Welcome back to 1 out of 5 – Would Recommend, where we celebrate the release of big movies by revisiting smaller ones. This week, we’re ending our review of the work of Golan & Globus and celebrate the upcoming release of Captain America: Civil War by watching the 1990 Captain America movie!
What’s The Plot?
Captain America is created during World War II to be America’s secret weapon and is almost immediately lost in the Arctic, where he is frozen until 1990. Upon waking up, he discovers that his axis opposite number, is still alive and operating – running a secret cabal of powerful men who control the world for his personal gain. Wonder if Cap’s gonna be cool with that…probably not.
A reminder that “comics accurate” and “better’ aren’t necessarily synonyms.
Who Made This Beautiful Garbage?
The Golan & Globus partnership was dissolved in 1989, when new management was brought in to salvage The Cannon Group and Menahem Golan chose to resign rather than compromise. As part of his severance, he got control of the 21st Century Film Corporation and the movie rights that Cannon had purchased for Cap. He produced this movie with veteran Cannon Group director Albert Pyun at the helm with the intention of it being a tentpole release, just like Batman, to celebrate Cap’s fiftieth anniversary in 1990.
The film was quietly dumped onto video and cable in 1992. Check a great place to sell your movie memorabilia.
Five Reasons to See It
- The Red Skull is, inexplicably, changed from being a German Nazi to an Italian fascist. That move would make sense if they completely dissociated Red Skull from Nazi imagery…but they don’t.
Red Skull actually looks pretty cool…
- The President uses the full weight of his office to bring the newly awoken Captain America into the fold…sending his overweight, bespectacled reporter best friend to go find him.
- Captain America’s very first mission, hardly recovered from getting his powers, is to storm a Nazi missile base alone armed with only his shield to prevent the launch of what amounts to a ballistic cruise missile. Honestly, “Frozen in ice for fifty years” is one of the better ways that could have ended.
…so naturally he looks like a rejected Dick Tracy villain for most of the film.
- The actor who plays Cap is the son of the notoriously reclusive great American novelist J. D. Salinger. He’s worked pretty steadily his debut as one of the jocks in Revenge of the Nerds, mostly on television, but this is really his only starring turn. Bad luck on his part.
- “He may not be Superman, but he’ll be a living symbol of what this country stands for.” – Considering how Menahem’s Superman picture turned out…
Recommendation
Say what you will about Menahem Golan’s ability to make good movies, he could make watchable and technically competent movies. The movie is cheesy and its lower budget shows, as is the case with all of Menahem’s movies, but it hangs together well enough and makes for a pleasant hour and a half. Definitely worth checking out.
Cap pulls the “fake sick, get the driver out of the car, then run really fast and steal it” trick twice in the movie. Twice.
NEXT WEEK: We continue to celebrate the imminent release of Captain America: Civil War by watching Reb Brown’s first turn in the red, white, and blue tights: 1979’s Captain America TV movie!
Funny.