FILMS - Captain America

CAPTAIN AMERICA, directed by Albert Pyun, 1990

ATTEMPT OF A RETRO ACTION WITH A CULT STATUS: SO BAD THAT IT IS ACTUALLY GOOD

“Captain America”, made in 1990, is an American superhero film based on the character from Marvel Comics. It was directed by Albert Pyun, and the screenplay was written by Stephen Tolkin based on a story developed together with Larry Block. It was produced by Menahem Golan for 21st Century Film Corporation. The film was the next step in the career of Albert Pyun, a director known for “Alien from L.A.” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, which demonstrate that Pyun is able to combine science fiction with action and adventure. With “Captain America”, he had an opportunity to work with a real Marvel hero, and he tried to tell his cult story, including the redesign of the suit and a tribute to Jack Kirby.

Although Captain America is a seemingly simple character for a film adaptation, a hero in a blue and red costume with an impenetrable shield, this is a free interpretation with numerous “poetic freedoms”. This, among other things, brought negative publicity, especially among fans of the original comic. But all those interventions are more superficial than essential and actually favour some subliminal messages and symbolism of the scenario.

In 1936, while the Nazis are coming to power, the fascist regime kidnaps a boy genius and tests an experimental serum on him. The result: a physically superior and psychologically unstable creature that becomes the Red Skull. Appalled by the consequences of her work, a scientist, doctor Maria Vaselli runs away and decides to help the Allies. It must be noted here that the origin of the Red Skull was modified, probably to make the filming easier and relocated to Italy, whose locations were supposed to replace California and New York.

Seven years later, Vaselli completes her formula and turns Steve Rogers, a brave but physically weak soldier, into Captain America - the first American super soldier. Soon after Rogers’s transformation, a spy kills Vaselli, who takes the science of the experiment to the grave. The idea that a woman is the creator of an American superhero was fresh and underexploited in comic books of the time.

Here, Steve Rogers is not a boy from Brooklyn, but from South California. He suffers from cerebral palsy and volunteers to participate in the “super soldier” experiment. Captain America embarks on a mission to stop the Red Skull, whom he had severely wounded during a conflict. Nevertheless, he was defeated and is tied to a racquet heading towards the White House. Flying towards America at the last minute, he prevents the assassination of the American President by stomping his feet on the rocket, thus diverting its course towards the Arctic, where it remains frozen for decades.

It is 1990, and Captain America was found under the icebergs 40 years later. Although time has stopped for him and everyone else has aged considerably, he returns to life and soon faces the Red Skull again, now the leader of a powerful criminal organization whose plan is to kidnap the President of the United States and thus become the President himself. The Red Skull leaves the dirty work of eliminating Captain America to his daughter and her band of spoiled Nazi girls, who are dressed in branded clothes, drive fast cars, and are skilled with weapons.

The modified, that is, thematically adapted narrative of the original Captain America comic wants to function in the form of an action film, but Matt Sallinger in a padded costume which “plays” muscles, carries this role with visible weight. His unconvincing costume was made of spandex, a type of synthetic material. The word spandex was made based on the word expand, and it was used to expand Captain America’s muscles when visual effects were significantly poorer. It was “inflated”, so even for the time the film was made, its over-convincingness, along with its comedic performance, is quite unconvincing.

Technically, the film is not poorer than other Sci-Fi titles of that time. However, realistically speaking, the film is funny, and from a modern viewpoint (although that was true back then, too), it is very flat, with numerous clichés and predictable “coincidences”. Captain America is a handsome man with blonde hair wearing a too tight costume, whose shield flies using wires which couldn’t be digitally hidden at the time. The Red Skull is an evil character, without nuances or background; just pure bad guy. The story is a simple quest for a villain, consisting of action sequences and a lady in trouble here and there.

All those imperfections contribute to the retro charm and self-confidence of the superhero, as well as to the atmosphere of the superhero films which we remember from the 1980s. Also, for many fans of Marvel comics today, they are a reminder of the days when they devoured them, and for younger viewers, they are an example of what superheroes looked like before Marvel took over the film world. And many of them liked it back then. Today, with numerous versions of Captain America, it has gained a cult status and thus has his own place under the Sun, offering light entertainment and a dose of relaxed laughter - the kind of laughter when you want to comment on every scene and action.