Captain America: Civil War (2016)

It was in the summer of 2006 that Marvel Comics published Civil War, a massive company-wide storyline built around a seven-issue series by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven. Civil War had a huge (albeit somewhat temporary) effect on the Marvel universe, shaking up the status quo in a number of ways, most notably with the public revelation of Spider-Man's secret identity and the assassination of Captain America.

And despite the mixed reaction it got from readers and critics during its original run, it still remains one of Marvel's most talked-about stories even a decade later. Elements of it appeared in the Avengers cartoons on Disney XD, it inspired the story for Activision's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 video game in 2009, and now, ten years later, it has crept into the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe with the release of Captain America: Civil War.

Much like the comic that inspired it, the movie seeks to shake up the status quo by pitting the Avengers against not a god, not alien invaders, not an army of killer robots, but one another. And in a summer that already gave us one horrible attempt at pitting hero against hero, it's nice to see someone take that idea and make a good movie out of it.

We begin in Lagos, as the Avengers have arrived to stop members of Hydra from acquiring a deadly biological weapon. They are successful in stopping Hydra, but an attempt by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) to thwart a suicide bomber accidentally causes a number of civilian casualties. With public opinion of the Avengers already drastically declining following the incident with Ultron, this only adds fuel to the fire and leads to the United Nations to pass what it calls "the Sokovia Accords." These accords would establish a committee to oversee the Avengers, essentially putting them at the UN's beck and call.

The Sokovia Accords split the Avengers right down the middle, with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) on one side, believing that forfeiting the team's autonomy would make them political pawns instead of protectors. On the other side, however, is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), whose guilt over his role in Ultron's rampage has convinced him that the Avengers need to be governed by outside sources who would hold them accountable for their actions.

But things get really shaken up when it comes time for the Accords to be ratified in Vienna. Ten people — among them, the king of the African nation of Wakanda — are killed when the UN conference building is bombed, with all evidence pointing to Steve's old friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Already an international fugitive because of his past actions as the Winter Soldier, he immediately shoots to Public Enemy #1 across the globe despite his protests of innocence.

Not only does this mean that every law enforcement agency in Europe is looking for Bucky, but so are the Avengers that have agreed to sign the Accords. Also on the hunt is Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) of Wakanda, who has vowed to kill him and avenge his father's death. Steve is steadfast in his defense of Bucky, however, further ruining the strained relationship between he and Tony and forcing the Avengers to pick sides as the tensions rapidly reach a boiling point.

DC Comics just can't catch a break. It's bad enough that Batman v Superman was met with terrible reviews and awful word of mouth, but Civil War is pretty stiff evidence that Marvel Studios can make what is essentially the same movie and do it a hell of a lot better. Civil War is everything that Batman v Superman is not: fun, exciting, serious but never dour, and willing to let its heroes actually be heroic even in spite of their personal flaws and their quarrels with one another. And even when the movie is at its weakest, Civil War is still proof that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is firmly standing at the top of the superhero movie mountain.

Returning to direct the continuing adventures of Captain America are Joe and Anthony Russo, who once again do a fantastic job behind the camera. The movie itself is essentially Avengers 3 in all but name, but considering that the Avengers are actually fighting one another instead of some giant alien threat or an army of killer robots, it has a different feel than Joss Whedon's two movies. It feels more personal, more intimate. By putting the focus entirely on the Avengers themselves rather than their battles with some new supervillain, the Russo brothers add a level of drama you don't really see in movies like these. We the audience have spent the better part of the last decade watching these characters develop on the big screen, seeing their universe blossom and grow as they fought alongside one another. And to see them come to blows really makes the movie feel a lot more drawn in, if that makes sense. Things look differently when you're fighting your friends instead of your enemies.

But that's not to say the Russos don't cut loose and give us the spectacle we've come to expect. Oh, there's plenty of that. While I'd say the airport battle royale pitting Captain America's Avengers against Iron Man's Avengers is most certainly the movie's biggest draw and quite a bit of focus is put on it, the Russos make sure that each action sequence is the right blend of exciting, tense, and emotional. And as I said before, that feeling of intimacy makes the action feel different. The stakes feel higher since the Avengers are their own opponents for a change.

While the Russos direction is solid, the script penned by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely isn't always perfect. I doubt Mackie and McFeely wanted to write another political thriller in the same vein as The Winter Soldier, but I actually would've liked seeing that. The Sokovia Accords don't really seem that important in the scope of things, as the movie becomes more about the Winter Soldier being the wedge driven between Captain America and Iron Man rather than the Accords. The fact that this seemingly important plot device doesn't really seem that important at all makes me wonder why they even bothered. I mean, I'm sure future Avengers movies will show us that it's changed the MCU's status quo much like Millar and McNiven's comic book did, but for now, it feels a little pointless.

