Blu-ray Review: Captain America – Justice Is Here

Final Justice! Whoops, this isn’t Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but hey, Cap owns in everything.

Marvel Studios has been working on bringing us one of the most anticipated movies to this day by releasing different Marvel hero movies that include Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Hulk, Thor, and now another comic hero comes to your home theater with Captain America: The First Avenger. The film shows the origin of the man who becomes the leader of one of the most famous comic book teams of our time and with his story told, we can look forward to the release of The Avengers movie next year.

As the movie begins, an object is found in the arctic during present time, and it seems something that was lost a long time ago has now been found. After the discovery, the movie goes back in time to the 1940s, as we see a young man named Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who wants to enlist in the U.S. Army to serve his country, but he is weak and has asthma, so no one would want to take him, and he did try multiple times. Finally someone takes notice of him and gives him a chance, not by his looks, but by his courage and heart. The man reveals himself as a doctor who can help Steve become the man he wants to be.

Before the Super Solider Serum

Steve Rogers joins the army and has trouble keeping up with everyone else but doesn’t give up. Col. Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) questions the doctor’s decision in choosing such a weakling, but Steve showed some heart, smarts and courage, leading him to being the perfect candidate for the Super Solider Serum. After the procedure, he now has the ability to become America’s best weapon, but instead of helping fight the war directly, he becomes the poster boy for selling “war bonds”. It wasn’t until Cap realizes his best friend is missing in action that he vows to save him, disobeying orders from his superiors.

With help from Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Captain America starts on an adventure that will lead him to become the leader of the current Avengers by taking on an entire army by himself and saving the world. The mastermind behind destroying the whole world is the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).

And After

I questioned Chris Evans playing another Marvel super hero, since I still see him as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four. Now I think he really suits both roles well. The beginning of the movie focuses on a very thin and weak Steve Rogers and since Chris Evans is tall and buff, they ended up super imposing his head and shrinking the proportions to fit, which at times is really noticeable. The evolution of Captain America’s outfit and shield was also a nice little addition. If you are a Marvel and Captain America fan, this movie would make Captain America proud to have been in Comic for 70 years and be in this movie.

Video Quality

The movie makes great use of  the 1080p MPEG-4 AVC video transfer and really highlighted all the details and backgrounds in the movie. From start to finish every scene looked clear and amazing, but it does make the super imposed special effect look more noticeable, with Photoshopped Chris Evans head on a short and skinny body. The best visual in the movie easily has to be the arctic scene where Captain America and his team try to take down a Hydra train with highly detailed areas, insane explosions in the movie from start to end this movie is visually pleasing.

Audio Quality

The Blu-ray has a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track, which really brings the movie to life with tons of explosions and really makes you laugh during the odd song you hear when Captain America becomes a poster boy for America. The one thing that really didn’t catch my attention during the movie was the background music, which rarely stood out at all and wasn’t something I spent time focusing on.

Extras

For review purposes we received the edition that featured a Blu-ray copy, DVD and digital copy. Watching the Blu-ray version, Captain America had quite a bit of extra content, including a special short, which ties into Thor as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson runs into a little problem, a few deleted scenes, a chat with the co-creator of Captain America and his family, the making of the outfits used in the movie and a special teaser trailer for the upcoming Avengers movie. The special features add close to an extra 45 minutes of watch time to the movie, and they are all worth watching rather than random things tossed in. Did I mention a teaser trailer for the Avengers movie? I know I said it already but wanted to point it out again.

Avengers Assemble!

Movie: A, Video: A, Audio: A, Extras: A-, Overall: A

Chris Del Castillo

Growing up Chris watched a lot of the original Saturday morning cartoons and developed a love for arts and animation. Growing up he tried his hand at animation and eventually script writing, but even more his love of video games, anime and technology grew.