Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

* I watched this while shaking heavy heavy kegs of beer- I may have missed some stuff.

"I've knocked out Hitler like 92 times." (Capt. America)

I think Marvel has stumbled onto one of the better strategies for making bankable movies.  Step one, avoid excessive focus on non-story elements like new technology, and visual wizardry.  (Those are important, but the moment they are the focus of the movie....) Step 2, hire a cast of recognizable actors to play all the fun roles and to ensure that the performances have substance.  Step 3, make sure that your writers stick to the essentials of the story, and only add flourishes where appropriate.  Step 4, profit.   Captain America: The First Avenger does these ordinary things very well and is thus a highly acceptable movie.

Step 1,  The focus of the movie is always on the Capt.  There are no shout outs of ridiculous "look at me" special effect shots.  I admit that the whole zip lining onto a train was pretty cool, but I wouldn't consider it flashy.  They develop his backstory, love interest, friends, and mission without fuss, muss or grandstanding.

Step 2:  Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull (Check), Stanley Tucci as brilliant German scientist with a pension for schnapps (Check), Tommy Lee Jones as gruff military officer "I'm not going to kiss you." (Check), and even Neal McDonough -I recognize you for just about everything. (Check)  Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell you were acceptable.

Step 3  I think what was really impressive about this movie was they way that the director used montages to accomplish storyline essentials like the passage of time, or the learning of a skill.  They were very well done, cut down on extraneous scenes and met all their established criteria.  They writers were good enough to keep their extraneous character development to well placed liners and some monologues.  I thought it was a good touch to have the Captain point out all the places that he had been beat up.

Step 4:  I'm pretty sure they did.

Ratings

Hydra:  You have so many heads and eyes you have to see it at some point.

Historians:  Skip it

Not an American?:  Skip it or see it (Spoiler: this is a pro-america movie.)

Scientists:  Skip it  No one wants to hear about how the science is bunk.

WWII vets:  See it with your relations and then tell them a story about how it really was.

On a scale of WWF to WWE, I give Captain America: The First Avenger 3.1 out of 5 stars.