Title:
Captain America
What Year?:
1990 (copyright)/ 1992 (video release)
Classification:
Mashup
Rating:
What The Hell??? (2/4)
When I started doing movie reviews for this blog, something I realized quickly is that at a certain point, I have to go with what I have on hand. It may be possible to find almost any movie online, but to me it’s not the same as having a physical copy. When the internet is the only option, I need to take a bit more time, both before and after watching it, especially if I haven’t seen it before. For this feature in particular, I reviewed the first two entries back to back because I already had them both lying around. This time, I’m getting to the one I originally hoped to put in the middle. I must also say that the delay was partly due to reluctance, because this is the one superhero movie that has a reputation possibly worse than The Fantastic Four. And with that happy thought, I introduce Captain America… the 1990s version.
Our story begins with the abduction of a child for a Nazi experiment that has previously created something resembling the rat-monkey from Dead Alive, We then meet the parallel Allied project, which produces a supersoldier known as Captain America. His first mission takes him to the heart of Germany, where he meets the mutated Red Skull. The battle ends with Cap commandeering an intercontinental rocket to steer it away from Washington. Fast forward to ca 1990, and it turns out that he has survived in suspended animation. He emerges to discover the radically changed world where a hero-worshipping kid has become president and the girl he left behind is married with an attractive daughter. But the Red Skull is still around, at the head of a cabal that doesn’t like the new president’s policies. They execute a daring plan to kidnap the president and put in a mind-controlling implant, while the Skull’s minions go looking for Cap and his surviving acquaintances. It’s up to the superhero and his lady friend to foil the plot, and it’s personal!
Captain America was originally a project of the Cannon Group, the perpetrators of the Lou Ferigno Hercules movies, Lifeforce and Superman IV. The notorious crew were on track to be the first and perhaps only studio to produce a DC and a Marvel superhero movie, until senior producer Menahem Golan departed and took the rights for Captain America with him. The subsequent production was produced by 21st Century Film with Marvel and Jadran Film, a studio based in Croatia, with an estimated budget of $3 million. Matt Salinger, son of the reclusive author J.D. Salinger, was cast in the title role, with Ronny Cox of Robocop as President Kimball and Scott Paulin as the Red Skull. Bill Mumy, infamous as Anthony in The Twilight Zone, had a minor role as a general in on the plot; Michael Nouri of The Hidden also appeared as military brass. The movie became subject of negative press due to reshoots and a repeatedly postponed release. It was ultimately withheld from US theatrical release, but was made available on video and shown in theaters in the Philippines.
Of the trio of movies covered so far, Captain America is the one that truly fell through the cracks. I personally knew of it mainly because I had run seen it mentioned in a book from the 1990s, and even then I might have mixed it up with the Reb Brown TV version if the same source hadn’t covered it separately. (No verdict on whether that one is getting in here.) It’s not hard to see how this happened through no fault of the movie. It didn’t have the comparative star power of The Punisher, nor did it suffer the extra notoriety from the hastily cancelled release of The Fantastic Four. However, it is hard to go through the reviews and commentaries of those who have heard of it without sensing a higher level of contempt. In these accounts, it easily comes across as not necessarily worse, but certainly less interesting, either comparatively conventional, or bland, or flat-out boring. As we will see momentarily, it’s none of these things; however, the realities are not particularly in its favor.
On cautious viewing, what really stands out about this movie is that its relatively good points quickly become more frustrating than its more obvious flaws. Conceptually, it feels like a cross between a superhero movie and a spy story with overtones of film noir, and that much unquestionably works. The acting is quite good, to the point that one can easily stop noticing. The story and plot are comic-book bonkers, yet presented with disconcertingly satisfactory logic. The action/ fight sequences are perhaps the most effective element, making it entirely befuddling to me that critics have specifically complained that Captain America doesn’t “do” anything. If anything, there’s a more steady stream of fight scenes than in The Punisher, which nobody would complain is short on action. The real difference is that outside of the occasional flying leap, most of the altercations feel like “real” fights, usually settled with a few quick blows that Cap can quite convincingly deliver first. It is here that the movie feels more like an adventure of Sam Spade or James Bond than a Marvel superhero, and is all the better for it. But what it all adds up to is a whole that should be more than the sum of its parts, and instead seems decidedly less.
This brings us to the question previously raised for Fantastic Four, whether the characters could be relevant when the film came out. On that front, the movie justifies itself better than more recent treatments. The “fish out of water” theme and the deeper clash of ideals with new realities are played out more effectively and at greater length than in the MCU (at least outside of The Winter Soldier). It’s not afraid to portray Cap as confused and vulnerable in the new world, with an uglier streak of paranoia, while the setting of the last days of the Cold War is even more fitting in hindsight than it might have seemed at the time. It is his adversary who struggles to remain applicable, in no small part because of a changed backstory that makes him more like a victim than a villain. But rather than being developed as a conflicted character, he simply seems generic. Then there is the simple fact that neither actor is a good fit for the role, a problem that is obvious for the egregiously uncharismatic Salinger but possibly even more destructive for Paulin, who spend far too much of his time coasting along on being vaguely dislikable.
For the “one scene”, my pick is what could have been a throwaway scene (as many of these things are). After the new president’s impassioned speech about pollution, we meet the Red Skull and a room full of stock conspirators who complain about petty losses. One very matter-of-factly asks how soon they can assassinate the new leader. The Red Skull promptly responds with a conspiracy theorist’s bingo game of killings he has engineered, including an incongruously casual mention of “the King job”, all merely to make the point that making martyrs can be self-defeating. He then lays out his own plan, which really doesn’t make any more sense even assuming the technology existed to make it work. Still, it’s an absolutely hypnotic moment for a character who doesn’t get many of them, and convincing enough for both the plotters and the viewers to go along with it.
The bottom line here is
that the “critics” weren’t so much wrong as right for the wrong reasons. It
doesn’t have the obvious flaws of other pre-2000s Marvel movies, but the one
thing it can’t quite do is rise above its own self-perpetuating sense of
mediocrity. The strongest indictment I can offer is that its budget was half again
that of Killer Klowns From Outer Space, yet it still doesn’t look half
as good, and falls much further short in the less tangible terms of energy and
style. (As much as I like that movie, I really hate that this is the second
time I’ve had to use it as a “good” example.) What it should be, but never will,
is the memento mori for every newfangled movie that tries to impress
audiences by throwing money at them. If there’s one principle that applies to
superhero movies more than other genres, it’s that it’s better to be fun than
good, and there are far too many films much more expensive and technically competent than this one that are neither.
Image credit Robot Geek's Cult Cinema.
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