Comic Book Cinema
Captain America (1990) Review (Feat. Jeremy Doty, Jason Gault, & Jarid Mayo)
Who did Red Skull create those children? So many ways they ask that question family friendly. That's the sequel. Probably going to send his wife to fight Captain America in the sequel. You got the plastic surgery in the luxurious hair like the luscious hair or is it before when he's all glass-eyed and Cemetery looking. That's a good question. That's an important point. Maybe they were adopted. No, they look just like it. When I was a kid there were only a few superhero films that I had access to. The Christopher Reed Superman films, the Tim Burton Batman films and this movie. The very idea, the simple fact that we had a film with Captain America in it was a big deal to me. I never owned this and I never had a copy of this recorded on VHS like Borat says, "V.C.I. this is a V.C.I." But I never had a copy of this, but I would always go to the public library in my hometown and check this movie out. I checked it out probably over 15 times. This film in a way, not as much as Superman for and some of the Burton Batman films, but in a way it holds a small special place in my heart. With that being said, even then I knew that this was not a good movie. I was just, like I said, excited to see one of my favorite superheroes on the screen and you can ask Jason and probably Jeremy too. I was always a fan of Captain America. Even before Captain America became famous back in the MySpace days, I might or might not have started a trend with putting CA before your name. If you were a big Captain America fan, we had profile pictures featuring Captain America. I really went into this because it's been years, maybe decades since I've seen this movie. I really went into this movie expecting the worst. My expectations were very, very low because I hadn't ranked at about a 0.5, but I will say that it was a little bit better than what I thought. What did you guys think? Well, we're just waiting on you. We know you got thoughts. Well, you know, I tend to like bad movies. Like that's kind of my gimmick. This one was, it was almost not enjoyable. I recently watched Madam Web a second time with my wife and that is fun to make fun of. This movie is not fun to make fun of. I'm just a president. Thanks. Mr. President. Thanks. So I've never seen it before, Jonathan. And so it comes down. Let's watch this together. And so we put it on and we made it to like an hour in and we hit pause to go to the bathroom or whatever and she said, I need to know how it happened. Like how it ends. What happened to it? I said, are you really enjoying this? And she said, no, but it's kind of like an alternate take on the Captain America that I know. I mean, my wife and I were both extras in Captain America, the Winter Soldier. So we're kind of a big deal. Oh, yeah, my guy over here. So we needed to know what happened. But then when it happened, we were like, we really didn't need to know what happened. That was pretty bad. I think what it was is I was expecting it to be '90s bad, but it seemed like it was made in the '70s. It seemed like they made it in the '70s and they released it in '93. So that's what was kind of, "Huh, that was strange." While you're on that thought, the same producer from Masters of the Universe and Super M4 brought us this film. And they emerged from canon films. They re-titled to 21st Century something films. And let's just say it definitely didn't look like it was from the 21st Century. It really had that low budget feel for a '80s film. So yeah. It was terrible to be honest, just straight out. But if Captain America did anything well, it was just the absolute look of the amusement. The actor had this wonderful, bemused face. And I don't know if that was intentional or not. I don't know if he was just in the role or what, but it came across well. I don't know, man. It wasn't great. Like you said, it felt more like a cheesy '70s movie than it did like a '90s movie. It felt so much more dated, but that also could be that it came out around the time that all of us were born or about to be born. Actually, I don't know. I'm young. Wait, never mind. I'm just old. I'm just young. You were five? This movie, I often get to get the release date confused. That's another fun fact. The movie released in Great Britain in 1990, but in theaters. But then later went straight to video in 1992 in the United States. Which is I probably wasn't born depending on what what month it came out. So for me, like looking back at it, like if I had to believe that movies from that time period were shot like that, it makes me feel ancient. Because it really does. Like you think about it 30, what, 34 years ago, 32 years ago, you know, at the time, I don't know. I wasn't. I was not a fan. I did enjoy just how bad it was and looking forward to what all Jason's gonna have to say. But you know, it is what it is. Another interesting choice that was made here. There were several, you know, there