Speaking of pointless, I really don't see why the movie needed appearances from Ant-Man and Spider-Man. Outside of showing off that Marvel Studios had reached a deal with Sony that allowed Spidey to join the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, I just don't get why either he or Ant-Man really needed to be in the movie. But I will admit, however, that their presence here is still quite welcomed at the very least.

I'm also surprised by just how little the movie's actual villain appears in the movie. The vast majority of the movie's plot is set into motion by Helmut Zemo (played by Daniel Brühl), who is barely in the movie at all. I'd honestly be surprised if the total sum of his screen time surpassed twenty minutes. Did they just not come up with anything for Brühl to do? Did they prefer a villain who was working in the background so as not to distract from the whole "Steve vs. Tony" dynamic? It's probably more the latter than the former, but it still sometimes gives the impression that Zemo is a non-factor. Maybe I'm just used to seeing the villains being put on something even remotely resembling equal footing with the protagonists in these movies as far as screen presence goes, I don't know.

But let's move along to the cast, pretty much all of whom hand in strong performances. It seems like that's par for the course with the MCU, but it's still worth saying. Tom Holland and Chadwick Boseman are great as Spider-Man and Black Panther respectively, and I really liked what Elizabeth Olsen brought to the table as Scarlet Witch. I wish she'd been able to do this in a smaller movie more focused on her character rather than playing a secondary role among an ensemble cast, because I'd love to see how Olsen would play Wanda when the spotlight is shining on her alone. Olsen playing Wanda as being scared of her powers accidentally hurting people and being unsure of herself make for a fascinating bit of character study had the character's arc not been one of a whole bunch of different things going on in the movie.

The movie also boasts some great moments from Sebastian Stan and Paul Bettany (who returns as Vision), and the aforementioned Daniel Brühl makes the most of his limited screen time. But the stars of the show are very obviously Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. Both of them once again step up to the plate and knock it out of the park as Captain America and Iron Man. Their performances are exactly whet this movie needed; both characters are justified in their beliefs, and Evans and Downey play their parts in a way that a viewer leaning one way or the other as to whose side they'd chose to be on is totally reasonable.

While I personally think Civil War is the weakest of the Captain America trilogy, it's only because The First Avenger and The Winter Soldier are just that damn good. Civil War is still a very entertaining, very exciting way to spend two and a half hours at the movies. And that's a hell of a lot more than I can say for that absolute mess Zack Snyder and DC Comics made with Batman and Superman.

Final Rating: ***½

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

It's weird thinking that what started in 2009 with a movie based on the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man has blossomed into a mega-franchise that has grossed over seven billion dollars worldwide and shows absolutely no signs of stopping. Some people thought that the franchise's final endgame would have been The Avengers in 2012, but here we are three years and five movies later talking about an Avengers sequel. The hype machine is in full gear and the anticipation is high, but Avengers: Age of Ultron isn't quite as good as I'd hoped it would have been. But you know what? It's still pretty fun.

The movie takes us immediately into the action, as the Avengers launch a raid on a secluded Eastern European laboratory where Hydra scientists have been using the mystical powers of Loki's scepter for human experimentation and creating super-soldiers for Hydra. Despite the interference of Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), twin siblings granted superpowers through Hydra's experiments, the Avengers' raid is successful. The bad guys are apprehended and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) claims Loki's scepter for himself so that he can study it further.

His research proves fruitful, as Stark discovers that the gem within the sceptre contains a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence that Stark and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) believe could be the key to perfecting "Ultron," Stark's unfinished global defense system. But upon its activation, Ultron (voiced by James Spader) proves to be not only sentient, but also very, very angry. It downloads itself into Stark's mechanical peacekeeping drones and attacks the Avengers before escaping with the sceptre.

Using it in tandem with the now-abandoned Hydra lab's leftover resources, Ultron builds himself a new, more powerful body and a personal army of robots. He recruits Pietro and Wanda to help him in his fight against the Avengers so that they might settle an old grudge with Stark, but what the Maximoffs don't know is that he has more than just killing a group of superheroes on his mind. In truth, his final goal is far more sinister: human extinction.

I entered Age of Ultron excited to see it, but afraid that it wouldn't live up to the hype or that it wouldn't be as good as the first Avengers movie. And while I did think Age of Ultron was a tremendously fun, exciting ride, I simply didn't think it was as strong as the first one. It's a solid movie, don't get me wrong, but I felt a little... I don't know, perhaps "underwhelmed" is the word I'm looking for.

