It's Official: Chris Evans Is Captain America

Last week we learned here that Chris Evans had been offered the much coveted role of Steve Rogers aka Captain America in Marvel’s The First Avenger: Captain America. Now he’s accepted and it’s official. Chris Evans is Captain America.

Forget the litany of actors rumored to be up for this role, the names in contention have run the gamut from Matthew McConaughey to Chris Pine. Evans has it, what will he do with it?

First it’s worth noting that this isn’t his first superhero character. He did two movies as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch and member of the Fantastic Four. Storm, however, was a very different character from Cap. The Torch was cut from the wisecracking playboy mold, and Evans pulled it off capably. America on the other hand is a flag-waving, poster boy for the American ideal. Wisecracks and womanizing aren’t his stock and trade. In many ways, he’s a lot less fun. He’s more like Superman than Spider-Man.

But don’t worry, Evans has range. Don’t file him away as just another pretty boy. Though he first rose to prominence in the forgettable and mostly shallow parody Not Another Teen Movie, Evans has shown flashes of real talent. Check out Danny Boyle’s Sunshine in which he plays a complex astronaut haunted by strange forces at work on a journey to re-ignite the Earth’s sun. Though the movie received somewhat mixed reaction, Evan’s performance was the subject of praise. Chris has the all-American looks to play the character and, more importantly, there’s every reason to believe he can really, truly act.

He’ll get a chance to prove it playing Rogers, a far more complex character than the Human Torch. Rumor has it that the first America movie, The First Avenger: Captain America will be a period film set in World War II. Steve Rogers is a young soldier who volunteers for a series of government experiments to create a super soldier. They work, but rather than putting him into battle they turn him into a celebrity and use him as the American poster boy for the war effort, which explains the red, white, and blue costume. Circumstances change though, and Rogers rises up to become Captain America and kick Nazi ass.

Presumably the first movie will end with America somehow cryogentically frozen. He’ll be unfrozen in the modern era for the next in Marvel’s series of Avenger films where he’ll become the anchor for their new group of team-up superhero movies. For Marvel’s Avengers plan to work, Chris Evans has to work. He’s the lynchpin nearly half a dozen different movies hinge on. Don’t worry, Evans can handle the load.