Movie Monday: Captain America

With all of the big summer blockbuster movies that are out right now, you knew I had to have seen at least one of them in the past week, right?

On Saturday night, Christopher and I went with a group of friends to see "Captain America: The First Avenger." And, yes, it was in 3-D.

Have I mentioned, yet, that I'm not a huge fan of 3-D when it's done just for the sake of doing it? As a glasses wearer who doesn't have the option of contacts, the 3-D glasses get really uncomfortable after about an hour, which means that unless the movie is really good, they become a huge distraction for me. That said, I don't think my glasses started to bother me until about 3/4 of the way through this movie.

I thought they did pretty well at sticking to the storyline established in the comic books (or at least as far as I know). I thought Chris Evans did a good job as Captain America - to the extent that he was actually believable as an "super-anti-hero." And the supporting cast supported him very well.

There was some plot that wasn't overly convoluted, yet was interesting enough to pay attention to. There were side characters who took unexpected turns. There was some really annoying CGI'ing at the beginning - but at least the movie makers didn't obviously keep switching back and forth from "real" to CGI like we've seen them do in the Spider-man movies or - more recently - in "Green Lantern."

Did I like it enough to think a sequel will be fun? Yes. Did I like it enough to deal with the 3-D glasses in a sequel? Maybe. Do I think that his costume will be around a lot at Hallowe'en because it has some padding and doesn't require the wearer to look perfect in spandex? Definitely.

Overall rating: A-. The special effects in the first section of the movie really didn't work well enough for me, and there were one or two moments late in the film when I really wish they'd given up on the 3-D-ing, and just let the movie be a movie.