Returning to the Avengers saga is writer/director Joss Whedon, who, from the looks of it, adopted an "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" approach to making the movie. I saw a double feature of both Avengers movies at my local theater, and in watching them back to back, I couldn't help but notice so many similarities that it's like they're practically the same movie. There are differences, sure, but Whedon hits so many of the same notes that he hit back in 2012 that it feels like he isn't interested in bringing a lot of new to the table. Perhaps it was a case of burnout or being exhausted creatively, or maybe Whedon was being hassled by Marvel and Disney executives to deliver a certain kind of movie. I wasn't on the set, so I don't know for certain.

And maybe it's me, but the film's pacing seems to stutter and stumble every so often almost as if it was being put together from scraps. And truth is, Whedon's original version of the movie is supposedly over three hours long, but word on the street is that he had to do a bunch of haphazard editing due to Marvel executives being unhappy with some of the material he was producing along with wanting to keep the movie under two and a half hours.

But what I thought was the movie's real problem was its script. The plot is typical paint-by-numbers superhero stuff, and the returning characters are written pretty much the same way they were before. That's not what bugged me, though. What got me was the addition of some unexpected subplots that don't really go anywhere or add anything to the movie. Case in point: the Hulk/Black Widow quasi-romance felt awkward and forcibly tacked on. I didn't think it was really all that necessary to the story (or even well put-together, really), and all it did was make me wonder what the heck ever happened to Betty Ross? Did Liv Tyler not want to return, and Marvel Studios didn't want to replace her? Or could they be distancing themselves from The Incredible Hulk due to its relative lack of success compared to the rest of the franchise?

There were some things I did enjoy, though, like the additions of Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and The Vision to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I though each of them added something very cool to the movie, like there's more to the world of the Avengers than just good guys fighting bad guys. And I know a few people who were curious to see how this version of Quicksilver would compare to the one that appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past last year. They're so completely different, though, that it's almost not worth comparing them. X-Men's Quicksilver was barely in the movie but contributed the movie's best, most memorable scene, while Age of Ultron's is an important character and appears throughout, which means he might not make as huge an impact as the one from Days of Future Past but still plays a continually important part of the story. Apples and oranges, the two Quicksilvers are.

The movie might have its share of weaknesses, but it also has its strengths as well, the greatest of which is its cast. Many of the returning actors have played their characters so many times that they could probably do it in their sleep, and although they're not given any material to shake things up, the cast is still top notch. Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner get to do a bit more dramatic heavy lifting, with their characters being the only ones to experience any kind of growth or evolution. Both Ruffalo and Renner are great, showing why both of them were great choices for their roles. And despite the contractual hangups regarding it, I still want to see Ruffalo get his own solo Incredible Hulk movie.

But of the actors returning to the franchise, I thought Paul Bettany really stood out in particular. Having only appeared previously as the voice of Iron Man's snarky digital assistant Jarvis, Bettany gets to stretch his legs as the android superhero The Vision. While Vision doesn't appear until the third act of the movie, Bettany still gets to make a heck of an impression. He's really likable in the role, and it left me wanting to see more of the character.

Among the franchise's newcomers, we get some really great performances from Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and James Spader. Taylor-Johnson still plays his role in a way that's fun to watch, but he ends up being overshadowed by Olsen. Olsen is a very talented actress, and she brings a lot of depth and a sympathetic nature to Scarlet Witch. And like with Bettany as The Vision, I'm genuinely excited to see Olsen turn up in future movies in the franchise.

The real star of the show, though, is James Spader. One could make the argument that the Ultron we see here is kinda boring and underdeveloped (could his "kill all humans" supervillain plan be any more clichéd?), but Spader's charismatic voicework makes the character captivating to watch. He's essentially playing a dark, twisted version of Tony Stark, believing his intentions are noble but in truth causing more harm than good yet with a more intimidating, angry, evil tone to it all. Ultron takes Stark's egotism and "know it all" nature and cranks them up to a million, and Spader plays it up for all it's worth. He absolutely steals the entire movie, and despite Age of Ultron's flaws, Ultron himself makes the movie worth seeing.

I know that for a lot of this review, I've been kinda down on the movie. And personally, after how good Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were, Age of Ultron is a bit of a letdown. But I really couldn't imagine a better way to open 2015's summer blockbuster season. Even if it's nothing we haven't seen a million times before, I can't ague that the movie isn't a totally fun way to spend two and a half hours. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but then I'm totally a sucker for this kind of stuff. And there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

Final Rating: ***

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

While many of the characters in the Marvel Comics superhero pantheon made their debuts during Stan Lee's legendary run in the 1960s, one of the most popular dates back to before the company was even called "Marvel." The one and only Captain America first appeared in a comic published by Timely Comics in 1941, and has spent the last 73 years cementing his place as one of the industry's most venerable characters. It hasn't always been an easy road for Cap, as he fell into dormancy and faced irrelevance after the end of World War II, and attempts at reviving him were relatively unsuccessful until Lee and Jack Kirby introduced him into the Avengers in 1963.

