Captain America’ comes from another era

Some movies just beg to be critiqued. Others … well, it’s difficult to find anything to say. At all. Such a movie is “Captain America: The First Avenger.” But I’ll give it a shot.

First thing: John Johnston has had an uneven career. For every “Rocketeer” (a so-so but entertaining sci-fi adventure) he’s given us a “The Wolfman” (overproduced, pseudo-campy creep). “Captain America” is a blend of both.

It’s a well-directed film. Johnston knows his way around a camera, especially one that is set up to shoot blue screens. But even he can’t save a script that heads, like a train across the open desert, from A to B without taking even the slightest detour (except for bookends that do little more than set up the possibility of sequels set in modern day).

Besides the one-note nature of the script, the tone is problematic, too. “Captain America” comes from another era, set as it is in 1943 during the Second World War. Films from that era mirror our collective cultural mood, which — politically, at least — was to the right of Attila. That mood, which lessened following Vietnam, has resurged in recent years (just watch any major league baseball game during the seventh-inning stretch). But not enough for a straight recapturing of “Captain America” as he was originally intended to appeal to the largest audience cross section as producers would want.

So they’ve fudged. Even so, there is a flag-waving nature to “Captain America” that remains offputting to some of us. And it’s not hard to imagine a sequel in which the good captain (played middingly well by Chris Evans) finds himself pitted against a bunch of Arab-speaking “terrorists” wearing turbans.

The whole thing is just … well, not something I find very appealing. I’d rather watch apes punish humans for their arrogance than watch nationalism again be passed off as inherently pure and ever essential heroism.

Now, I might change my mind if “Captain America” were to go after both the guys who made millions off gambling with the national economy while my 401K tanked … and the politicians who sat by and let them commit the financial crime of my lifetime. I’d hoot louder than anyone to see him kick those self-important asses.

Below: The trailer for “Captain America: The First Avenger.”