was a different name for the sign that created the super soldier. It was Vaselli instead of Dr. Erskins. One of those little minor things that you see with these '80s projects. Same reason that they wanted to name Bruce Banner, David Banner, in the original show because they thought that Bruce sounded gay. The doctor's name sounded gay. Maybe. They were going woke. They were woke in the '90s before woke was cool. We need a woman that's not white to be the doctor. Red Skull was Italian. Mamma Mia. That Red Skull design was not awful at the beginning. I think it was actually like, it looked bogus, but it was actually scary. Like, truthfully, if you look at it, it's like, okay, that's actually like, if you came across that, it would be really rough to not be like, oh, God, what is happening? I'm dead, man. This is it. I'm done. That was scary. And even, you know, the transition into what he looked like after. That bull head of hair got me, dude. Yeah. You're using the same thing that I am. The Nazis developed it. That's what it is, right? You get to keep that beautiful hairline. I did have two thoughts, though, because you know me, I always try to make things better. Yeah. The first thought I had was it would be brilliant if in like one of the first three Captain America's in canon, this movie got released, at least the beginning of it, because it kind of seems like a reenactment of the first movie, but different. So that would be interesting. I'm down with that. I like that a lot. Say that again, because I'm not sure I understood exactly. Basically, the movie has already happened in the 90s, right? Yeah. If they could somehow make acknowledgement to it in the new current movies, like it's a made for TV movie about Captain America, like an inside joke. I think that would be fun. Maybe a small Easter egg, but nothing. Yeah, an Easter egg. I'm not talking like a whole feature. And two, I would love to see this Captain America cross paths with Daflo and Grins Punisher. I need that crossover in my life. I think it will be over very quickly, because this Captain America is not up to par. I don't know, man, when he beat up those guys with his tucked in shirt. Honestly, on an honest note, I think X-Men 2000 took a little bit of inspiration from the origin story from the Red School in this film, maybe just a little smidge. When you think about Magneto's origin in X-Men 2000, very similar here. I mean, this did come out 10 years before X-Men. So I think that there were several moments in the film that kind of had me going, huh, even maybe the 2010 Captain America might have even took some inspiration from that diner scene. Just a little bit, you know, when they go into the diner and it's a super secret place and they have to pull a lever to access the super secret layer. You remember the grandma that got shot in Captain America 2010? It didn't happen. Dude, what do you think about the thought that like the idea that they just shot Captain America? Let me give a little bit behind the scenes here. I got text message at 1230 to watch this movie and I was like the first like 20 minutes Captain America got shot and I was like, what? Did that surprise you more than the first 20 minutes? Steve is lighting up a cigarette in the back seat. Yeah, and he's from California. I did. I like to see this cat. This is my guy. He was stress-jared. He was going in for a big procedure. He was. Honestly, I think given their probably extremely low budget, they did a, I'm not going to say a really good job, but they did the best they possibly could with the budget that they had. I won't say that the writing is terrible. The acting and the special effects are. Can we talk about the fact that this Captain America has a move? Like his move is to be like, I think I'm going to get sick. And then he just grabbed after all it was your car. He definitely did that. That was interesting. And I'm not sure it had a low budget. They got Ned Beatty in this movie, dude. Ned Beatty's like off of deliverance at this point. It definitely had a low budget and I will put that up in post. Yeah, they did have a few larger name actors. They had Ned Beatty from Deliverance. They also had a few actors from a Christmas story. Yeah, fun fact. Yeah, which ties in the Ironman. Yeah, there you go. So it's canon now. It's connected. Hey, the best we could possibly get Secret Wars. This Captain America comes in and joins him on the line. Years just out there. As long as it's not cold, dude, his ears would get real cold. Okay, I'm glad you brought up his ears. Did you guys notice that the ears are actual rubber ears on the costume? They're not as real human ears. They're rubber ears that were put on the costume to made or made to look like human ears. Because you guys are much younger. You kids, they used to refer to this movie as the rubber ears Captain America movie. There's a difference between that one and the Chris Evans movie. So this was rubber ears Captain America when I was growing