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 20th
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 4th of July.
