Featured Audience Ratings

• Tim S

  
  I haven't seen this since I was about 10, so I can't give it a fair review. I remember my dad and I being very fond of it, and I remember that it was kind of cheap. Other than that, nothing, so I'll give it 3 stars for now... simply for nostalgic purposes.

• Luke B

  
  Back in Marvel's early 90's days. This God awful, pathetic, cheap, and cheesy film plagued the world. It's horrible. Not just the cheap costumes or poor make-up, which goes so far as to give Captain America plastic ears to stop chafing. Captain America is the worst hero… More
  Back in Marvel's early 90's days. This God awful, pathetic, cheap, and cheesy film plagued the world. It's horrible. Not just the cheap costumes or poor make-up, which goes so far as to give Captain America plastic ears to stop chafing. Captain America is the worst hero of all time. His greatest technique is pretending to be sick so that people get out of their cars. Very confusing, especially when the Red Skull is revealed to be Italian for some reason. It's also porly shot, with one segment lit entirely with blue lights, like some dodgy porno. The shield throwing soon gets old, and even it's camp charm couldn't keep my attention. I'd accept this from the 60's, but after the release of Burton's Batman, comic films should have known better. If this wasn't bad enough, some terrible song numbers are used to cause you to vomit.

• Jason S

  
  A little cheap but it was a good adventure anyway.

• Lafe F

  
  A cheap-as-heck Captain America movie done muchly at a Yugoslavian castle. The movie has a very European feel to it, which makes it very un-American. There are small-scale skirmishes with guards, but no great battles or display of Captain America's abilities. Cheesy and sad… More
  A cheap-as-heck Captain America movie done muchly at a Yugoslavian castle. The movie has a very European feel to it, which makes it very un-American. There are small-scale skirmishes with guards, but no great battles or display of Captain America's abilities. Cheesy and sad stuff.

• Mark E

  
  Ok but when's the big budget version coming?..how about an Avengers movie?

• xGary X

  
  You would not BELIEVE how bad this is. No, really. Probably made Marvel adaptations box office poison for years to come. Truly awful!!

• Dean M

  
  The role of Captain American and his nemesis Red Skull look worst.

• Sean N

  
  This week marks the release of Captain America: The First Avenger, the third superhero film released by Marvel this year and the first major theatrical release by Marvel to star 'the Captain'. This would've been the second had it not been for this low-budget 1990 film.… More
  This week marks the release of Captain America: The First Avenger, the third superhero film released by Marvel this year and the first major theatrical release by Marvel to star 'the Captain'. This would've been the second had it not been for this low-budget 1990 film. It was originally supposed to be released in theaters but never did and after watching it, I can see why because it actually is rather bad. That's not really because it's a low-budget film though. Mainly I think the problem with this film is that it adapted the character rather poorly. Now I've never read any of the comics this was based off (or any superhero comics in general for that matter) but I don't believe that this is how Captain America is portrayed in the comics because here this film portrays him rather like a wimp (I'll explain that momentarily). No it isn't the worst superhero film ever, but hopefully the new CA film is much better. The film follows Steve Rogers (Matt Salinger), a man suffering from polio, as he is chosen by the American government to be a volunteer for a project to turn regular soldiers into powerful super-soldiers. The test on Rogers is a success as he becomes the superhero known as Captain America. He is sent into Nazi Germany to take down a man known as Red Skull (Scott Paulin), who went through the same experiment Rogers went through as a young boy. Rogers manages to stop Red Skull's plan to launch a missile to destroy the White House but gets frozen in ice for more than five decades. After getting out of his icy prison in the early 90's, Captain America learns that Red Skull has become a powerful crime boss who is apparently connected to the deaths of major political figures. Along with the daughter of his wartime girlfriend Bernice (both his girlfriend and her daughter Sharon played by Kim Gillingham) and President Tom Kimball (Ronny Cox), who saw Captain America as a young boy before he got frozen in ice, Rogers looks to take down Red Skull before he tries to assassinate Kimball in order to take over the world. Now the first major problem with this film is how they portrayed Captain America. While he does have some scenes where he's kicking ass, most of the time he is the one getting his ass kicked and other times he's hiding or running away. Now again I've never read any of the Captain America comics, but I'm certain this isn't how he's portrayed in the comics. They messed up Red Skull too because after his first encounter with Captain America, he gets plastic surgery to fix his face so what's the point in calling him Red Skull if he doesn't have a red skull. How they portrayed these two characters is a major problem because in all honesty I think Matt Salinger actually did a pretty good job here as Captain America. The same goes for the rest of the cast. They're not horrible, they just weren't given much to work with. That admittedly was probably the only major problem I had with the film, but even so it's still a pretty bad film. The fact that it's low budget doesn't really affect this film at all, but at some points you can clearly see how low-budget the film really is. Like the Nostalgia Critic pointed out in his review of this film, the frequent use of captions to note the locations in the film are really annoying at times because at times it feels like it's unnecessary. One caption noting Washington D.C. isn't needed unless you really don't know what the White House looks like. Another time they use a caption to note Alaska (twice!) and both occurrences happen barely within ten minutes of each other. There are also some minor annoyances like the fact that we only see Captain America share like only 20 seconds of screentime with his girlfriend at the beginning of the film and how it is never shown how he gets his costume. Now like I said this isn't the worst film of all time, but this is a pretty poor adaptation for one of the biggest names in Marvel's vast line of superheroes. Primarily the reason why this film is so bad is because it pretty much portrays Captain America like a wimp. He repeatedly gets his ass kicked and other times he's just hiding or running away. Aside from that it's very clear how low budget this film really was and it's a shame really that most of the Marvel films that came out in the 90's were low budget (like the 1994 Fantastic Four movie that was also never released in theaters) because look how good Marvel's films have gotten today. This year they've already had two successes with Thor and X-Men: First Class. Thankfully from what the trailers have been showing so far, the new Captain America film looks way better than this crap. Even if you're a huge fan of Captain America, I don't recommend watching this film.

