"Captain America": A patriotic surprise from the comic-book past:
Maybe we've just reached the midpoint of a sweltering summer, when Popsicles start to seem like the apex of the culinary arts. Maybe I've been beaten down to bargain-basement expectations by a season of relentless superhero-action spectacles. Maybe I passed out after the air conditioning failed during the New York press screening of "Captain America: The First Avenger," and what I'm remembering is just the collective hallucination of a bunch of movie geeks locked in a 90-degree sweat box on 42nd Street. Be that as it may, "Captain America" is exactly what the third week of July needed: a curiously fun, surprisingly imaginative and unashamedly old-fashioned yarn of skulduggery and adventure.