Following on from earlier commercial successes with the Hulk and Spiderman plus the unfairly maligned Doctor Strange film, it's perhaps no surprise that Cap would be the next Marvel character to get the film treatment. This film was a straight-to-TV movie from early 1979. I dunno if it was supposed to be a precursor to a series but they ended up making a sequel later in the year. However, nothing came of it and the idea was promptly shelved for a decade. Watching this, I'm afraid it's fairly easy to see why...
It's safe to say that if you're familiar with the modern day Captain America films (or even the 1990 one) that Universal took a fair few liberties with the script for this version of the story. The main protagonist isn't Steve Rogers but Steve Rogers Jr, the son of the 1940's Captain America who we learn was killed after World War 2 finished by some shady characters. The film starts with Steve cruising up the California coast in his campervan having just completed his service with the Marines. Steve (played by Reb Brown) is a big muscular tanned blonde hippy surfer dude who now works as a freelance portrait artist (?!) and we see him calling in at his mate's surf shack to catch up where he finds out a message has been left for him by one of his dad's old scientist mates.
As it turns out, the guy's lab is only ten miles away so Steve decides to drive up to see him only to be diverted off the road by some dodgy workmen who send him up a narrow mountain road. As he's on his way up, a tanker covers the thing with oil and he ends up driving off a cliff edge. His shirt's ripped but he's otherwise unscathed (!) - however, his Mystery Machine-alike van is a write off.
Having presumably walked or hitch-hiked the remaining distance to the lab, Steve meets up with the two scientists Simon and Wendy who explain that they've been working to recreate the FLAG (Full Latent Ability Gain) serum that his dad used to get his superpowers back in the 1940s and, as he's the only genetic fit, would he be interested in helping them? Steve says thanks but no thanks then promptly returns home to find his friend Haydon brutally murdered. Soon Simon turns up as it turns out Haydon was a friend of his as well and he and Steve wonder who could be behind this.
As if by coincidence, Steve suddenly gets a phone call from someone who says they're also trying to find out who the murderer was asking him to meet them at a garage at midnight. Of course, it's a trap with Steve jumping on his motorbike to try and escape only to inadvertently drive off a cliff edge again. Bet Chris Evans never had this problem...
Steve ends up in the local ICU and Simon decides to take a risk by injecting him with the FLAG serum which ends up saving his life. He has another chat with Steve when he wakes up but he still doesn't want anything to do with the Captain America project. However, on leaving the hospital, Steve is promptly kidnapped at gunpoint by the same guys who were at the garage and taken to a local slaughterhouse. It turns out the goons were searching for a film in Haydon's house but Steve doesn't know where it is either. The thugs try to off him but they aren't counting on Steve now having Captain America style superpowers and he easily beats seven bells out of them and leaves them for the cops to collect.
Figuring that if there's a bunch of people out to kill him he's probably gonna need all the help he can get, Rogers agrees to hook up with Simon and Wendy to explore his new powers further (and get some quality smooching time with a swimsuit-clad Wendy on the beach). Simon reveals that the agency has recovered the wreck of his van and modded it to launch his motorcycle out of the back. Rogers promptly takes the bike for a spin round the agency test track only to be ambushed by two goons in a helicopter. He leaps into the helicopter from the top of a ramp jump and beats them both up before landing the thing in what's actually quite a fun if slightly overlong sequence ('70s Marvel relying on padding films out again? Perish the thought!)
Meanwhile, Haydon's daughter Tina receives a visit from Lou Brackett, an old business partner of her late father who asks her if she knows where the elusive film is hidden. She eventually remembers but of course the whole thing is a ruse with Brackett being in cahoots with the bad guys and kidnapping both her and Wendy who's popped over to pay her a visit for reasons unexplained. They're taken to an abandoned petrol plant which leads to Rogers FINALLY suiting up to become Captain America and speeding into the place on his dirtbike.
To be honest, this is probably the best bit of the film as we get an enjoyable enough punch-up between Cap and the baddies culminating in him spilling a load of oil over the yard leading to the baddies doing a pratfall en masse and Cap giving the goofiest grin possible.
Anyway, Steve rescues Tina and Wendy but Brackett has already fled the scene. Apparently he needed the film as it contained images showing him how to create a neutron bomb (what is it with late '70s Marvel films and nuclear warfare obsessed villains) and is now on the way to Los Angeles to blow it up. The trouble is that he's travelling in the back of a lorry (!) so as not to stand out meaning he's stuck going at about 40mph. This officially makes him the dumbest villain in a Marvel film to date as all Cap and Simon have to do is find a lorry from the company slowly driving towards LA. They duly do, Cap diverts the exhaust into the lorry and causes Brackett to pass out from the fumes. That's it. Literally. No big end of film fight, just a mild case of asphyxiation and a dull sequence involving a helicopter chasing a lorry. Oh and it turns out that Haydon's wife wasn't dead after all, it was just a ruse by Brackett to keep him in a vulnerable position with regards to helping the baddies. There's no preamble to that revelation at the end of the film btw.
Quite honestly, apart from the pratfall scene (which I've totally just ruined by spoilering it now, sorry) there really isn't any reason to watch this version of "Captain America". As with a lot of Marvel films of this era, it suffers from interminable padding sequences of not much happening, some real "giant sequoia" style wooden acting from Brown in the title role and just generally being very very dull. It's only really the fact that "Spiderman Strikes Back" was even duller that stops it going straight to the bottom of the league table. Universal did give the franchise another go later on in the year but as we'll see, that effort wasn't much better either. Unfortunately Cap was still a good 30 years away from starring in a decent movie at this point...
FINAL SCORE: 🎯🎯2/10
CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE
1. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
2. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
3. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
4. Spiderman Returns (1978) (2/10)
NEXT WEEK: Spiderman goes to Hong Kong (but forgets to take more than half an hour's worth of plot with him...)
No comments:
Post a Comment