First cap 'dies' to save New York and you see all the people effected and it is sad. Next SHIELD revives him and he realizes everyone he knew is dead. You wait and it shows the trailer for Avengers which has Joss Whedon humor all over it. Tonally it goes somber, somber, then for yuks and it is just disorienting. I get the impression the revival scene was originally the stinger at the end but they realized they had enough footage to toss together a so-so teaser so they bumped it up.

It wasn't supposed to be a straight up WWII movie so the fact that it showed the secret war within the war wasn't an issue for me, and I think we were supposed to get the impression that HYDRA was even worse than the Nazi's, since they found Nazi's to soft, and thus a suitable replacement. As for "Blue laser nonsense", well, welcome to the Cosmic Cube, or comic books in general. The last part the only reason the group was able to break in was because Cap had all the security forces focused on him. Cap created a diversion which allowed the allies to gain the advantage.

So all the guys standing at the front gate with the 'super weapon' blue lazors were so focused on Captain America, who had been captured already and was no where near them, that they missed the US human wave attack that could have been stopped by one guy with an MG42? Or Cap's distraction created the giant frikken window they rappelled through? Y'know, the one in Red Skulls office? Why didn't they just all go in that way? Or even better, put a bullet in the SOB from where ever they shot the grappling lines from? Or the other team that just kinda popped up in the middle of the base; go that way. Or do ya think they had patrols out on that mountain and in the tunnel that got called back in when they captured Cap? I mean, I understand that Cap was making a diversion, but having the soldiers attack the front and then going through the window or the secret tunnel just works better, and would create a tighter story. I know it's a comic book movie and all, but that doesn't mean stuff can't make sense. At any point the Red Skull could have just radioed down to kill Cap, or shot him as soon as he was brought in. Too much Plot Armor for a simple guy like me, take the easier road.

The Stormtroopers were just pathetic, they outnumbered the americans, had far superior technology and were better trained but were beaten in every battle. In the first battle we see about 5 Us soldiers die and the entire factory goes up in flames. There were meant to be a bigger threat than the nazis but the film didn't show it. If the US soldiers need to beat Hydra at least come up with some explanation. The US soldiers acted more like Hydra than Hydra did. Red Skull was just as bad, for a supervillian who is meant to be extremely intelligent he made some stupid mistakes. Just killing Capt at the first oppurtunity would have made a better film because that is what he would have done. If they want him to keep the Capt alive come up with a reason.

The hover car was IMO stupid. It's far beyond what stark has in modern times- what happened to that technology. Putting it in had no purpose and just distanced itself from reality when the setting is meant to be close to real life.

I found the first half of the movie to be far to slow. It makes sense and helped the plot but IMO it was focused on too much.

The hover car is beyond the suit of armor with beams of plot device that is powered by the artificial heart of contrivance?

- 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.