Filmic Friday 5: Captain America (but not that one)

Movie: Captain America (1979)

Format: VHS (I think)

Imagine, if you will, a world where Captain America never fought Nazis; a world in which he was little more than an ex-military beach bum in a weird van, and who was obsessed with “finding himself”; a world where Steve Rogers’ dad is the one to create the superhero serum. Which is actually just mega-steroids. Seriously, they call it a steroid.

This is the world of Rod Holcomb’s TV movie version of Captain America.

It stars Big McLargeHuge of Space Mutiny.

The movie starts with eternally long shots of the world’s ugliest van.

After an interminable time of watching the unbelievably buff lead (Reb Brown) wander around the seashore and read a letter, someone tries to kill him (not with a forklift, sadly) by spilling a bunch of oil on a dangerous cliffside road. Brown crashes but walks away with nothing but a torn shirt. Suddenly, we’re in a lab, and people are babbling about things no one cares about.

We were all waiting for Captain America to show up.

Spoilers: He doesn’t show up until much, much later in the movie.

The plot doesn’t matter, really. There’s something about a Neutron Bomb, I guess. But then the bad guys succeed in causing our “hero” an accident he can’t walk away from. Van upside-down in a ravine after sliding off an oily road? No problem. Motorcycle slides slowly out from under him and deposits him gently on the side of a steep embankment? He’s legally brain-dead and his scientist buddies pump him full of a serum that, earlier, killed every rat they’d tried it on.

Finally, Rogers wakes up to find he’s got super-strength. And that’s about it. Which fits – Captain America isn’t really that far outside the norm in the comics (strong, good endurance, functionally immortal but not invincible…) - but it doesn’t make for great tv, which is why this movie is only one of two. It was supposed to be the pilot, I’m pretty sure. The second movie, “Captain America: Death Too Soon,” is supposed to be even cheesier, somehow, so I don’t know how the 70s/80s didn’t just drown under all that Velveeta…

If you’re wondering what the best part of the movie is, it’s this (at 0:29 because Blogger does not like to use the embed function when I'm typing. Halp).

We were howling!

The rest of the movie is Captain America trying to rescue his girlfriend? Sister? Friend? I dunno, there’s two of them and they look pretty identical to me. He runs around and punches things and people on his rocket-powered, sometimes-”silent”, motorcycle, and his shield is partly see-through. The music says “bew-bew” a few times, and then he wins.

Yes, he wears both costumes. Yes, they're terrible.

Rocket-Cycle to the rescue!

It's the same van, but somehow he can be on the bike and launch out the back safely?

Not!Carl Sagan is a main character. He also likes to walk barefoot on the beach with Captain America.

It’s a great and terrible movie, tbh. 10/10 would watch again. Even though NOTHING HAPPENS through most of it :P

I’m not gonna go all the way over the plot, since even though there is one it isn’t that interesting, but I will say this:

Any movie where the sequel has a similar plot to Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter is worth a watch.

For other (better) looks at this film, check out this guy’s blog and this guy’s blog.

Go Enjoy Something, folks!

FC

(Also, if anyone knows how to actually embed a video complete with the time-stamp option, please let me know. I spent an hour trying to get that to work >:( )