• Cameron J

  
  I'm a nerd, but I'm not a huge one. Still, this film will probably make anyone a nerd, because no matter who you are, you're gonna look at this and say "This is an offense to The First Avenger." Wow, calling him The First Avenger isn't helping my case… More
  I'm a nerd, but I'm not a huge one. Still, this film will probably make anyone a nerd, because no matter who you are, you're gonna look at this and say "This is an offense to The First Avenger." Wow, calling him The First Avenger isn't helping my case that I'm not that much of a nerd. But seriously though, this film is an absolute mess, but, like all a lot of other widley-panned that I dread having to call passable, this isn't terrible. Lord knows that it's not good, but it's not an absolute pain. Again, like other widely-panned superhero films, this is just incompetent. Sure, there are good things here, but not good enough to hold your interest. See, one of the worst things about this film is its being just so terribly dull. It's underdeveloped and messily told, with many abrupt events, usually thanks to such choppy editing. The cinematography is so bland, and the score is so underwhelming and generic, but at least better than the mainstream soundtrack that definately shows that no matter how much worse music has gotten, there's always been terrible songs hiding somewhere in each generation. Dialogue is so-so, but not snappy enough to forgive it's being very generic, as well. Really, I'm almost glad that they have the silly stuff, only because it is actually interesting. Of course, the reason why it's so interesting, is because you can't believe how stupid this "serious" film gets. This is an utterly incompetent superhero film, but unlike other incompetent superhero films, it had potential and has the strengths needed to meet that potential. The production designs aren't terribly outstanding, but are still rather impressive for this small of a budget, which is more than you can say about the visual effects. The action is actually fairly good. A bit cheesy and dizzingly over-edited, but on the whole, pretty exciting and well-choreographed, with sharp sound to raise tension. Of course, action choreography isn't the only complement I can give to these performers, because with the exception of most of those wooden secondary and tertiary (look it up) villains, the acting in this is surprisingly decent. Leading man Matt Silinger boasts charisma and a strong atmosphere and Scott Paulin's slickness make him an effective villain, and when these two work off of each other, it's electric, or at least it would have been if their characters weren't written so badly. Here we have two competent actors giving good lead performances, but there's so much incompetence in the direction and writing behind them, that it dilutes their strong performances and presence to where they become just as generic as everything else in this. Overall, it boasts a promising concept, carried by surprisingly strong leads, but with generecism, messy storytelling and general blandness, Albert Pyun (His name sounds like the bullet I'm sure everyone wants to here darting towards his head) "Captain America" stands as nothing more than an utterly forgettable waste of potential.

• Matthew Y

  
  This films biggest draw back is it's budget. You can't make a decent superhero film on a shoe-string budget, so if you can't get the funding you need to scrap the project, not make it anyway. Everything else wrong with this film is just a result of the "deck of… More
  This films biggest draw back is it's budget. You can't make a decent superhero film on a shoe-string budget, so if you can't get the funding you need to scrap the project, not make it anyway. Everything else wrong with this film is just a result of the "deck of cards" for not having the right funding. Bad acting: couldn't hire better actors, Bad Sets & Costumes: didn't have the money, Cheap Effects: We already spent that cash on the bad sets & costumes, etc. The only thing that I found utterly disgraceful about this film was the lighting and sound editing. "I" could have done a better lighting job, I really could, some scenes are so dim and sketchy it makes everything blurry. And the dialog in this film is very difficult to hear at times it's like they didn't catch the audio correctly during filming and had no money to retake and get better quality. A public access sound and lighting guy could have done a better job. Now onto the good points: 1) Scott Paulin actually plays an almost decent villain in this, emphases on the almost. 2) The screenplay is really not that bad. It stays close to the comics (just like the 1994 Fantastic Four) and genuinely tries to depict a serious toning for the story. If the new 2011 Captain America was filmed using this screenplay (refined and updated obviously) it probably would be a decent flick. 3) Just like Howard the Duck or 1994 Fantastic Four it has MAJOR so bad it's good quality, watch it with some friends are drink a few brews and you're in for a fun night. To watch this as a legitimate film would be like watch Plan Nine from Outer Space as a legitimate film. You simply cannot.