up. I think I've heard that before, Jared. And I always thought they were referring to his rubber wings that are very large. But he actually had rubber ears. So he is interested in this girl named Bernie. That's strange. They could have called her Sharon, not Sharon. They could have called her Peggy. Why didn't they just call her Peggy? But then they named the daughter Sharon. That's strange. So I need to watch the credits to see because remember she got married. So she had a different last name and I thought, oh, maybe it's Carter. And I looked no last name for Sharon. But Sharon is and Bernie are the same actress. Yes. My mind was blown. I just, what? I couldn't believe it. I thought that old Bernie was young Bernie in makeup. And it was. But she was also playing her daughter. And so you never saw them in the same scene like looking at each other. It was crazy. I mean, so maybe the budget was low. It was definitely low. I thought Matt Salinger looked decent in the costume. Now we talked about the costume itself. It didn't look decent, but at least you could say it was comic accurate in today's day and age when they try to change a lot of things from the source material. I'm sure that purists like Jared, we're very happy with this. I mean, the cover, the cover of the VHS looks perfect. Yeah. America just don't move. Don't say anything. You're good to go. Yeah. Well, a lot of other things were not faithful to the source material. Like we talked about the Italian red skull and everything else. Why is he Italian? Like there's got to be history about that, right? Maybe they thought he would be a little more sympathetic if he was Italian instead of German because it's certainly seem like they were going the sympathetic villain route here as opposed to the I just want to see the world burn villain. He did hear that tape recording and reacted. Oh man, when he's going off a cliff and bouncing and hitting and as he goes down, it looks so fake. That's fantastic that I want my villains like I would like to see my villains get bounced off of a bunch of things before they hit their ultimate final destination. Like that was kind of cool. Also, I think this movie kind of borrowed and this is going to sound crazy. Hear me out? It borrowed a little bit from Tim Burton's 1989 Batman and the fact that the villain seems to be more like his origin story is longer than our heroes. And I would bet he gets more screen time. That's some stats going to have to be pulled up in post. We have to see that. Cap stats. Well, imagine being the director of Captain America and you're working on this film and Burton's Batman just hits theaters. You know, oh my gosh, I got to follow this. No, release it in the in the UK and then straight to video in the US. Like, how do you follow that? And what kind of sense does that make to release this movie in the UK and theaters but then wait two years to put it on the United States? I mean, it is Captain America after all. I thought this was a made for TV movie. I'm not going to lie to you. It really feels like it. It's not in that awful territory. It's it's better than Nick Fury, Agent of Shields starring David Hasselhoff. That film was a made for TV movie and it's just literally like the best way I can describe it is it's just unwatchable. There is nothing fun about that movie whatsoever. Nothing. And Madam Webb is just barely above that. So this at least has a few moments and a few scenes where you're having some fun. Oh, yeah. I had fun the second time in Madam Webb. I will never go back and watch that movie as long as I live. Even my wife, we always even if I go to the theaters by myself, which I often do, especially when I'm traveling like I am now, yeah, we always go back and watch the film, even if it's a morbius or even if it's a whatever. Madam Webb, I told my wife, I was like, I'm never watching this movie again. If you want to watch it, feel free, but I strongly recommend not to. I couldn't finish it. I tried watching it this week and it just it was just ridiculous. I was like, man, I can't even tell what's happening half the time. It's like a Michael Bay film, man. Transformer. So you can't see anything. Things are happening. It's cool and all, but you don't know what's really happening or what. You're just along for the ride. My wife thought on Netflix scrolling through and she said, I watch this preview. Do you know anything about this Madam Webb? Well, I mean, it's it's Friday night. I'm gonna let you pick the movie. We found something else thankfully, but you gave. You should have warned her, Jared. Why? I mean it myself. Trust me. You know how optimistic I am about every comic book movie. Yeah, I hated this movie. On the second watch, it washes a little bit like the room. I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not. Oh, hi, Mark. Room is way better. Yeah. Room is awesome. The room is fun to watch. You got to lay off the cigarettes like Captain America. You're coughing over there. There's