For the last couple of years, I’ve really been going off these big blockbustery movies. They’re all like freakin Transformers – loud, incomprehensible, weak-plotted, wafer-thin, characterless and as lacking in substance as air. I’m pleased to say Captain America bucks that trend somewhat – in part because Chris Evans’s Captain (not exactly unpleasant to look at, it has to be said) comes across as incredibly sweet and kind and endearing. He’s the Greatest Generation repackaged for the MTV Generation, and amazingly it works.
There are a couple of other unexpected delights too, when the show gets on the road, not least the underlying kickass feminism where the many women in the picture are cool, and capable and never in need of saving. The fight choreography takes its lead from the Bourne movies, and the pace from Christopher Nolan’s Batman, and the snappy black sidekick is not even killed off in the first scene. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it.