Much like those attempts to bring him back into comics, Captain America hasn't had the easiest road to travel when it comes to being translated into live-action movies. The serials produced by Republic Pictures in 1944 paid little respect to the character and his comic book origins, while attempts at feature-length movies ― two made-for-television movies in 1979 and a direct-to-video effort in 1990 (that wouldn't even be released in the United States until 1992) ― were all thoroughly lame.

That changed in the summer of 2011 when Captain America: The First Avenger hit theaters. Produced as a means to bring the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and build towards The Avengers, the movie was a big fat hit and a pretty awesome flick to boot. But now it's been two years since The Avengers, and much like how the stories of Iron Man and Thor have progressed since then, Cap's story has as well. That brings us to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, another damn fine movie from Marvel Studios that once again proves why the "Star-Spangled Man with a Plan" is such a great hero.

As he continues getting acclimated to modern society, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) also maintains his activities as Captain America by operating as one of SHIELD's top agents. His latest mission takes him, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), and a team of operatives to the Indian Ocean to rescue a hijacked SHIELD freighter from a band of pirates. The mission is a success, but Natasha's odd, secretive behavior during it is enough to make Rogers suspicious of how SHIELD really works.

He has every right to be suspicious, and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) pretty much tells him that outright. Fury admits to keeping secrets from Rogers, but chooses to make amends by letting him in on one of SHIELD's biggest secrets, a classified project called "Project Insight," a surveillance program that would allow SHIELD to track and eliminate any target on Earth.

But Fury also warns Rogers to trust no one, a point he reiterates when he's attacked and seemingly killed by a group of mercenaries. Rogers follows a trail of clues left for him by Fury that leads to a horrifying discovery: the terrorist organization Hydra successfully infiltrated SHIELD not long after its inception following the end of World War II. The Red Skull's plans may have been thwarted, but Hydra has survived, secretly operating within SHIELD's ranks for decades and encouraging chaos throughout the world. Their influence goes all the way to the top, their members including United States Senators and high-ranking SHIELD official Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), who is coincidentally Project Insight's biggest supporter.

Pierce knows full well that Rogers can bring Hydra's entire operation down around them, and thus brands him a fugitive, sending Rogers on the run as he gets to the bottom of their conspiracy. Although Rogers has Natasha by his side and a helping hand from Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), a retired Air Force pararescueman with an experimental winged jetpack at his disposal, his search for truth will find a speed bump in the form of a mysterious Hydra assassin known as the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). With Hydra's forces and the Winter Soldier hot on their trails, Rogers, Natasha, and Sam must go underground if they hope to uncover SHIELD's darkest secrets, and more importantly, if they hope to survive.

The bar for the Marvel Cinematic Universe was set especially high when The Avengers came out two years ago, a bar that neither Iron Man 3 nor Thor: The Dark World really met. But then Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes along and not only hits that same bar, but completely shakes up the world of the franchise as we know it. It's got a real "must-see" vibe, a feeling that the movie is an event. Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are making a mistake if they miss this one, because Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an absolute game-changer.

At the helm are Joe and Anthony Russo, whose prior credits include You, Me, and Dupree and several episodes of Community and Arrested Development. Those credits don't make the Russos sound like the kind of guys who would make a mega-budgeted superhero blockbuster, but they actually pulled it off. The movie is energetic from beginning to end, largely due to the Russos maintaining a high level of intensity throughout. Everything feels important, even the seemingly insignificant things, because this is the kind of movie where everything is important. Nothing is taken for granted, down to the tiniest detail. Everything the Russos do here is either building to something or a payoff to something else; precious few moments are wasted.

And like all superhero movies, the action sequences are one of the movie's big selling points. Many people will be going into the movie anticipating Captain America's acts of heroism and derring-do, and these people will not be disappointed in the slightest. Each of the action sequences are very exciting and impressively made, and thankfully never resorts to that annoying "shaky-cam" that plagues so many action movies nowadays. The Russos approach these moments with a steady hand and a ferocity that makes them feel even bigger and bolder.

They also manage to make the absolute best out of the movie's 3D conversion too. I've talked about these post-production conversions in the past, about how they never look quite as good as the movies shot natively in 3D, but this particular conversion is actually pretty great. It's a consistently good conversion, with plenty of depth and pop in each scene.

