Everybody loves the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so why not take a look at its more humble beginnings? Cory Robinson is at it again and this time he’s exploring the older movies brought to you by The House Of Ideas.



Captain America 1979



After the success of Turkey Week here at Comics-X-aminer, we’ve been bombarded with requests to do more comic book movies, but not just any comic book movies, the worst of the worst. I’ve been searching the depths of adaptation hell to look for the worst of comic book movies. So thanks to you viewers, (even though it isn’t much of a thanks) here is the next review: Captain America the TV movie.

To most comic book fans, the 1970s Marvel TV films are considered the worst movie adaptations in the history of comic books. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, but I’m going to start with the one that is the least infamous so without further ado, let’s get to Captain America.

Within the first ten seconds we are introduced to the actor who plays Steve Rogers/Captain America which is none other than Reb Brown.

For those who have no idea who Reb Brown is, here is a little recap.

and

Yes, that is the same man who is adorned with so many great nicknames courtesy of MST3k but for those of you who don’t know, Reb Brown was a somewhat reliable action star in the 1980s. Though most of his films went straight to video, that still didn’t stop Reb from acting over the top in every single one of them. Such examples include:



So what we know of Reb Brown so far is that he makes due with a cheap budget and he seems to yell a lot, so he already seems like a good fit as Captain America, well at least a cheap Captain America, he can do no worse that the Turkish one. The first two minutes just show Steve Rogers driving his van on the highway with the corniest string ensemble I heard in a long time. I think they just borrowed the music from a leftover Little House On The Prairie episode. Seriously, is this supposed to be a comic book movie and not a John Denver music montage?

Well, we first learn that Steve Rogers has just gotten out of the marines for two weeks, so I guess we can forget about the super soldier serum because Steve looks ripped as hell. But that doesn’t matter, because Steve doesn’t want to be a solider anymore, he wants to be a commercial artist. Ooookay, so does this mean that Steve Rogers isn’t supposed to be the most patriotic soldier anymore? I thought that was what made him who he was?

Anywho, Steve gets a call to meet some of his father’s colleagues at his old office but is told to come in secret. It doesn’t matter anyway because someone evil bad guy just drives up out of nowhere to tail him as if he knew that Steve Rogers would automatically know that he was going to a secret hideout complete with traps from all of the bad guys and these guys go all out with traps seen from a looney tunes short. Seriously, these bad guys orchestrate a fake road crew in under a minute complete with a wet oil slick that catapults Steve’s van off of the road and down a 30 foot drop into the ground.

Steve survives and shrugs it off as he goes to meet his father’s friend at the science lab. It is here where Steve learns that his dad was working on a “Super-Steroid” called FLAG which stood for: Full Latent Ability Gain, so you know, we can try to push some patriotism into this movie. Steve’s dad and his best friend, Dr. Simon Mills, work on this super-steroid taken almost straight from Steve’s dad adrenal glands and mutated in order to help the little guy and becoming “a super crime fighter”. So, was Steve’s dad Captain America? Then why the hell are we focusing a movie about his son, is this a sequel to the Chris Evans film? If that is the case, they were really developing the movie for a really long time.

Dr. Mills wants to use the steroid on Steve because everything else they used it on DIED. That’s right, every single animal and person they’ve tried it on died because of the injection so they think to use it on Steve because he was related to the doctor. Still, that is a mighty big risk to be injecting a steroid that kills everyone else. Steve doesn’t want to help his country anymore because he believes he paid his dues and he just wants to kick back and relax, because remember, Steve Rogers is really patriotic.

In the meantime we meet our villain, not the red skull but in fact a Roger Moore lookalike called Mr. Bracket who is trying to stop Steve Rogers from taking the FLAG serum (even though Steve doesn’t want to take it) and try to steal an equation that Steve’s dad team was working on to build an atom bomb. Steve then tries to visit one of his dad’s friends named Hayden who gets killed in a sudden instant to which Dr. Mills comes back to tell Steve that they were all working on an atom bomb and that Steve must now more than ever, take the super serum to which Steve still doesn’t want to get involved and just slack off while making drawings.

To make Steve more dislikable, the filmmakers decide to make him into a complete moron not only to add to the fact that none of Steve’s traits in this movie, are the complete opposite to that of the marvel character. To showcase his stupidity, Steve gets a call from the gangsters who tell him to meet up at an abandoned gas station so they could tell him details about killing his friend Hayden. Really Steve?You are going to fall for that trick without telling anybody? Don’t you think you should tell someone in order to have backup or at least tell people where you are going in case something happens to you like say, I don’t know DEATH?!?!?!

Anyway, Steve goes to meet the bad guys who then interrogate him about the missing formula, to which Steve grows a brain cell and realizes that these guys are bad. Steve then jumps on his motorcycle and tries to drive away from Bracket’s men until he almost gets hit by a truck and drives off the same mountain that he did earlier the day. Unfortunately, Steve doesn’t brush himself off from this 20 foot drop and he needs to be operated on. Steve is near death and Dr. Mills decided to use the FLAG steroid on Steve because he is ‘medically dead’ anyway so now is a good time than any to put an experimental drug into somebody.

