly patriotic Michael Bay movie.
True "Thor" is about an Asgardian thunder god but at it's core it is essentially a fantasy film and we have done that before, so I had a lot of trust that it would work. Steve Rogers AKA Captain America is essentially a flag waving, patriotic boy scout and that works in printed form but could end up being a cheesy corn dog on screen. Of all the Marvel comic adaptations, I most worried about Captain America because this is a hard comic to adapt.