nothing more American than laying up a smoke with no windows down. Right. That's freedom. Freedom is not free. There is a hefty fee, Jason. Learn that when he was controlling that rocket. Oh my God, that's right. He just kicked it. That's all you need to do to change. Well, now you wrote it. He lassoed it almost like a horse. And then he created the next president of the United States, junk. And he's from Springfield, Ohio, which is where we go to church. Like, wow, thank you. Could've been you, dude. Well, I also, can we also talk about poor Bernie's husband? Like the poor guy. He's just like, what, what, what's going on here? He just came in. He's hugging my wife and I was going to stay over and he gets us all killed. Wow. Wow. Bernie and I got the watch Wheel of Fortune. That's pretty sweet. Well, Bernie, also, she's like, I'm going to buy this house in hopes that you come back, but I'm going to marry this other guy and have and share him with him. And definitely got the crap into the stick. Yeah. Very short in a stick. The Red Skull's daughter way short in a stick. Big time. Why are you sending your two daughters who get their butt kicked by Bernie's daughter at the end of the film after the super soldier? Does that make? I'm softening on this movie. I think I might love it. Like I said, I went into this with very low expectations because me and Jared and, you know, some of the other folks on Combo Center might have covered some really, really bad movies. But this was a little bit of a breath of fresh air especially compared to Madam Web. You made me watch Nick Fury for one of those shows and I never would have done that to myself. And as bad as Madam Web is, Nick Fury is worse. Just throwing that out there. It's been a minute since I've seen it. I'm not going to lie to you. I know I've never seen it. Yeah. Don't watch it. If you turn it on, you'll know right away that you hate it. I finished it, but I can't tell you anything about it. I thought the exposition was really funny sometimes. Like the Italian scientist who recently escaped Germany, you know, they throw all that stuff out in the exposition like as they're talking about everything. What was also for the environment? This whole thing was to save the environment at the end. Oh yeah. What was that about? A very woke narrative there, Jared. There was a lot in here. Like white guys are bad. You need to be an ethnicity and a woman to be smart. She saw she knew what was happening at that castle. All right. She knew what was going on. She walks and she stands and she looks at it and is like, oh no, now I have conviction. I'm going to run and jump out the window and climb down the rocks and what? I think it was like a child. But if it would have been a grown man, she'd been okay with it, but you can't do that to a child. She just didn't strike me as a rock climber though. In her lab coat. When you see horrific things, sometimes you do stuff, man. True. So she and then they got the environment. They got that through in there. It was a very 2024 movie in 1990. It was that president was like, hey, we got to stop all these plastics. I'm not down with the plastics. A lot of people are going to lose jobs, but you know what? No more plastic. No more plastic. We can't do it. We don't like those pesticides either. Maybe it said in the movie and I just missed it. Who did Red Skull create those children? So many ways they ask that question, family friendly. That's the sequel. He's probably going to send his wife to fight Captain America in the sequel. You got the plastic surgery in the luxurious hair, like the luscious hair, or is it before when he's all glass-eyed and pets and material. That's a good question. That's an important point. Maybe they were adopted. No, they look just like it. They have his eyes, huh? Yeah, I had Springfield, Ohio written down. I thought that was neat how that got a name drop for Jared. That was cool. That's crazy. You have been president, man. Oh, could I shut the neck? I'm not though. Now I just got a man bun living in Beaver Creek. Yeah. Life become. I voted for you, man. Already I voted for you. It was also funny that he stopped and looked at the carving that him and Bernie made on the beach before he actually went to Bernie's house. He stopped and took a good few minutes there, like looking at that carving. In some moments of this film, it really felt like Team America to me. But that beach should have been filled with like crackheads and stuff. This is California. Well, those bunkers were there, Jared. They were for cigarette, and he probably had one. Yeah. He's like, "I was going to bum my cigarette off you. I'm Captain America." Dude, you got to stay away from those bunkers. I don't trust punk rockers. Yeah. The man out of time was handled. I thought pretty decently in this film as well. They had speaking of on the beach, you know, everything was kind of a shot, but it was also went through pretty quick in the film too. But really in the