A man too small and too sick to enlist is chosen for an experiment precisely because he has spent his life being the one who gets up again.
Most of this film happens in 1943. Steve Rogers is repeatedly refused by the army, keeps lying on the forms, and is eventually picked by a scientist who is not looking for the strongest candidate. The point is made plainly and early: the serum amplifies what is already there, so it matters enormously who you give it to.
What follows is a war film with a propaganda tour in the middle of it, which is the film’s sharpest idea. The government’s first instinct is not to deploy him but to sell bonds with him.
Show detailsWhere this sits in time
This is the earliest point in the whole story, seventy years before the rest of Phase One, and it is the reason a chronological first watch is a worse experience than a release-order one: the film is full of objects and names that mean nothing yet and land hard once you have seen the later films.
Watch it fifth, not first.
Who is in it
How it connects
Sources
Facts last checked on Sep 7, 2026
Released: July 22, 2011