Continuing with the theme of the movie's impressive components, let's move onward to the screenplay penned by Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely. Drawing inspiration from both Ed Brubaker's 2005 comic book storyline that introduced the Winter Soldier and political conspiracy thrillers from the 1970s, Markus and McFeely have penned a script that's more intelligent than a lot of other superhero movies. The dialogue is smart, the jokes are funny, and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep the audience glued to the screen, wondering what will happen next. And the whole setup with Hydra is such that it can have major repercussions within the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. The aftershocks will surely be felt on that Agents of SHIELD television show, but it also changes how one could look at the prior movies. I mean, just how entrenched was Hydra behind the scenes? A cameo from a certain character from Iron Man 2 and the revelation that he's secretly in league with Hydra completely alters the tone of his scenes in that movie. And that could just be the tip of the iceberg for all we know!

But it also makes us look at the world of Captain America as a whole. The movie pits the black-and-white world Steve Rogers where there are clear-cut good guys and bad guys against the modern world's shades of grey. It's idealism versus cynicism, hope versus fear. Captain America was created in a simpler time for a simpler world, at a time when we could trust those in power and our only enemies were the Nazis. But now, seventy years after the end of World War II, we live in a different day and age. The character's idealism is almost out of place nowadays. But it's refreshing to see a superhero movie where the title character has hope and inspires it in others. He fights evil not because of some grave injustice in his youth or some greater compulsion, but because he believes the world can be a better place and is worth standing up for. Captain America represents the best of human potential, a regular guy who stands up for what's right not because he's forced into it, but because it's the right thing to do.

Anyway, all that's left for me to discuss is the acting, which is very good all the way across the board. Among the supporting cast, Scarlett Johansson contributes a fine performance as the Black Widow. Much like her appearances in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, Johansson plays the character as putting up a cold, emotionless front to hide her true self behind. The character is really layered, and she brings a lot of nuance to it that really shows how good a choice Johansson was for the role. Samuel L. Jackson also reprises his role as Nick Fury, and this time around, he's given far much more to do than in his earlier appearances as the character. Jackson is given the opportunity to be the badass we all know he and Fury both are, making the most of it with his nothing short of awesome presence and approach to the character.

New to the franchise, meanwhile, is Anthony Mackie, who makes the Falcon's debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe a memorable one with his likable and charismatic performance. He's a lot of fun in the role, and I'm totally looking forward to seeing him play the Falcon in future movies. And as our villains, Sebastian Stan and screen legend Robert Redford provide some damn good work. Stan plays the Winter Soldier with a coldhearted ferocity, but as the movie progresses, the chinks in the character's psychological armor become more apparent and Stan pulls these moments off effortlessly. Redford, on the other hand, brings a more cerebral approach to his role. He's the brains to the Winter Soldier's brawn. And while I'm actually surprised to see an actor like Redford in a movie like this (he was reportedly offered the role as an homage to his appearance in Three Days of the Condor, and accepted it so his grandchildren could see one of his movies), I'm glad he took the part because he adds a modicum of credibility to the whole production.

Last but most certainly not least is Chris Evans as our titular hero. Evans is charming as always, in the role, continuing to play Captain America with every bit of the courageousness that makes the character so great. Bravery and that aforementioned idealism make up the core of Captain America, as he'd stand up to any threat, no matter how huge or insurmountable, if it meant protecting people and keeping them safe. Evans portrays that perfectly, making one believe that Cap is everything people say he is.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the best the Marvel Cinematic Universe ― and the superhero genre as a whole ― has to offer. It's fun, exciting, and thoroughly engrossing. It's the kind of movie that sucks you in and doesn't let you go until its final frames have flickered across the screen. Any flaws it has, any complaints I have, are all minor gripes and nitpicks, nothing that can't be gotten over. The movie is definitely worth seeing as soon as you get the chance, and I can't wait to see where it all goes from here.

Final Rating: ****½

The Avengers (2012)

When I say "the Avengers," your mind probably goes in one of two directions. One direction will take you towards the British TV show from the '60s, which was adapted into a movie starring Uma Thurman and Sean Connery in 1998. Or if you're like me, you automatically associate "the Avengers" with the team of superheroes that call the pages of Marvel Comics home.

Created in 1963 by industry legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Avengers have long been an important part of comic book history. And though the team's roster has changed dozens of times over the last forty years, it's the one comic where you're guaranteed to see Marvel's A-list (and a number of their top B-list) superheroes team up and fight a common foe.

When Marvel announced a few years ago that they would start producing their own movies based on characters whose film rights hadn't been sold off to other studios, it was also decided that these movies would follow in the footsteps of their comic book counterparts and have them coexist in a shared universe. The whole thing was set to build to a big payoff in the form of an Avengers movie. And after five movies that introduced the major players, the Avengers movie has finally arrived. I've been looking forward to it since 2008, and let me assure you that it was totally worth the wait.

