Okay, I totally loved this movie.  The Cap and X-Men: First Class are my two favorite superhero movies of the summer.

What do they have in common?  They both took their time in the beginning.  They really let me get to know Steve, and Charles and Eric.  The action built slowly and even the action sequences were explicable and easy to follow instead of just hectic action for the sake of action.

Both the films celebrated humanity and compassion, and the tragedy is that Eric starts to rejoin the human race, finds friendship, and ultimately is unable to hold onto that humanity.

That was the failure in Green Lantern.  All I knew was that Hal Jorden was a test pilot, daddy had died in a tragic accident and Hal was trying (in a heavy-handed way) to live up to daddy while still being a screw up, and he was in competition with a cute girl.  While that may look like a long list it was really just a collection of cliches.

Thor while it looked great was about gods.  I have a hard time identifying with gods.  It was a Cain and Able story, but it was lost in all the confusion about what, exactly, was the threat?  Frost giants?  Big ass robots that shoot fire out of their head?  Loki?  And ultimately why should I care?

If you look at the first Iron Man movie, which was terrific, that film takes its time too.  You get to know Tony Stark.  You see all his foibles and then you start to see him grow and change.

Aside from the story telling arc of Captain America, I loved the look.  It felt like the 1940’s.  The people looked like people from the forties, acted like people from that era.  The Captain America song was straight out of a musical review from that time period and the people next to me in the theater were tapping their toes during the final credits when that tune started to play.

And we had Hugo Weaving as a bad guy.  Who could ask for more?  Oh, and Steve in the beginning of the film reminded me of my little hero from the Edge books so I was charmed by that too.

I will happily see this movie again once I get back to NM.