Welcome, one and all, to "Tales of the Longbox", here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a film from 1990. That movie is "Captain America".
I'm gonna be straight up with you guys, I'm not really the biggest fan of Captain America. I just never found the character, himself, to be very appealing to me. I mean, OK, punching Hitler in the face sounds awesome, and it totally is. But that's not really enough for me to get invested into the character. In fact, out of the entire Avengers team, I find both he, and the Hulk to be the most boring heroes. However, I am going to give Cap a chance here by taking a look at his outing from 1990.Now, I've only seen one Captain America movie. And I mentioned it before when I covered "Iron Man 2" a month ago, but the only one that I watched was "Captain America: Civil War". Which was OK, but definitely not as great as everyone made it out to be. Now, you're probably wondering why I'm not covering the Captain America movie from 2011, or that really obscure made-for-television movie from 1979? Well, this one I actually had some mild interest in checking out for about several years now, because I have seen footage from this movie, and it looked like it might be a campy, sorta cheesy film. And I do kinda like those movies. Now, the difficult part about watching this movie was trying to find a physical copy of it. I looked at all of my local video stores, and not a single one of them was carrying it. However, I did discover some time ago that this movie is on YouTube, so I'm gonna be watching it off of there. Mainly because, this is the only copy of it I could find online.
So, I'm gonna be hoping for the best on this one. And who knows? If I end up liking it, I may end up watching more Captain America movies. But the only way I'm gonna know if I will end up liking this thing or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Captain America".
12 minutes later
So, wait a moment here. So this cafe has a secret entrance to an underground laboratory? I'm not even gonna question how that makes any sense, but I would never expect a cafe of all places to have a secret underground laboratory, where it looks as though they are conducting the Super Soldier experiment onto Steve Rogers. That is just kinda odd.
12 minutes later
So, let me see if I understand this. Cap had a tight grip on the Red Skull's arm. Instead of just cutting Cap's hand off with the knife that he pulled out, he instead uses it to cut his own hand off, just so he wouldn't be caught with Cap as soon as the rocket launches...OK. I have a question. Why didn't the Red Skull just cut off Cap's hand? I totally understand that it probably wouldn't affect Cap, because he was injected with the Super Soldier serum, but I still would've at least tried to do that, instead of just cutting off his own hand first. That, to me, just comes across as a little bit stupid on the Red Skull's part.
8 minutes later
OK, I have a bit of a stupid question. Are they gonna attempt to explain, at all, about why the Red Skull's makeup looks different than how he did back when he had cut his own hand off during Captain America's launch? I understand it's still kinda early in the movie, but just seeing the Red Skull's makeup look different than how he did decades ago looks a little bit off-putting to me.
7 minutes later
OK, I know that this is a trivial point to be bitching about, but who the fuck rides motor bikes in the woods? It just looks very unsafe what with all of the trees in the way. Plus, Cap's not very fast and is probably still feeling the effects of being frozen for many decades. I think you could find something less dangerous to pursue him with. Oh...and they're already out of the woods. Well anyway, I understand that I was, probably, complaining about nothing. But I still would use a little bit of common sense before resorting to using motor bikes, you know?
4 minutes later
OK, that was kinda funny. Cap just pretended to be sick so that the guy could pull over and let him out of the car. Which, in turn, Cap steals his car and drives off with it. It was sort of a dick move, but it was still kinda funny.
16 minutes later
Wait, wait, wait! So, the diner Steve Rogers went to all these decades ago still has the underground laboratory? I mean, OK, it looks pretty much desolated, but you mean to tell me that NOBODY else discovered this hidden laboratory within the time Captain America was frozen in Alaska? What sense does that make?! I'm sorry, guys, but that's just incredibly mind-boggling to me that nobody else discovered this hidden laboratory that Steve Rogers knows about. That's just...wow, that's incredibly stupid.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Captain America". Let me shut the movie off...all right. Well, I can start by saying that the movie was actually pretty good. Mind you, now, the movie isn't great, but it's still watchable. I may as well start with writing.
You may have noticed that I asked a lot of questions that went on in this movie, and some of it is going to stick out at you, if you go into it like I did. For instance, and perhaps the biggest one for me is, how the hell did nobody discover this secret laboratory that was, apparently, hidden at this diner all of these decades while Captain America was frozen in Alaska? You would think that, during that time, someone would discover it and ask a ton of questions. Or perhaps when the cafe was being remodeled, nobody decided to take down the coat hangers that were used to reveal the secret entrance to this underground laboratory and just decided to cover it with a women's bathroom. I'm sorry, guys, but I'm pretty sure that if you're trying to remodel an establishment, such as a diner, then I don't think covering something up that would seem as trivial as a coat hanger would be necessary. The most logical thing to do when remodeling is you want take this stuff apart and start from scratch. I understand that I'm putting way too much thought into that, but that's something that kinda bothered me a bit.