• Darik H

  
  "Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them." -Pauline Kael Everyone has a guilty pleasure- some sad, unusual indulgence that, even though you know it's bad… More
  "Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them." -Pauline Kael Everyone has a guilty pleasure- some sad, unusual indulgence that, even though you know it's bad for you, even though you know it has no beneficial value whatsoever, you can't help but love to revel in. Well, that's how I feel about Albert Pyun's 1991 direct-to-video Captain America. With its laughable effects, cringe-inducing dialogue, and, most infamously of all, the lamented rubber ears on the eponymous hero's cowl, Captain America hardly sets the standard for good comic-book adaptations, much less for great cinema. As a child, I despised this Batman knock-off for its faults as a superhero flick: the hero doesn't wear his costume for most of the film, the Red Skull's skull is only red for one sequence, etc. But having grown up and acquired a taste for subtlely crafted cinematic ventures as well as all-out action spectacles, I find myself inexplicably drawn back to this celluloid disaster. Matt Salinger redefines bad acting as our hero Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America. In many scenes, his reactions essentially amount to him looking towards a different part of the screen every few seconds with a blank, unresponsive gaze. Sure, he gets a few moments to shine- to date, I have never seen a man drink a glass of milk as angrily as Salinger does in this movie- but that isn't enough to save him from utter mediocrity in a part that reeks of poorly written "awww-shucks" wholesomeness. Scott Paulin as the Red Skull (whose skull is, for the most part, definitely NOT red) fares much better (or worse, depending on personal taste); his stilted accent and slicked-back hair gives him a distinctly Lugosi/Dracula feel, which is probably why I love his performance, cheesiness and all. Paulin does manage to get across a great deal of subtlety- the Red Skull's deep-seated hatred of newspapers, for instance- but he's never really given room to breathe in the film's tightly-woven plot, which is constantly moved forward via obtrusive dubbed exposition (his performance is much better as the doctor attending Steve Rogers after the Super-Soldier experiment, which included a close-up that you could almost swear was of a cardboard cut-out). The Skull's make-up is kind of lame, making his face look all puffy and shiny (in a way that says to the viewer, "LOOK! I'm wearing make-up!"); for the one scene in which his skull actually IS red, however, the effects are better than one would expect, making him into sort of a Nazi Freddy Krueger. Newcomer Kim Gillingham gets to play a triple role: young Bernie Stewart, Steve's girlfriend from 1943; old Bernie, Steve's girlfiend now married in 1993 (and sporting one of the WORST old age make-ups I've ever seen); and Sharon, Bernie's bleach blonde, suntanned, valley-girl daughter and Steve's consolation prize. She's not particularly believable as any one of them, but her Sharon is so annoying that I could help but want to throttle her through half the movie. Francesca Neri, on the other hand, plays the Red Skull's daughter (who, come to think of it, is never mentioned by name, though we do see her I.D.), a blasé euro-trash heiress with a cadre of like-minded layabouts and a helicopter to carry her motorcycles. Ned Beatty picks up a paycheck as an investigative reporter, Sam, who can, apparently, track down wandering superheroes in the wilderness of Canada and make direct phone calls to the President of the United States, his childhood buddy Tom Kimball (played by Ronny Cox in a surprisingly non-villainous turn). Cox delivers probably my favorite speech of all time as the ass-kicking President: "It's bad medicine. And nobody said the medicine would taste any good... but can we afford not to take it? I don't think so. If we don't take this medicine now, we'll all die. Slowly... but we'll die." For all its hokey effects and insanely-cut action sequences (with alternating cuts done quickly enough to induce epilepsy, if one isn't careful), this was a well-intentioned (if pitifully executed) attempt to bring an icon to the screen, and I hold true that, with a little reworking and a larger budget, this could have been a worthy effort. It may not be Star Wars- hell, it's not even Howard the Duck- but if you're willing to put up with just how abominably BAD this movie is, you might just have a lot of fun watching it...

• The S

  
  This is a very bad superhero movie featuring the wimpiest, least convincing portrayal of a superhero ever put on film and villains who get up to things that are a little too evil in a film that is otherwise aimed at youngsters. The new Captain America movie coming up in 2011… More
  This is a very bad superhero movie featuring the wimpiest, least convincing portrayal of a superhero ever put on film and villains who get up to things that are a little too evil in a film that is otherwise aimed at youngsters. The new Captain America movie coming up in 2011 doesn't have to do much more than spell his name right to be better than this.

• Jonny C

  
  Cheesy doesn't come close.

• Chad R

  
  Man - remake this already

Read all 14 featured audience ratings