Not to be confused with the big budget Captain America: The First Avenger release this DVD released in 1990 was a low budget movie that needed a lot more help than it received.
Film making 3/25
Video 5/25
Audio 13/25
Bonus Features 0/25
Total 21/100
Skinned rat roars, that was one of the first impressions I got from Captain America, the 1990 film not the recent blockbuster release. Nazis being the bad guys they are experiment on a poor rat and reveal it is stronger and more intelligent but also it looked like it was skinned.
Actually this is where they get the Red Skull part of the bad guys name as the rat and Red Skull look like they have been flayed alive. The menacing almost lion like roar is made all the cheesier when the stop animation kicks in and the rat turns toward the scientists and roars/snarls again.
Captain America may be a top money maker for Marvel Comics and the recent release, Captain America: The First Avenger, is not to be confused with the direct to video release that was filmed in 1990. This low budget DVD is about as far from the recent top films from Marvel but I am not surprised this one is hitting store.
Captain America starts with the Germans experimenting on rats and they turn to a small Italian boy to continue their experiments. Dr. Vaselli objects to using the boy and escapes out the window before the experiments are continued, giving birth to Red Skull.
Dr. Vaselli, Carol Cassola, escapes to America where she continues her experiments on an American volunteer who was excluded from the World War II draft because he has Polio. He volunteers for the special mission and Dr. Vaselli ensures everyone she has perfected the process that created the demented Red Skull.
Steve Rogers played by Matt Salinger is transformed into Captain America but a spy among the viewer’s shoots him and Dr Vaselli, killing her and wounded the newly created hero. Captain America undergoes surgery and a super speedy recovery in time to stop the launching of a missile against the United States from somewhere in Germany.
Captain America parachutes into Germany and confronts Red Skull only to be defeated and strapped to the rocket, Captain America grabs the hand of Red Skull to stop the launch. Red Skull cuts his hand off just as the rocket takes off for the White House but Captain America defeats their plan by diverting the rocket.
Forget for the moment that Red Skull would have been incinerated by the rockets blast and the subsequent cheesy scene of a young boy taking a close up picture of Captain America from the White House. Captain America bends the fins of the rocket and redirects it toward Alaska where he sits in the frozen ice for years.
Researchers find Captain America in the ice and the current President who was that young boy years ago with the photo sees a picture of the thawed Captain America in the paper. The President seeks out Captain America to help with the current problems and tries once again to defeat Red Skull who now looks less like a skinned person and more like a ghoul with a suit on.
I am not kidding when I talk about the various bad, cheesy and terrible plot points and other bad movie moments of Captain America. The movie is bad, it is filmed with what looks like an 8 mm camera and has some of the worst stunts I have ever seen in a movie and had very poor direction as well as bad production.
The budget for this movie was about $10 million but it looks like somebody pocketed most of that, the movie is that bad. Captain America was filmed in 1989 and 1990 but not released in theatres in the US, they had that much of a poor response to initial views of the movie.
Matt Salinger does alright as well as the other actors but the film has no cohesive bond and the plot just plods along with the story without any emotional tie to it. The film really is bad and not even worth one of those so bad its good shots.
The release of Captain America the 1990 DVD is a desperate attempt at capitalizing on the new release of The First Avenger film to sell the old one. There can be no mistaking why this film is hitting store shelves and it is not for the chance for fans to get the old classic.
Video is bad, really bad, the night scenes are poorly lit and the entire film has bad color but the overall grain is terrible, like I said 8mm film. The standard 4:3 full frame format of the movie would date it if it was a sixties or seventies movie but this is shot in 1989 and 1990.
Audio will be the only way this film gets anything above a single digit rating from me as the sound quality was alright but nothing to write home about. Sound effects for the most part work well but every so often punches sound like someone hitting a couch cushion instead of a bad guys face.
A few scenes have some sound effects highlighted on one speaker, this sounded very weird and could have been on purpose but it actually sounded like terrible dubbing. The sound is in 2 channel Dolby Digital but has some pretty standard effects and music that work but are not all that well done.
Technically Captain America 1990 is all right but will not be jumping into shopping carts anytime soon as long as people search the internet before picking up this DVD release. This is a film specifically geared at fans of Marvel comics and ones that may mistake this package for the Captain America: The First Avenger release that is supposed to be a much better film.
I say this is a bad film but I am not comparing it to the recent big budget release as I have not yet seen the 2011 Captain America that hit theatres. This is one review based solely on the terrible film contained on the DVD, any resemblance to a good film may be purely a coincidence.
Bonus content, no surprise here, is simply a theatrical trailer, there is nothing else on the DVD and not even choices for audio. Captain America, not to be confused with Captain America: The First Avenger, is not worth the DVD it was burned onto and is really only good as a coaster.
I am sorry to say this is one film that you should not even bother with and I know the only reason it is seeing the light of day is money may come out of the DVD going home by mistake just because of the name.
Captain America @ Wikipedia