Now, the other question I had, well two technically, involves the Red Skull, the main villain of the movie. First thing I wondered was that when Captain America was strapped to a rocket and the Red Skull got close to him, Cap was able to grab his arm and keep the grip tightened so that he and the Red Skull would fly together as the rocket launched. Instead, Red Skull just decides to cut his own arm so that he wouldn't be a potential victim along with Cap. I was wondering why exactly he didn't think of cutting Cap's arm off in the first place. And I did admit that it probably wasn't going to work because of the Super Soldier serum that was in Captain America, and that it would just bounce off him like rubber. At least, that's my theory on that, anyway. But that's really just a minor issue that didn't affect me too much. But the bigger issue involving the Red Skull has to do with his face. Now, right at the beginning of the movie, we get to see Red Skull's origin, as he was taken as a young boy by the Nazis, who end up killing his entire family. In which, they use him to turn into their own Super Soldier. Then, as an adult, we get to see his face as the Red Skull. But then later, after he cuts his hand from Captain America's grip, we don't get to see him again until the 1990's, in which we get to see him lose most of the redness on his face, which makes him look less like the Red Skull and more like he has some horrible skin disease on his face. Why exactly does he look more like he has a skin disease and not like the Red Skull? My original thought was that because he cut his hand off, that somehow affected his skin and made his face lose the redness that makes the Red Skull's look iconic. But we later see him with a second hand, so he must've gotten it replaced at some point. By the way, that point is never brought up again about his cut-off hand. Which leads me back to my point about hoping that the movie would explain why Red Skull's face looked different after the years that Captain America got frozen in time, but shockingly, the movie doesn't really explain that. Instead it's just more about him and his plan involving to become the next President of the United States by kidnapping the President, and using some sort of drug to be able to control him to do it. Now admittedly, since I'm not a fan of Captain America, I don't really have a ton of knowledge on the Red Skull. So I don't know if this has happened in any of the comics, TV shows, or movies that he was in. But if not, then it was kind of a strange way to keep the Red Skull like this throughout the entire movie.
So, as you can tell, the writing here is a little bit clumsily written. And I will say that if you think about those issues involving the Red Skull or why no one ever discovered the hidden laboratory during the many decades of Captain America being frozen in time for too long, then you might end up despising this movie. But really, those issues are still very minor in the long run, because the movie is still pretty good. Our characters here are developed very well. And I'm happy to say that Captain America isn't just some generic-looking super hero. He does have a very solid backstory, and his character is really likable, for the most part. There are a couple of moments where he is somewhat dickish in where he ends up asking whoever is driving to pull over because he pretends to feel sick. And when they do, he ends up running towards their car and stealing it. The first time, I didn't mind it as much, because it was kinda funny. Though the second time where he abandons the daughter of Bernie, his lover from back when. Now that, to me, seems a bit lazy and kinda stupid, because I never would imagine Cap stealing someone's car in that kind of fashion. Especially twice, for that matter. But aside from those moments, his character is still rather likable, so I'm not gonna harp on the movie too much on those points.
Now let's get to the acting. The acting here is OK. Nothing about it is going to be memorable in any way. But for what it is, the acting here is decent. I do need to talk about Scott Paulin's performance as the Red Skull for a moment. Because honestly, he's the only actor that I can recall that turned in somewhat of a flimsy showing. Because it sounds like he was trying to put up a German accent, but for whatever reason, it seems to keep disappearing at times. And it's kinda noticeable, especially when you consider that the actor who played the Red Skull is American. Now, I'm not saying that he couldn't pull off another accent simply because he's American. I even mentioned Roger Craig Smith's performance as Batman, when I covered "Superman: Red Son" last month, and he was able to pull off a Russian accent very well. Here though, Scott's German accent doesn't seem to work all that well, and I honestly think he could've polished that accent better to make it sound like he was German. As I already mentioned, the acting here is OK. None of it is great, but it's certainly nowhere near the worst thing I've heard. In fact, I could even say that some of the acting could be seen as laughable. But even so, the acting here is passable, so I'm not gonna keep beating on the same point too much there.
Now we get to the special effects. In terms of makeup effects, they're great. And I'm mainly talking about the makeup on the Red Skull. Because when you first see him, he looks amazing, and I still don't know why the movie went away from that design later on, but again, I'm not gonna touch that point any longer. But anyway, he looks really intimidating, and that was some awesome stuff. Speaking of which, there was also one point in the movie where there was a mutated rat that had the Red Skull's look, and it was also in stop-motion. And the stop motion on the rat looked really good, for like, the one shot that it was in. But anyway, the design on the rat looked awesome, too. So, makeup effects are awesome. Most of the special effects in this movie are rather decent, save for one shot, where we get to see the President as a kid, as he's taking a shot of the White House with his camera. And after he takes a shot, we get to see him looking up at the rocket where Captain America is strapped onto. And when Captain America's jerks the missile with his feet, it flies over the kid, and the White House, too. And that effect looked really poor, even for the standards set by 1990. But aside from that, the special effects are pretty decent. More-so for the makeup effects and than the actual effects. I want to touch upon Captain America's costume for a moment, and say that the costume itself looks mostly good, save for the little white wings on the head of the costume, because it looks as though as it's made out of really cheap rubber. And I totally understand that this was the classic Captain America costume, but it still looked a little bit off to me here. But aside from that, the costume looks really good, especially for 1990 standards.
Camerawork here is pretty good. I will say that the editing is a little bit sketchy at times, but since it's very minor, I'm not going to dwell on it too much. The lighting is well lit. Sound-mix is mixed mostly well. Music is sort of a mixed bag. The score had, like, one music track that repeated several times, and it was kinda noticeable. The songs mostly suck. But then again, I'm not a fan of most sappy sounding music. So it's just something that you have to take for granted. But otherwise, the score is, at least, serviceable.
Ultimately, guys, can I recommend "Captain America"? Kind of, yes. The movie is flawed in a couple of areas with it's writing, but the story is still interesting enough to warrant viewing at least once. I'm not totally sure if I could recommend a purchase, but if you are a fan of Captain America, and you've never had the chance to see this movie, go ahead and check it out. It's on YouTube right now, at least at the time I'm writing this Reaction & Review. And if you enjoy it enough, then go ahead and buy it. As long as it's cheap. I'm not totally sure if I would buy it myself, after watching this. But I will say that the movie was still entertaining, and it certainly made me a little bit more interested in the Captain America character. So I can give the movie that much.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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