modern day cap stuff, we really didn't get that much man out of time stuff in Winter Soldier. They were so focused on fleshing that story out. I thought that it would have been fun to explore a little bit more of that in the current MCU. Yeah. When he went to the diner, we had him as a man go into the woman's bathroom too, and that's a lab today. So like, this movie is just so progressive. I didn't even realize. Well, excuse me, it's ma'am. What do you think of that rat? It's a guy. The scariest thing I've ever seen in my life, Jason. Dead love. The monkey? Was it a rat monkey? Yeah, it's a guy. When I asked for the lord. There were moments of really bad laughable acting. Like, for instance, the military officer on the news, when they said the president had been captured and he looked so guilty. He was just like, oh, I don't know anything about that. Oh, we'll get him. Also, how did the president know her name was Sharon? Did you guys notice that? NSA, brother. No, I'm serious. Like they were both in the prison and he looked down, you know, like below and he's like, Sharon, you're going to be all right. Well, I would bet there might be an explanation for this. So the kid saw Ned Betty's friend saw Captain America riding that rocket like a horse and he said, I'm gonna find out everything about this man. And then he found Betty and he was like, let me just keep tabs just in case that rocket man ever shows back. So we knew Sharon and that's not creepy at all. Let's be honest, that haircut, that's a Sharon. He knew. He was like, oh, your name's Sharon or Linda, isn't it? I'm going to go but if it's not Karen, it's got to be Sharon. When you talk about acting, whoa, Sharon, she was she was overdoing everything. Yeah, I also love the fact that he just told everyone that I'm going to go be Captain America. There was like no secrecy at all. He's just like, yeah, I'm going to be Captain America. They had to take a picture again. Jason just watched it 30 minutes ago. He knows every detail from his brain. It is very fresh, Joe. At the beginning of the movie, he had a party after the 20 minutes of fun and what happened with the Red Skull. He limped in, limped in and they're like, look how scrawny this guy is. And they're like, take a picture with us and he's like, I gotta go see Betty first. Yeah, that's right. This polio at the beginning of the movie, that was so bad. And really his appearance didn't change at all. But once again, their resources were very limited. So guys, with all that being said, if you had to rate this film on a scale from zero to 10, zero being awful, unwatchable, just like Madam Webb, I never want to see it again, and 10 being perfect. Where would you rank it? I'll start. Like I said, initially, I had this film rate at a 0.5. And that was only based off of my limited memories of it watching it, you know, 15 years ago. But after watching it today, I have the film rate at a one from a 0.5 201. I have it put right above Catwoman from 2004, because it's a little bit better than that, but also a little not quite as good as a lecture, which is also a one. But I think that a lecture was just a little bit better than this. There were more ninjas, it had probably bumped it up. Yeah, and there was also a ninja in that lecture film that came into her house. And once he was captured, he broke his own net to escape. Without any leverage or anything, like using his hand, he just said, he's did this. It's really hard to do, John. It takes a lot of training. It probably sits at a one probably for me too. I mean, I would never watch it again, unless I was watching it, ironically. So I have really low expectations for it. I was expecting Hasselhoff's Nick Fury. So then to watch it and not experience that, I feel a lot better about it. And because I think like 70% of it tried to stay true to the comic book storyline, I'm going to give it a three. Wow, probably wouldn't rewatch it. But I mean, I would rewatch it with my nephews and we could laugh at it and point our fingers, but I wouldn't rewatch it like seriously again. Hi, prey is coming from Jared. What do you think, Jason? I'm going to say a point nine. I would put it on the same category as Howard the Duck. So I'd probably rewatch it because I'd rewatch Howard the Duck many times. I think that Howard the Duck's a lot better though, because only because of the Dark Overlord that was in that film, his performance was just so over the top. Have you done an episode on Howard the Duck? Oh, yes, I have. Okay, I have to go back and look at the back. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for joining me. If you haven't already, make sure you like, share, and subscribe. It really helps us with the algorithm. Check out Jared's channel. He's got a lot of cool content on YouTube and also check out Jason explains it all in podcast format, as well as your imaginary podcast. Check us out on the other socials and until next time. Have a good one. Let's light up a smoke. [Music]