While I haven't seen the new Captain America movie yet (probably in a week or two), I did manage to get a little star-spangled action yesterday, thanks to Syfy (or as we sometimes call it since the name-change, "Siffy"). For you young'uns out there who may not know, this weekend's flick is the fourth time Captain America has gone in front of the lens. The first two were made-for-TV movies back in 1979, around the time Bill Bixby was turning into Lou Ferrigno every week. Not sure if Syfy ran the first movie, but I did try and watch the imaginatively-named Captain America 2...and I do mean "try". The story moved at a snail's-pace, plus it seemed like it took forever for our hero to suit up, so I ended up flipping between this and...well, just about anything else on TV. Not that I was really looking forward to seeing that particular version of the suit, mind you, but dangit, if I'm going to keep watching this junk when there's higher-quality junk elsewhere, then I want to see the friggin' suit!
And then I finally saw the suit. And the clear plastic shield. And this particular fight.
Man, I felt bad for Cap's reputation after he got his butt whipped by the dogs. On the plus side, the motorcycle is kinda cool, and they had Christopher Lee as the main baddie. Cap versus Dracula! The good captain should've done to him what he did to Baron Blood way back when. That would've made this a much better movie.
After this travesty, we finally hit the main attraction: the 1990 Captain America movie. Last time I saw this was roughly 16 years ago on cable, and call me crazy, but this direct-to-video flick isn't as horrible as its reputation might have you believe. It does manage to deliver a few good scenes (one of the best being after Cap wakes up and a reporter tries to fill him in on everything he's missed, but all Cap sees is the guy's Volkswagen car and "made in Japan" tape recorder, so Cap figures the guy's a spy and bolts), and Matt Salinger (son of J.D. Salinger) cuts a good form in Cap's red-white-and-blue duds (which are quite accurate to the comic). The problem is they try to cram a miniseries' worth of info into a 2-hour movie. The characters (Cap included) are mere sketches of people, so much so that, when people start dying, you really don't care. Oh yeah, and the Red Skull's Italian for some reason (I don't think you can discuss this movie without mentioning that). Sorry, guys, Nazis are much scarier than plain ol' fascists, so you lose a lotta points there. Seriously, though, if you get a chance, sit down and watch this one, and think of it as the Cliff's Notes version for a Cap TV series that never got made.
When I finally get my butt out to the theatre, I'll report back on what I thought of "Cap Part 4". All I can say right now is that things can only improve from here.
"Siffy" is about right, as in, s'iffy 'at any of their shows get a second season...
ReplyDeleteI watched "Death Too Soon" when they had it too, since I hadn't seen it in upwards of thirty years! I completely remembered Christopher Lee's death scene as being more gruesome...