REVIEWS | Issue: "Face-off" August 13, 2011

Movies
Star-spangled hero

Story line aside, Captain America maintains an admirable patriotism with no sign of Hollywood cynicism | Megan Basham

Paramount Pictures & Marvel Entertainment

"Imagine there's no countries . . ." So sings John Lennon in the secular humanist anthem "Imagine," and so schemes the villain in Marvel's latest superhero movie, Captain America: The First Avenger.

"I've been to the future and there are no flags," Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) taunts the steely-eyed, lantern-jawed Captain (Chris Evans). "Not in my future," our hero replies before attacking his foe with red, white, and blue fury (as I don't want to be accused of spoiling, I won't say who turns out to be right).

It's a strangely philosophical statement in a movie that is mostly made up of gratuitous action and cheeky fun. You could argue that it wouldn't be possible to make a Captain America movie without full-throttled patriotism, and that's true. But it would be easy—even expected—to stick to the comic book's script of Nazi-crushing rather than include a villain with designs to erase all national boundaries. Only months ago Superman proved his intellectual growth by throwing off the shackles of country and becoming a citizen of the world.

