Review of Captain America (1990) by Jared W — 21 Jun 2013

Critically panned and criminally under-appreciated I get the feeling that this may be one of those rare films that comes under re-evaluation some day. Until then though, I'll be one of it's only staunch supporters in saying that this film attempted so much of what we see in current Marvel films today with a tiny fraction of the budget that these modern films enjoy that one cannot simply help but admire the raw ambition displayed.

Captain America is admirably played by Matt Salinger (rubber ears and all) in a beautiful comic book accurate uniform. His adversary, the Red Skull, is also done justice by Scott Paulin who does a more spirited job of it than Hugo Weaving's average performance in The First Avenger.

The film has major ambition by taking us through both Cap's WWII origin and his retrieval in the modern era. Ronnie Cox and Ned Beatty both lend credibility to the proceedings, and the emotional beats of the script are actually quite nice.

Sometimes I think fanboys are quite confused about this movie as it's not nearly as campy as any one would have you believe and seems to err on the side of realism more often than not. Some of it's even a little too dark for its audience (it scared me to death when I tried to watch it as a kid).

Overall this has been unjustly criticized and demands re-evaluation. Check it out as it just came out on Blu-Ray!