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And I really did enjoy Hugo Weaving's Red Skull (props to the costume, make-up, visual effects departments there) and Tommy Lee Jones' dry, sarcastically humorous Colonel Chester Phillips.
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Unfortunately, everything becomes quite cluttered and careless once Steve Rogers makes the transformation from scrawny, digitally-wussified asthmatic to bulging superhero. There's one montage too many, a herky-jerky Nazi entanglement and one limp ending - fortunately the film has built up enough goodwill to see it through, albeit narrowly. [B-]
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Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens meanwhile, while taking a similar trajectory in terms of quality, doesn't just meekly crumble off the screen, it crashes and burns, wasting an assured, imposing performance from Daniel Craig in the process.
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Even a stable of five accredited screenwriters can't put their heads together to wring out a more enticing third-act scenario and thus the film absolutely withers once it crosses the halfway point - into a barren, textbook and ferociously silly action climax, abruptly abandoning any previous notion of self-aware genre exploration. By the credits, you'll regret that the film wasn't simply called Cowboys. [D+]