As the movie begins, we discover that the espionage agency SHIELD has retrieved the Tesseract, the mysterious artifact that the Red Skull had tried using as a weapon of mass destruction during World War II, and has been conducting their own experiments on it. During one of these experiments, the Tesseract spontaneously opens a wormhole out into deep space. From this wormhole emerges the exiled Norse god Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who steals the Tesseract and uses a number of brainwashed SHIELD personnel ― including consulting scientist Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and master archer Clint "Hawkeye" Barton (Jeremy Renner) ― to make a daring escape from the facility.

Facing a powerful opponent armed with an even more powerful weapon, SHIELD director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) reactivates the dormant "Avenger Initiative." He sends agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and super-spy Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johannson) to bring Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) into the fold to study Dr. Selvig's research and track the trace amounts of gamma radiation the Tesseract produces. Fury himself approaches Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who is still getting accustomed to life in the twenty-first century, and asks him to lead the mission to arrest Loki and retrieve the Tesseract.

Loki is found in Germany, but he almost immediately surrenders without a fight. He is apprehended and taken into SHIELD custody despite the protests of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who tries desperately to talk his adoptive brother out of attacking the world he considers his second home. But Loki is seemingly content to remain incarcerated by SHIELD, secretly sowing the seeds of dissent and discord among his captors. As they bicker among one another, the still-brainwashed Selvig is using the Tesseract to build a tool for Loki that would open another wormhole. Waiting on the other side are the Chitauri, a race of aliens from a distant planet looking to claim Earth for their own. And though their wildly different personalities and methods cause them to come to blows on occasion, the team known as the Avengers must assemble together to fight a battle no single superhero could withstand alone.

If there is anything, anything at all, that I can say about The Avengers, it's that the movie is 100% pure fun. From beginning to end, The Avengers never ceases to be one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a while. If the movie is the culmination of several years of planning and effort, then this final payoff is absolutely worth it. It is two and a half hours of unrelenting, unadulterated awesome.

The man in charge of things is the one and only Joss Whedon, who is no stranger to the world of Marvel Comics (having written 24 issues of their Astonishing X-Men book a few years back). The Avengers marks only his second go at directing a feature film, and I thought Whedon did an admirable job behind the camera. He utilizes some slick cinematography and fantastic special effects to make The Avengers a tremendous experience. Even the occasional quiet, dramatic moments feel like they have a sense of urgency. Whedon knows exactly what to do to keep the viewers engaged in what's happening on the screen.

Whedon also serves as the movie's writer, having rewritten a previous script by Zak Penn (who gets a "story by" credit). Whedon's writing style is often polarizing, due in large part to his fondness for snarky, sarcastic dialogue and killing off popular ancillary characters just to mess with the audience. I'll admit to thinking that much of Whedon's writing is guilty of thinking it's cooler than it really is, but Whedon's Avengers script is quite good. He really nails what makes each of the characters awesome in their own ways. You would think that a movie that combines so many dissimilar characters from so many movies would cause some people to get lost in the shuffle, but Whedon makes a point of letting everyone get a few moments to shine.

And while a lot of movie mash-ups ― Freddy vs. Jason, Alien vs. Predator, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man ― tend to struggle somewhat with merging otherwise unrelated continuities, Whedon effortlessly makes The Avengers feel natural. Sure, he had five movies worth of buildup to work with, but the fact that he made a movie where Iron Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, and Captain America seamlessly coexist like they do in their comics is something awesome. Whedon also makes it worth all the buildup by making everything as big and as bold as a movie like this deserves. He never lets it get over the top, but makes the story feel like a grand epic. And I am happy to report the whole thing works.

But it's not just Whedon's efforts behind the camera that make The Avengers what it is. He also has a tremendous group of actors in front of the camera to bring these characters to life. Each and every member of the cast is on their A-game, with not a bad performance among them. Robert Downey Jr. returns to the role of Iron Man for the third time (well, fourth if you count his cameo at the end of The Incredible Hulk), and he continues to show why he was the perfect choice for the character. Downey gives Tony Stark the right amount of brash cockiness yet charming likeability, and the movie is all the better for having him around.

Chris Hemsworth also brings a fine performance to the role of Thor, making the character engaging while adding the necessary pathos that's needed to play a godlike being that must fight his brother. Chris Evans also does a great job as Captain America, as he once again plays Cap as the brave, strong soldier that his counterpart from the printed page is.

