Bullet Points: Captain America (1990)

After a meteoric rise in the 1980’s The Cannon Group was hurtin’ for certain as the 1980’s were coming to a close. Things got to the point where Menahem Golan decided to leave the company and his longtime business partner/cousin Yoram Globus. The split produced two rival lambada themed movies and a lot of bad blood between the Israeli cousins. As part of the “divorce proceedings” Menahem was able to take the rights to the Captain America and Spider-Man movies (that Cannon had originally acquired) with him to his new company 21st Century Films.

The Golan produced Spider-Man movie would never see the light of day, but in 1990 Golan and director Albert Pyun did manage to give the world its first Captain America feature film…

• Origin Stories: The movie begins the same way many superhero films begin as we see the origin story of how Steve Rogers (Matt Salinger), a patriotic young man who was stricken with polio volunteered for a top secret government project and is transformed into a super soldier known as Captain America. We also get the backstory on how a young child in Europe was transformed into Red Skull by the Nazis. With the formalities out of the way, Captain America’s first mission is to infiltrate Nazi headquarters and prevent Red Skull from launching a missile at the White House. Things don’t go entirely as planned as Cap ends up finding himself strapped to the rocket by Red Skull and it looks like the White House and America’s first (and only) super soldier are going to be destroyed… but even strapped to a rocket soaring across the Atlantic Ocean, Cap manages to send the rocket of course (WAY OF COURSE) just before it is about to destroy the White House. The rocket ends up crashing in the Alaskan tundra. Witnessing the near miss incident at the White House was a young Tom Kimball, who was visiting Washington D.C. with his parents. Tom dreamed of one day being the President of the United States.

• Fast Forward: The movie moves to present time courtesy of a newspaper headlines montage and we learn that Tom Kimball (Ronny Cox, Robocop) did grow up to become the POTUS. Red Skull (Scott Poulin) is now a European businessman that the rich and powerful of the world turn to when they need someone eliminated… in this case President Tom Kimball. Kimball has upset the world’s apple cart with his radical ideas on preserving the environment. Kimball sees this as a positive for future generations but the industrialists living in the here and now see it all as a nuisance that will cut into their profits. Red Skull is happy to assist these men with their Tom Kimball problem. But instead of just assassinating the POTUS and making him a martyr like John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr (And it is more than inferred that Red Skull was behind their deaths), Red Skull has a plan to control the mind of President Kimball and turn him into a glorified puppet that will say or do whatever it is Red Skull and the men paying him want Kimball to say or do.

• Cap is Back!: During an expedition in Alaska, a team of scientists unknowingly rescue Captain America, who at this point had been frozen for decades. There is the culture shock you’d expect from a man who had missed out on so much history and so many changes while he was in a state of suspended animation. But Captain America experiences a great deal of remorse when he learns that President Kimball has been kidnapped by Red Skull. Had Captain America completed his objective all those years ago, Red Skull would have been eliminated… but instead Red Skull has gone on to become more powerful and do all sorts of evil things while Cap was gone. Captain America teams up with newspaper reporter and childhood friend of Tom Kimball, Sam Kolawetz (Ned Beatty, Superman) and Sharon (Kim Gillingham) the daughter of his best girl from back in the day as they evade Red Skull’s goons who are pursuing in the States and eventually make their way to Europe to rescue President Kimball, have a final showdown with Red Skull and save the world.

The real villain in Captain America was the budget. The story and performances were solid but without the financial resources to execute the story properly, the movie suffered. Captain America felt like it never got up to full speed. Had Albert Pyun been able to include some of the big action sequences that were conceived in the script, the audience would have wanted some downtime in between the action to catch their breaths. Instead the movie felt like it was dragging at times with too much story and not enough action.

We are all about giving you more than enough review action here at Bulletproof Action so check out these Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Faces: In addition to such luminaries as Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty, Captain America had a supporting cast that included Michael Nouri (No Escape No Return) who played Cap’s commanding officer Lt. Colonel Louis… Bill Mumy of Lost in Space fame played the younger version of General Fleming (when he was just a Major). I also remember Mumy as a badass henchman for Roddy McDowall’s character in Double Trouble…  The older version of General Fleming was played by Darren McGavin (Raw Deal). McGavin is probably most known as the Old Man Parker in the holiday classic, A Christmas Story. Interestingly enough, Steve Rogers’ mother is played by Melinda Dillon, who is most famous for playing Mother Parker in A Christmas Story.
• What Could Have Been: Albert Pyun wanted to use two different actors to play Steve Rogers. First he wanted a scrawny/wimpy type to play the Before Steve and he wanted Howie Long (Firestorm) to play the After Steve. Marvel nixed the idea and stated the same guy had to play both the Before and After Steve Rogers.
• Name That Tune: During the newspaper headline montage, an instrumental knock off of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” was used. I also recognized some old WCW entrance music from the 1989/1990 time period, I’m thinking it was that of Sid Vicious, but I can not confirm it.
• Hot, Hot, Hot: A good chunk of the movie was shot in Yugoslavia and it was said to be unbelievably hot at the time of shooting. It was so hot that Matt Salinger lost 15 lbs. while wearing the Captain America suit!