"Captain America: The First Avenger"

Richards's Review: stars

"Captain America: The First Avenger," the latest in Marvel's roundup of superheroes, doesn't feel like the other hero movies we've seen recently. The hipness of Iron Man is absent, the jokey feel of Thor is gone. Instead this is an old fashioned action adventure movie with a person with extraordinary person at the heart of it.

After being rejected by the U.S. Army Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), determined to join his friends and country in the fight against Hitler, volunteers for a secret military operation called Project: Rebirth, where he is physically transformed into a muscle-bound super-soldier nicknamed Captain America. Dedicated to defending America's ideals, he and his handpicked team of heroes, take on the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Hitler's head of advanced weaponry.

"Captain America: The First Avenger" does a nice job at introducing the character into the film canon of Marvel superheroes. They wisely chose to start at the very beginning, which, as we all know is a very good place to start. The setting is WWII and director Joe Johnston has taken his lead from the propaganda movies of the period. The film, in look and in spirit, is a throwback to the "rah! rah!" serials that would play before the main feature. To make the 1940s feel complete, in some scenes Toby Jones, who plays an evil arms expert, even seems to be channeling Peter Lorre.

It's over the top, but in a rather charming old-school way. Perhaps part of the appeal is that in the complicated times we live in it's refreshing to see a movie that harkens back to a simpler time when the enemy was easily identifiable and a strong guy with a colorful shield and plenty of heart could be a hero.

Chris Evans does a nice job of playing the earnest Captain, and the technology that digitally places his head on the body of the pre-muscle bound Captain is flawless. Maybe the best performance in the movie.

Once again, however, the 3D adds nothing, save for some eye-popping subtitles and some really beautifully rendered 1940's inspired closing credits.

The retro charm of "Captain America: First Avenger" is likely to be lost in the sequels and the "Avengers" movie, but for today it's old-fashioned feel is like a breath of fresh air.

"Friends with Benefits"

Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars

The success of "Black Swan" last year didn't open the floodgates for more adventurous movies or even more psycho ballet flicks. Nope, instead it enabled the stars of that movie to go on and make two virtually identical romcoms released in the same year.

Natalie Portman teamed up with Ashton Kutcher earlier in 2011 to make "No Strings Attached," a story about a couple who find that being friends with benefits is more complicated than they thought it would be. Now Natalie's "Black Swan" co-star Mila Kunis and boy toy Justin Timberlake discover pretty much the same thing in a movie opening this weekend. Isn't that the actress version of wearing the same dress to the prom as your best friend?

Kunis and Timberlake are Jamie and Dylan, newly single twenty-somethings -- she was dumped by her boyfriend Quincy (Andy Samberg), he by Kayla (Emma Stone) -- who decide to have a relationship based entirely on sex. "It's just a physical act," says Dylan, "like playing tennis." No strings attached as Ms. Portman might say. But like many before them (including Portman and Kutcher) they soon realize that getting physical also means getting personal.

Romcoms needn't be as long winded as "Friends with Benefits." At almost two hours the inevitable conclusion – I'm not telling you want happens but if you've ever seen a romantic comedy you already know -- is WAY too long in coming. The set-up on these things is pretty basic, and while filmmakers have to throw in some other story elements to keep things interesting "Friends with Benefits" stretches things a little too thin.

JT and Mila acquit themselves well enough, although they don't exactly sear the screen with their chemistry. Too bad -- they're both likable, attractive performers but for me they didn't seem to click and for this story to really work sparks should be flying.

"Friends with Benefits" has some fun supporting performances -- Woody Harrelson as a gay sports writer and Patricia Clarkson as Mila's free-spirited mom have fun with their roles. Too bad the leads aren't in on the fun as well.

"Project Nim"

Richard's Review: 4 stars

"Project Nim," a new documentary from Academy Award-winning director James Marsh, is a portrait of an adopted child who goes on to have a troubled life. The twist here is that the child is a chimpanzee, removed from his mother's care as an infant to be raised by humans as part of linguistics experiment.

The idea, initiated by Columbia professor Herbert Terrace, is that the chimp will be raised by a human family, taught sign language, all in an effort to see if the animal can learn to form full sentences that indicate grammatical communication. Little Nim wears a diaper, breast feeds from his human mom and develops an impressive vocabulary before being handed from caretaker to caretaker and then, having outlived his usefulness as a learning tool, sent to an animal research lab. Animal lovers should know there is a happy-ish ending, but there are a few harrowing scenes before the end credits roll.

First and foremost Marsh is a storyteller. He breaks down Nim's tale into a narrative, complete with heroes (the various caretakers who seemed to really love Nim, especially Bob Ingersoll), villains (the dispassionate Terrace), and everything in between -- that would be the naïve Stephanie LaFarge, Nim's first human mother who moved the primate into her NYC brownstone. It's riveting stuff, expertly told, that will raise questions of the benefits of nature versus nurture and the ethics of animal experimentation, no matter how benign.

Ultimately, we learn more about the human cast members than Nim. Much of the behavior in the film is excused by the participants with a dismissive, "Hey, it was the Seventies." But it's a justification that rings hollow.

"Project Nim" details a little-known case of scientific selfishness coupled with a naïve, free-thinking hippie vibe that didn't work out well for anyone, human or chimp. Perhaps it's true that this kind of experiment could only have happened in the Seventies, the same decade that gave us the bulk of the "Planet of the Apes" movies. Coincidence?