And while Edward Norton is missed, Mark Ruffalo is great as Bruce Banner. I don't really want to compare Ruffalo to Norton because that's unfair to both actors, but Ruffalo really shines here. He plays Banner as being haunted by yet accepting of his mean green alter ago. The only crazy thing about it is that the actual Hulk might actually overshadow Ruffalo. Created via CGI and a motion-capture performance from Ruffalo, the Hulk almost completely runs away with the movie. He provides some of the movie's best moments, so I can't complain.

Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner also make fine contributions as Black Widow and Hawkeye, while Samuel L. Jackson is once again fantastic as Nick Fury. I also thought that Clark Gregg, who returns to play Agent Coulson one more time, was amusing as always. And as our resident villain, Tom Hiddleston actually manages to outdo his performance in Thor. He makes Loki such a vile, cold-hearted monster that it's going to take something huge to top him in Avengers 2. (And if that scene in the middle of the credits is any indication, then the Avengers 2 villain could actually do it.) But Hiddleston's performance here is really good, and though he gets a little hammy at times, he's still a damn good bad guy.

And while I'm here, I should probably mention the 3D effects. The Avengers was shot in 2D and converted into 3D in post-production, a technique that in my experience has been hit or miss. But in the case of The Avengers, it's a big hit. It looks just as good if not better than some movies that were natively shot in 3D. The 3D makes a real difference in some scenes as well. Having seen the movie in both 3D and 2D, I can say I thought there were more than a few action sequences that benefit from the added depth that 3D brings. The movie is still effective in 2D, so if the glasses give you headaches, go ahead and see the 2D release. I'm just saying that I thought the 3D added to the fun.

And really, that's all The Avengers is: fun. From the moment the Marvel Studios logo appears to when the final images of Earth's mightiest heroes flicker on the screen, The Avengers never once ceases to be anything other than genuine entertainment. And there's not a single thing wrong with that. So yeah, as you may have imagined, the work that was put into building the Marvel Cinematic Universe and crafting this movie was totally worth it. And thus, I'll gladly give The Avengers four and a half stars on the scale. I've said it before, but I'm really hoping that the movie's record-setting opening weekend would cause DC Comics to take the hint and start building to a Justice League movie. That'd be awesome.

Final Rating: ****½

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

During World War II, American comic book publishers started cranking out tons of patriotic characters as a way to boost morale. While many of them would disappear as quickly as they were created, one would stand the test of time to become one of the most enduring characters in the industry. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely Comics, Captain America was introduced before the United States even entered the war, debuting a full twelve months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

With its title character memorably punching Adolf Hitler in the face on the cover of the first issue, Captain America's book was a success. But his comic was ultimately cancelled in 1950, thanks in large part to the decline in popularity superheroes suffered after the war ended. Timely's successor, Atlas Comics, tried reviving him in 1953, but it was a commercial failure and Cap was cancelled again only a year later.

But as superheroes regained their popularity and the company that was once Timely Comics evolved into Marvel Comics, Captain America would make a comeback. He was formally reintroduced by Kirby and Stan Lee in 1964 and immediately inducted into the Marvel superteam known as The Avengers. He's been around ever since and earned status as one of Marvel's most venerable and courageous superheroes. He's been adapted into video games, cartoons, action figures, and other merchandise, and he's even been portrayed in movies. The first three of these movies were pretty awful, but the latest one more than makes up for those prior attempts. In short, it rules.

As the movie begins, so has the involvement of the United States in World War II, and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) wants nothing more than to serve his country. But because he's a frail little runt with a long list of health issues, recruitment centers repeatedly turn him away as being unfit for duty. Steve's conviction catches the attention of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a scientist working with the government's Strategic Scientific Reserve. Dr. Erskine enlists Steve into a small group of Army recruits and puts them into basic training, where the one with the best performance will undergo an experiment to create the first super-soldier. And despite Steve constantly bringing up the rear in practically every training exercise, the intelligence and courage he shows are enough to make him the perfect candidate for the procedure.

This experiment proves to be success, with Steve emerging from it taller and with a physical strength that matches his determination. But it ends in disaster as well. A German spy infiltrates the laboratory, killing Dr. Erskine and destroying the lab. Without Dr. Erskine's expertise, it will take years to create a duplicate of the super-soldier formula from Steve's blood. Rather than let him sit around as a lab rat, the government puts Steve to work promoting war bonds and performing at USO shows as the costumed "Captain America."

But he'll soon venture into combat, as the military has learned that dozens of soldiers have been captured by Hydra, the Nazi regime's scientific research division. This news hits Steve particularly hard, as one of the prisoners is his best friend, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Shaw). Steve goes behind enemy lines against orders and frees the soldiers from a Hydra laboratory, in the process discovering that the group's commander — the megalomaniacal Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) — intends to break Hydra away from Hitler and the Nazis with his own plans for complete global domination.

