- Some of the story choices were interesting. They went with the "Skull-as-failed-SS serum-experiment", which is something out of that terrible Cap movie from the early '90s. I get the reasons why they went that route, but think that TDK showed that the villain doesn't have to be a physical match for the hero anyway. And it wasn't like there was much doubt that the Skull would lose even with the serum, which is a minor problem for the film in general. Would have liked to see an unenhanced but more menacing Skull with a mask instead of a ruined face, methinks.

- I get the reasons why they drew the lines between the Skull/Hydra and Hitler/Nazis. Box office aside, you want to be able to use the same bad guys again in later movies, which you can't do as well when they're Nazis. And the writers also didn't want to make it be a "Cap wins the war" thing and take anything away from the real heroes fighting Hitler. But IMO the defining feature of the Red Skull is that he's a Nazi...in fact, what makes his background story so good is that it's a weird, twisted parallel of Steve Rogers'. As the story goes, Hitler was in a hotel ranting at his staff, when he says he could make a better Nazi out the bellhop (Schmidt). Hitler sees the hate in the bellhop's eyes, decides to prove his point, and personally oversees his training. Rest is history. I think the film is worse off with the approach they took.

- Hydra itself seemed more like a mashup of Hydra and AIM, but that works fine for the movie.

- Overall, they did a good job grounding the character as much as they could, given the context of the Marvel films. The Cap-as-propganda-weapon is a very realistic take on how the government would employ Rogers, and an explanation why their only super-soldier wears a flag into combat.

- Really want to see an extended version of the movie. The Howling Commandos deserved more screen time, and in fact the entire second half of the movie seemed a bit condensed. Methinks a lot was left on the cutting room floor. Interesting that the British member of the Commandos was named not for the original character, but for the guy who became Union Jack (Montgomery Falsworth). With the Human Torch's oufit seen in the World's Fair sequence, the Invaders had a presence in the movie, albeit an extremely subtle one.

- There were a lot of other little easter eggs only for the comics fans. One of them was the close-up shot of Arnim Zola's face in the viewscreen. Of course, comics fans know Zola as the guy in a robot body with his face on a viewscreen in his chest. I'm fine with them not sticking with continuity on this one...Zola is a very weird villain.

- The inclusion of Gilmore Hodges (the bully in super-soldier training camp) was a nice nod to The Adventures of Captain America, a very good Cap origin story by Fabian Nicenza and Kevin Maguire from the early '90s. Still think that's one of the best treatments of the origin story around.

- Thanks to the "brain-scrambling" scene, the second Cap movie will almost certainly be the Winter Soldier story. That scene also means he'll likely a Hydra agent instead of a Russian agent. (Marvel seems to be taking great pains not to offend sensibilities of anyone in any countries with box-office potential, lol. ) The scene with him and the sniper rifle kinda sealed it, IMO. They also had a nice wink to current continuity when Bucky picked up the shield. The Winter Soldier story would also allow them to work in more WWII action in flashbacks among the modern-day stuff, which I think would be cool. Assuming this all happens, the sequel has a good chance to be a better movie than the original, a la Spidey/Spidey 2.

I thought overall it was a pretty good film, the thing that killed it for me was the propaganda bit in the middle (when he goes on tour). IMO, you could have cut that entire part of the movie out, and with a few minor alterations (consisting of a couple lines oof dialog) the entire move would have made sense, the story would remain intact, and you would have had more time for the Howling Commandos. IMO, that entire part of the film was unnecessary, added nothing real to the story, nor any value to the movie. You could just as easily have had the Senator dude tell Cap that America needed a war hero and he would see to it that Cap received a direct commission from the President and duty on the front lines. You would still have the animosity between Cap and the Colonel, etc. and you could easily explain the derision he received from the other soldiers with the typical 'mutant freak' sentiment so common in other marvel films, or even the fact that he's running around the battlefield in blue tights and he didn't earn his commission/rank, etc. His decision to covertly cross enemy lines would remain intact as well, the Colonel would still look down on him and deny the request for a relief attack against Hydra, knowing that Bucky was a PoW, Cap would still violate orders and do his thing, and prove that he's capable of doing his thing. It would work fine.