Perhaps prompted by the wonderful WandaVision and a general lack of purpose, I have embarked on the mission of watching all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) (as defined by DisneyPlus) in timeline order. The first in the timeline is Captain America.

Captain America: The First Avenger

I suppose in the depths of World War 2 fighting Nazis and using magic/science too otherworldly to be understood is a fine enough way to begin the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

My takeaways …

Hydra

Hydra is apparently the bondage outfit branch of the Nazis? They also have teeth full of poison. Ugh, what egg on your face if you break one of those open by accident!

Captain America

Steve Rogers is meant to be the kind of all-American guy anybody would root for. He’s an underdog, hates bullies, and would sacrifice himself for his fellow man. It also turns out he’s the kind of guy who is so desperate to fight for his country that he will do reckless shit. To be fair this seems a bit less of a selling point for giving him so much power, but… ANYWAY.

When Chris Evans turns from scrawny underdog into glistening muscles and takes off after a Hydra agent, you have to take a minute to acknowledge how impressively fit he is. I mean… damn. But then, Captain America spends the rest of the movie in a baggy-ass uniform that could easily be a muscle suit. So, you have to hope Chris Evans didn’t do anything too unhealthy to get so fit…

Also, I have to say it’s odd watching this back knowing that Bucky/the Winter Soldier becomes such a huge thing because he seemingly falls off a train into a wintery mountain range to a spectacular death and everybody seems to move on from it pretty quickly.

Agent Carter

I want to know everything about Agent Carter! Like, you have this woman in the 1940s involved in top-secret experiments being done in the government, knows Howard Stark, and kind of gets to boss around Tommy Lee Jones. How is the entire movie not about her?

This almost caused me to take a complete detour and watch Agent Carter. However, I googled to see if it was considered part of MCU canon. It seems like there is debate, but the answer is likely no. Also, apparently, the TV show made for weird continuity with the rest of the MCU. I plan to come back to Agent Carter later.

The tesseract?

It’s relatively unclear what the tesseract is, where it comes from, or what its power is. At the end of the movie, Howard Stark finds it in the ocean. File this away for later.

To see my review of other movies I recently rewatched, check out: Does it hold up? Review of Species (1995), Wherein I dedicate a post to the movie The Net and Does it hold up? Reviewing The Big Hit and Tango & Cash.