Speed 2 Month Day 4: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

It’s Independence Day in the United States, celebrating when we threw off the yoke of the oppressive British Empire by giving them a different meaning to the two-finger salute. I choose to be wholly red, white and blue (almost put bleu, which is so wrong on more levels than in D&D) today by showcasing another crappy flick that fits into SPEED 2 Month by, obviously, putting Jan de Bont’s blasphemy of celluloid history to shame.

Once Upon a Time, Marvel Studios didn’t exist as anything more than a production company for animation. In fact, the best live-action product based off a Marvel property before 1990 was THE INCREDIBLE HULK television series. Marvel desperately wanted to get their characters on the silver screen, particularly after the great success of the 1989 BATMAN movie. They had plans for Spider-Man, which was still in development at the time that CAPTAIN AMERICA got the green light, staffed, filmed and then… well, it wasn’t exactly released. Not here. Not where the good captain gets his name from. I wonder why?

The aforementioned Britons got to see the Captain America film two whole years before it went direct-to-video in 1992. I recall reading the updates on the film (and that of Spider-Man and the mire that became) back then. There were so many comic book character movies “in production” at the time, all due to the grand success of Batman, it was hard to keep up. I remember thinking that the movie couldn’t be as bad as the telefilms of the 70’s, where Captain America had a transparent plastic shield he’d mount to his boss trailbike. I remember thinking that it had to be better than the Punisher movie that starred grunting Dolph Lundgren. Really, could it be so bad that 20^th Century Fox would announce the release of the movie with posters and other ads, and then just let it sit? Well, yes.

Let’s start with the budget. 10 million dollars set aside for a movie produced by Menahem Globus, of the notorious Golan-Globus company. With the movie being filmed in, where else for a Globus movie, Yugoslavia, I wonder how much of that money actually went to making the picture. Then we have the star, all-American boy Matt Salinger. Matt, as his surname gives away, is related to noted reclusive writer, J.D. Salinger. In fact, when Matt was announced as Captain America, it drew all sorts of attention on the writer, his daddy. Poppa Salinger went as far to tell some media relations that he wasn’t pleased with Matt’s choice in career, nor that of sister Jessica. It was weird news then, and now would surely be screened to death on all the websites and infotainment shows that stalk celebrities. That aside, Matt isn’t the biggest speedbump in the movie. I didn’t find him terrible, just inexperienced. Though he may have been a bit stiff, it wasn’t his fault to completely shift the history of the character away from fighting Nazi’s during WWII and replace it with Fascist Italians. Yep, to get away from all those movies where Nazism had been overused as villains, some intrepid writer thought making the baddies part of Il Duce’s crew more interesting. Strangely, that’s not that bad of an idea, except that no Nazi-busting by Captain America in WWII is just plain silly. And yes, the script even called for changing the backstory of Cap’s main foe, the Red Skull, to Italian. If you thought the fans scream and cry out now, you should have heard them then. They’d already boycotted the movie before it was released. Did Joe Simon and Jack Kirby get a credit? Sure did. Did they get paid? Probably not, but hey, who cares, right? They weren’t alive at the time… o wait, they were. Hmmm.

Digressing. One day I’ll get into the hideousness of Marvel Entertainment, Warner Brothers and all others that don’t give proper credit and pay the creators properly for their efforts, but not now.

In short, inexperienced actor for Captain America. Nazi Germany ignored. Fascist Italy brought to the forefront. The Red Skull becomes a smooth-talking Italian. Filmed in Yugoslavia. And the coupe-de-grace, the costume had rubber ears. Yes, rubber ears. Here, look for yourself:

The story is that the costume with ear cutouts kept either pulling Salinger’s ears or cutting them, or both, so they rigged up fake ears on the outside of the cowl. It’s not easy to see in the shot, but when you see them on film you howl in hilarity. Later, when the Red Skull removes his mask (yes, it’s a mask here), some fans howl in rage. I never understood why, the Skull didn’t always have a mutilated face to look like a skull. That came later. Dorks.

The movie itself isn’t a thorough disappointment. You do get a good feel of Steve Rogers (aka Captain America, for those not in the know) being a man out of time after being defrosted and returned to the land of the living. Scott Paulin wasn’t terrible as a different version of the Red Skull, it just didn’t work as a whole. The action shots aren’t great, the shield throwing isn’t great (although the physical shield is pretty damned nice to look at) and Ronny Cox was flying higher than Princess Leia in RETURN OF THE JEDI when he was on screen, but this first flop for Marvel is still a far cry from SPEED 2. Remember, 10 million dollar budget vs. 120 million dollar budget. Big plans vs. big hopes for a cash return. Great idea with a bad rewrite and a long gestation period vs. stupid idea with NO PLOT and short gestation period.

A Leaf on the Wind will take a couple of days off to scrape the memory of these movies from the brain, wash, rinse, repeat (with beer), and refill with more shit for you to rediscover. I’m thinking something I actually like. Maybe RED SUN.

Happy 4^th of July.