As muscular, stiff, shiny, and dull as its star, Joe Johnston's high-gloss take on the last building block of Marvel's 2012 tentpole Avengers film is in the end little more than a dutiful origin story for a superhero who has frankly long been something of a back-bencher. Unlike some comic-book franchises, however (did Spawn, for instance, ever have a chance of being anything but terrible?), this one had promise. It's the story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a sickly shrimp of a kid from Brooklyn who's repeatedly declared unfit for military service at the start of World War II. By dint of his scrappiness and plucky good-heartedness, Rogers is accepted into a top-secret program where he's injected with a serum that turns him into a buffed figure of herculean might. Watch out, Nazis!
See www.filmcritic.com for full review