Now, the drug works and Steve comes back alive but is he thankful? Hell no, because he is not guaranteed how long he will live because he now has the FLAG serum coursing through his body. Well Steve, it was either this or being a vegetable the rest of your life so might want to be a little grateful there. To make matters worse, Steve is being so pouty that he doesn’t want to run tests on himself to see if the FLAG serum did anything additional to his body. Come on Steve, at least take a few blood tests for the people that, I don’t know, SAVED YOUR LIFE!!!

Steve tries to go back to sleep while trying to be whiny as possible when not ten seconds later(and I counted) get kidnapped AGAIN by Bracket’s men. Bracket’s men have this crazy idea that Steve knows where this microfilm is so Bracket can use the microfilm’s formula to make an atom bomb, but Steve doesn’t know anything about it, so this whole movie on the point of Bracket’s men has been an absolute waste. They take Steve to a meet locker and threaten him but Steve gets to use his new powers by pushing pig carcasses into bad guys. This seems to be Steve’s only enhanced super-powers since he does this for two minutes instead of punching them, which would be too obvious.

Pushing all of that meat gives Steve a new outlook on life in which he now wants to be a hero but is afraid of being too strong, in the case that he might be holding his pencils too hard that they might break. I know this is supposed to be an analogy, but come on, pencils? Anywho, Dr. Mills repairs Steve’s van and his motorcycle to give it more of a patriotic look so he can be more of the Captain America part. We get all of the Captain America gadgets but yet no costume, the shield yes but no costume.

Oh God the shield, man does that shield look stupid, I mean look at it. It’s a piece of cheap, clear plastic that looks like it was easier to make than a Halloween prop for a five year old.

Dr. Mills keeps on insisting that the shield is ‘deadly’ but it moves so slow and makes no sound whatsoever that it might make it the worst part of this movie and yes, I am including un-patriotic Steve Rogers. Most of the time the shield acts just as a set piece to his motorcycle so we don’t get to see it in action too much. A good chunk of the movie from here on out is just him driving on his motorcycle so he can figure out that he has super-sight and super-hearing, so at least he could be on-par with Superman on a couple of things.

In the meantime, Brackett’s henchmen find the microfilm from some of Steve’s dad friends (because Steve I guess had a history of making friends of his dad’s after he died) and holds them hostage. Brackett gets the atom bomb finished but decides to attach it to his chest and rigged with his pulse so if he dies that everyone else does. He does this in order to hijack a gold mine and later nuke the cave once he gets the gold with his bomb. Dr. Mills suggests that Steve should go in and apprehend Brackett but gives him a costume so he can disguise himself. He then gives him a box to suggest he bought the costume at a department store and we finally get to see his costume.

It is by this point that I came to the conclusion that the filmmakers were more concerned about the fact that Captain America has a motorcycle rather than the fact that he has super powers and can fight bad guys because his costume kind of goes with the motif of the motorcycle. I mean, his mask is replaced with a helmet, his shield is a bug screen for his vehicle, and his outfit has an Evil Knievel look to it, suggesting that Steve is going to jump twenty school buses very soon.

Steve drives his motorcycle to Brackett’s base in order to sneak in, but fails to do so as he gets spotted very quickly. I think it has to do with the bright colors on his costume, but I’m just taking a wild guess. In order to escape them, he just jumps really high and breaks oil drums so they can all sprawl out on the ground like a Keystone Cop feature. Steve finds Brackett’s main scientist and finds out very quickly that Brackett has her and him on a truck heading towards the gold mine. Steve takes the motorcycle for another driving montage until he catches up with the truck and crushed the truck’s exhaust pipe to suffocate everyone inside causing them to almost choke to death. Remember that his mission is NOT TO KILL Brackett or else everyone in the vicinity dies. The big climax of this film does not involve a fight but rather it has to do with Steve trying to revive Brackett back from the dead so the bomb doesn’t go off.

You would think Steve would give him CPR at this point because he is a former marine and the film would be over, but Steve must of forgotten CPR or slept through training on that day because he does not know how to do it. So rather, he calls his boss to come and give Brackett CPR while he watches in the background. Our hero ladies and gentlemen, not only can he not fight but can’t LITERALLY save lives. The film is almost over at this point, he kind of saves the day and gets one last gift from his dead dad, his original Captain America costume. So, is this a sequel to the Chris Evans film? It just makes less sense than before and now I just want to hear the story about the original Captain America because this one sucks.

That’s basically it for the rest of the film, and do you know what I think? It sucks, it might just be one of the worst superhero films I’ve ever seen and I’m putting Turkish Batman on that list to compare it. Even Turkish Captain America was more enjoyable because at least he knew how to be a superhero. The real fault with this movie has to go down with the producers and screenwriters because they want to focus on the fact that Steve Rogers has a motorcycle more than anything else and I know that the filmmakers were going for an Anti-Vietnam tone for the film but if you’re going to do that, then don’t make a fucking Captain America film. It’s not like Marvel had a bunch of heroes available at that time. In retrospect, the film is a big disgrace to the franchise by making Steve Rogers whiny and un-patriotic and a script that makes zero sense.

This is only my first review of the 1970s Marvel movies and I’m already regretting it. To make matters worse is that they made a sequel to this piece of crap. Is it going to be better or worse? The answer is that I don’t care and that I will get to it eventually.

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