Review: Captain America has been what I see as an American Icon as far as superheroes go and he dates back to around the world war 2 era. There has been films before that were about Captain America which were campy and in alot of ways bad. I remember back in the early 90's I found this particular film at the video store and since I was a comic book fan I decided to rent it. At the time I thought it was awesome and was hoping they would make a sequel, but of course that never happened. Anyways lets start the autopsy!
Originally this Captain America film was slated to be released theatrically, but for whatever reason it got thrown onto home video. At least this got a release unlike the rare Fantastic Four film that was supposed to be released around that time. Now does this film stand the test of time and is still enjoyable all these years later, well yes and no. Captain America follows Steve Rogers who is turned into a super soldier by scientists to fight for freedom in world war 2, but one thing leads to another and he gets lost and frozen. Years later he has been found and revived and once again he suits up to fight against his nemesis Red Skull!
The biggest thing I can say that I found to hinder this film was the fact it was made on such a low budget. It is a film that if it would of had more to work with could of been that much better. I am not trying to say that bigger budgets make better films because that is far from true, just look at the current Michael Bay films. Aside from the budget I really like what this film had to offer as far as cast and story goes. Matt Salinger plays as Steve Rogers and I think he did a fantastic job at doing so. He played the character straight forward and seemed to embrace it a more genuine way and making it more realistic. There was also the great talent of Scott Paulin as Red Skull who in my eyes is one of the coolest looking bad guys. Scott did an excellent job as well of embracing the character and doing great with what he had to work with.
As far as when it comes to the storyline I wish they could of taken even another 10 minutes and added it to the film and take those 10 minutes to show more of Red Skull's story and what he went through. Sadly that does not happen so the character didn't get a chance to develop quite as much. Putting that aside I loved everything else that they did. As much as this film does have it's flaws I still think it's worth checking out especially if you like comic book films. This works great as a double feature along the side of the rare Fantastic Four film I mentioned before.
The presentation of this release it great and is a millions times better than the old full frame VHS and it's 100 times better than the DVD that was released a couple years ago through MGM. The picture quality is very high and does look excellent for what you get considering the look of the film. Now when it comes to the special features there really only is one on there and it's a "look back" at the film with the director Albert Pyun and Matt Salinger. The featurette has them talking about the making of the film and the pitfalls they went through while making it. I really liked that featurette alot. There isn't anything else on the release for special features which is fine because this is still a cheaper than most release from Shout! Factory. I say pick this one up and enjoy this lost treasure!
-Daniel "Damnation" Lee
Director: Albert Pyun
Genre: Action/Adventure
Blu-ray Release Year: 2013
Home Video Release Year: 1994
Time Length: 97 mins.
Company: Shout! Factory
ADDITIONAL SCREENSHOTS:
Review: Captain America has been what I see as an American Icon as far as superheroes go and he dates back to around the world war 2 era. There has been films before that were about Captain America which were campy and in alot of ways bad. I remember back in the early 90's I found this particular film at the video store and since I was a comic book fan I decided to rent it. At the time I thought it was awesome and was hoping they would make a sequel, but of course that never happened. Anyways lets start the autopsy!
