How about a nice hot cup of freedom?!

Three Cheers for The First Avenger! And a hearty slap on the back for director Joe Johnston, who has delivered what's easily one of the best movies of the summer. Johnston helmed The Rocketeer, another gem steeped in bygone retro/deco flourishes and wisely stays true to the World War II era that spawned Hitler-clobberin' Steve Rogers in the first place. The pacing and style of the movie feels old fashioned, too. It was a smart stroke to make so much of the film's beginning focus on "4F" Steve, before he takes the super serum that makes him the ultimate soldier. Because we see first and foremost that Steve Rogers is just a nice guy, a decent man who's always been dismissed as a runt, whose fondest wish is to just do good and contribute.

Captain America: The First Avenger opens with a dynamite prologue and keeps the entertainment comin' at ya the entire time. Chris Evans delivers a terrific performance -- the Stars and Stripes pride of this movie could have gone so wrong in clumsier hands, but Johnston's Greatest Generation characters just make you love them on sight. Ya see, Hitler just isn't evil enough, and Cap stands alongside other great Nazi-era triumphs of adventure as Hellboy, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, really transporting you back to a time when it was just good vs. evil - and they don't come much more evil than Hugo Weaving's Johann Schmidt, aka The Red Skull.

It's a role that demands chewing the scenery and Weaving has been seeing his dentist. He's just perfect. Tommy Lee Jones, Haley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Stanley Tucci and the ever-fabulous Toby Jones all deliver like FedEx.

It's a veritable love-fest for Marvel True Believers - you get all kinds of good stuff with Howard Stark (Iron Man's dad) - and a little Winter Soldier set-up, maybe, with Bucky Barnes? You get Dum Dum and the Howling Commandos, for cryin' out loud. You get snappy dialogue, a flying wing, all kinds of insanely cool retro-atom Hydra vehicles and a terrific ending. And of course like any film from Marvel, be absolutely sure to stay past the end credits (they're splendid in their own right, an eye-popping collection of American propaganda posters) for a tremendous additional scene that gives a pretty good taste of The Avengers mayhem to come next summer.

I caught Cap' in 3D, but it's not necessary to. Just do yourself a favor and see this movie, because it's Fun with a capital F. And that stands for Freedom, got it, bub?!