Captain America (1990 film)

Captain America
Promotional teaser movie poster for Captain America
Directed by	Albert Pyun
Produced by	Menahem Golan Stan Lee Joseph Calamari Tom Karnowski
Screenplay by	Stephen Tolkin
Story by	Stephen Tolkin Lawrence Block
Based on	Characters by Joe Simon Jack Kirby
Starring	Matt Salinger Ronny Cox Scott Paulin Ned Beatty Darren McGavin Francesca Neri
Music by	Barry Goldberg
Cinematography	Philip Alan Waters
Editing by	Jon Poll
Studio	21st Century Film Corporation Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. Jadran Film
Distributed by	21st Century Film Corporation Columbia TriStar Home Video
Release date(s)	December 14, 1990 (1990-12-14) (United Kingdom) July 22, 1992 (1992-07-22) (United States)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States Yugoslavia
Language	English
Budget	$10,000,000

Captain America is a 1990 superhero film directed by Albert Pyun. The film is based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. While the film takes several liberties with the comic's storyline, it features Steve Rogers becoming Captain America during World War II to battle the Red Skull, being frozen in ice, and subsequently being revived to save the President of the United States from a crime family that dislikes his environmentalist polices. The film received a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

Plot

In 1936 Fascist Italy, the government kidnaps a boy and kills his family. The child is needed for an experimental project to create a Fascist supersoldier. Dr. Vaselli (Carla Cassola) objects to using the boy, and under the cover of gunfire flees to the USA to offer her services to the Americans.

Seven years later, the American government finds a volunteer in Steve Rogers, a loyal all-American who is excluded from the draft because of his polio. The formula successfully transforms Rogers into a superhero, but before any more super soldiers can be created using the formula she keeps in her head, Dr. Vaselli is murdered by a Nazi spy. Meanwhile, the Italian boy has become the Red Skull and is planning to launch a missile at the White House. Rogers, code named Captain America, is sent in to defeat the Skull and deactivate the missile.

Matt Salinger as Captain America

Rogers manages to penetrate the launch compound, but after an initial battle, the Red Skull defeats Captain America and ties him to the missile as it is about to launch. Captain America is able to grab a hold of the Red Skull, forcing him to cut off his own hand to avoid being launched into destruction along with his "American brother". While the missile is over Washington, D.C., a young boy named Thomas Kimball takes a photograph as Captain America forces the missile to change course and land somewhere in Alaska, where he remains frozen until 1990.

Kimball goes on to become an honest politician and Vietnam War hero until being elected the President of the United States of America. In 1993, a year into his term, he is pushing for pro-environmentalist legislation that is angering the military-industrial complex, who hold a secret conference in Italy that is led by the Red Skull. Following the war, the Red Skull had extensive plastic surgery in a partially successful attempt to alter his disfigured features, raised a daughter, and has become the leader of a powerful crime family. In the 1960s, this American military-industrial complex hired the Red Skull and his thugs to murder various Americans who were against their militarism and Red Skull's fascism, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Now, Red Skull is targeting President Kimball for kidnapping and brainwashing.

Scott Paulin as Red Skull

Captain America's frozen body is found in Alaska by researchers, and he awakens still thinking that it is the 1940s. After battling some of the Red Skull's thugs, he brushes off Sam Kolawetz (Ned Beatty), a reporter and childhood friend of President Kimball, and hitchhikes his way back to his wartime girlfriend, Bernice (Kim Gillingham), in California. While Bernice still lives at her old residence, she has long since married and raised her own daughter, Sharon, who subsequently gives Rogers a series of VHS history tapes so he can catch up on what happened while he was frozen in ice. Meanwhile, the Red Skull's thugs, led by his daughter, break into Bernice's house and kill her. They also cause her husband to have a heart attack during their efforts to find where Captain America is hiding.

Rogers and Sharon visit the secret underground base where Rogers gained his superpowers in the hopes that Dr. Vaselli's diary is still there and contains the original name of the Red Skull. Although Rogers and Sharon find the diary, the Red Skull's thugs attempt to grab it. Rogers and Sharon vow revenge as well as the rescue of the recently kidnapped president. They travel to Italy and locate the Red Skull's home and an old recording of the murder of his parents. Sharon agrees to be kidnapped to allow Steve Rogers, who once again dons his costume, to enter the Red Skull's castle.

In the midst of their battle, the Red Skull pulls out a remote trigger for a nuclear dirty bomb, but Captain America uses Sharon's recording of the murder of the Red Skull's family 60 years earlier to distract him. While the Red Skull is lost in thought, Capt. America uses his shield to send the Red Skull off a cliff before the bomb can be set off. As the Red Skull's daughter prepares to kill Captain America, she is then decapitated from behind by his returning shield.

The United States Marines show up to save the President and arrest the Americans involved in the kidnapping. The credits roll with a comic book image of Captain America in the background and a plea to support the United States Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Cast

• Matt Salinger as Steve Rogers / Captain America
• Ronny Cox as President Tom Kimball
• Scott Paulin as The Red Skull
• Ned Beatty as Sam Kolawetz
• Darren McGavin as General Fleming
• Michael Nouri as Lt. Col. Louis
• Kim Gillingham as Bernice Stewart / Sharon
• Melinda Dillon as Mrs. Rogers
• Bill Mumy as Young General Fleming
• Francesca Neri as Valentina de Santis
• Carla Cassola as Dr. Maria Vaselli
• Massimilio Massimi as Young Tadzio de Santis
• Jack Prentice as Jack

Production and release

Produced by 21st Century Film Corporation, filming began in 1989 and was completed in 1990, but after test marketing the film to a preview audience more stunts were added at the end.^{[citation needed]}

The film was intended for release in the summer of 1990, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Captain America. Posters appeared in movie theaters displaying the superhero's iconic shield, and teaser trailers were created.^{[citation needed]} Several release dates were announced between fall 1990 and winter 1991, but the film went unreleased for two years before debuting direct to video and on cable television in the United States in the summer of 1992. It was given a limited theatrical release internationally, but was shown in cinemas across the USSR.^{[citation needed]}

The film has been released on DVD in the MGM Limited Edition made-on-demand series.

Reception

The movie received a 13% 'rotten' rating on the film critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, with five online critics writing a decade or more after the movie's release.

In one of the few contemporaneous reviews, Entertainment Weekly critic Frank Lovece wrote, "The movie isn't merely wrong for kids — it opens in pre-war Italy with a sequence in Italian with subtitles, and a machine-gun slaughter — it's just all wrong", and decried the "shapeless blob of a plot" in grading the film "F".

External links

• Captain America (1990 film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Captain America at Rotten Tomatoes
• Captain America at Superheroes Lives
• Bell, Josh. "Chatting with Original Captain America Director Albert Pyun", Las Vegas Weekly, June 29, 2011. WebCitation archive.