Entertainment

‘America’ the beautiful

Almost apologetically breaking into a German POW camp in WWII Austria to save some Allied troops, a brawny rescuer who until recently was as strapping as Vivien Leigh is asked to identify himself. “Um, Captain America,” he says.

You had me at “Um,” Cap’n. Adding goofy uncertainty to shoulders as wide as the East River makes for a disarming hero in one of the spiffiest WWII action yarns ever to march out of Hollywood.

Recombining DNA from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Superman,” “Spider-Man” and even “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Captain America” smashingly layers superhero stuff such as magic serums atop a wry appreciation for campy WWII propaganda and ’60s cinematic rousers that kept Richard Burton, Robert Shaw and Lee Marvin constantly employed.

This is no mere Corporal Canada or Sgt. Spain we’re talking about. Busting out of 1942 Brooklyn to inflict some inspired pulverization on Krautland’s evilest, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is in reality an asthmatic 90-pound bully-ee with a pipe-cleaner build. This guy isn’t puny: He’s puny’s square root. Achieving this effect requires an uncommonly imaginative new usage of CGI to paste Evans’ face on the build of a shrimpy actor. Queasily I began to suspect they were just using footage of me taken surreptitiously the day I arrived in Fort Bragg in 1988. (Or even the day I left Fort Bragg.)

Despite being morsel-sized, Steve is resourceful and brave. In basic training — where he is harangued by a beautiful British drill sergeant/secret agent (the brisk Hayley Atwell, from whom you cannot take your eyes off) — a German scientist (Stanley Tucci) who escaped Hitler, decides it is Steve who should get the secret bulkification serum, spirited out of Germany, that gives a body an instant Barry Bonds treatment. Here geezers may chuckle with recognition, for the expert Hun killer Audie Murphy was a runt too — while John Wayne stayed home.

Instead of merely being an unfortunate orphan like Krypton’s lost boy, Steve morally earns his superpowers in a thrillingly American way. This is meritocracy’s world capital, home of the underdog turned top dog. But if that’s too much to chew on — here’s a Nazi submarine popping up in the Brooklyn docks. And here’s a kindly old antiques-shop proprietress who is also handy with a machine gun.

There’s still some of the serum back in Deutschland, where a Hitler aide (Hugo Weaving) obsessed with all things Nordic and supernatural, is fully superpowered by the ancient black arts and is also toting around a battery pack that contains enough energy to rule the world. (Cruelly, he scoffs at his colleagues down in Africa searching for the Lost Ark who did, after all, give their lives in the effort.)

Meanwhile, Steve’s exploits in foiling the Brooklyn Nazis give the Army an excellent idea for how to deploy him: Put him in a woolly blue costume and send him dancing off on a War Bonds tour and USO shows. He traipses through Milwaukee and Buffalo with cuties in red, white and blue Rockette wear, ending each show by biffing an actor playing the Fuhrer. By the time he gets overseas to brazen his way into some real action, he notes, “I’ve killed Hitler over 200 times.”

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely’s script not only makes it rain witty lines but delivers fresh stunt ideas and a prominent place for “Iron Man” Tony Stark’s overconfident dad (Dominic Cooper), a gadget monkey who is forever vowing another breakthrough but is as reliable as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Much of the best writing is reserved for Steve’s boss, the colonel, Tommy Lee Jones, triumphantly back in “The Fugitive” mode after all those dreary dramas. Is there anyone you’d rather hear say, “They will personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of hell”? While Weaving is saying, “I haff harnessed duh power of duh gods!” and being adequately terrifying (especially when his look changes dramatically in mid-film), TLJ keeps checking in with lines such as, “If you have something to say, now is a perfect time to keep it to yourself.” Steve he calls “a showgirl.” Oof.

Soon, though, Capt. A is kicking A, leading a handpicked troop through Europe to roll up the apparatus of the Third Reich’s renegade Hydra unit, a group of fellows who think Hitler is too much of a wuss. Director Joe Johnston stages the action scenes with a wonderful clanking throwback quality and Steve’s lads buzz forth on some of the finest motor vehicle chases through a forest since the Ewoks.

The quieter moments are just as fine, though, such as when Steve mourns one setback in a pub with a half-empty bottle of booze. The twist? His molecules are so righteously self-restoring he can’t get drunk. And the film’s characteristic combination of winking at past war films while executing a snappy salute is never more endearing than when Steve is asked by someone he hasn’t seen since his weakling days what happened to him. Brightly comes the reply: “I joined the Army!”

kyle.smith@nypost.com