To accomplish this, Schmidt has acquired a seemingly magical object known as the Tesseract, harnessing its immense power and channeling it into high tech weaponry. And with these weapons, the destruction of all those who oppose Schmidt is imminent. An all-out attack on the United States is looming on the horizon, prompting Steve to assemble a team of commandos to lead into battle against Schmidt and Hydra.

I went into Captain America: The First Avenger hoping for the best. I've been enjoying Marvel's build to the Avengers movie thus far, and the trailers for the movie were promising. It looked like it would be pretty good. I just didn't realize that it would be this awesome. No joke, the movie is fantastic. It definitely rivals X-Men: First Class for the title of "best superhero movie of 2011." The movie is fun, charming, exciting, and entertaining, giving me all I wanted out of it and more.

At the helm is Joe Johnston, who I thought was a perfect choice to direct. If you're going to make a movie about a WW2-era superhero, who better to have direct it than the guy who made The Rocketeer? Johnston's direction is tremendous here, boasting a fantastic energy that really pulls the audience into the movie. While he doesn't quite give the truly epic feel that it probably should have, Johnston still does a damn fine job putting this thing together. The only bad part is that there are a few instances the CGI and green-screen effects looked really hokey. It's like the effects guys spent so much time making Chris Evans look puny (which I personally thought was pulled off really well) that they had to start rushing things towards the end of the movie.

And really, I didn't think the movie needed to be in 3D either. Having seen it in both 3D and 2D, there are a few instances where the 3D does give the movie a grander, more epic feel. But I felt that the movie still works in 2D. That, though, may be in part to Captain America being one of those 2D-to-3D post-production conversions. Those can be pulled off successfully, like how it was done for Thor. And like I said, there are moments in Captain America that look really cool in 3D. But you're not going to be missing too much if you choose the 2D version instead.

But let's move along to the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. I actually felt that the script's flaws were few and far between. Mainly, there were two flaws I found. One problem I had with the script was how the Howling Commandos were handled. The team of soldiers assisting Captain America is basically a group of one-note characters who sadly don't contribute much to the movie. I know this is the Captain America movie and not the Howling Commandos movie, but you'd think they could have done more with the characters.

I also thought the ending came rather abruptly. It felt like the climax started trucking along at a pretty good pace and then it just plain tapered off. I don't exactly know what I was expecting, but I thought it felt a little on the rushed side. It felt abrupt enough that the emotional punch they were going for is somehow lessened a little bit. The whole thing is sadly anticlimactic, making it more disappointing than anything else.

The rest of the script, though, is aces. Markus and McFeely perfectly captured the essence of Steve Rogers, making him look like a hero even before he's introduced to the super-soldier serum. And outside of my complaint about the misuse of the Howling Commandos, the writers handled all of the other characters incredibly well. And the way that they crafted the story, with all its triumphs and tragedies, is well done. The combination of the story and the characters really makes you care about the protagonists and what happens to them, making it an effective piece of storytelling.

But it would have all been for naught had the cast been anything less than great. However, the actors are indeed up to the task and deliver solid performances across the board. Most of the reviews I've seen have pretty much ragged on Chris Evans's performance, but I thought he did a fine job. Evans plays the part believably, giving Captain America the strength and determination that he needed. He portrays the character as courageous and willing to fight for what he believes in, everything that the comic book Captain America is

But Evans comes dangerously close to being out-shined by Hugo Weaving, who is a hell of a lot of fun in the role. Weaving is perfect as the Red Skull, playing the role with a psychotic menace and a certain hammy Bond villain flair. He always plays great villains, though, and his performance here is no exception.

And the rest of the cast all provide fine performances. Hayley Atwell is enjoyable as British officer (and Steve's love interest) Peggy Carter. Atwell plays the role with charm and strength, and she and Evans have a nice chemistry together that makes their romance believable. I enjoyed their scenes together, but they could have used more scenes together in the final cut of the movie. It isn't bad as it stands now, but I thought it could have stood being developed a bit further.

Tommy Lee Jones and Toby Jones are also really entertaining as their respective roles, while I thought Sebastian Stan was also good despite not having a lot of screen time. It really did feel like a lot of Stan's scenes were left on the cutting room floor, because his role is played as being bigger than evidenced by the amount of time he's actually in the movie. His character, Bucky Barnes, is an important part of the Captain America mythos and the movie version is depicted as Cap's closet friend, yet he feels like he's barely in the movie at all. But Stan still contributes a solid performance that I can't complain about.

And last but most certainly not least is Stanley Tucci. Tucci makes the role feel bigger than it is, bringing a sense of hopefulness and kindness to the character. He plays the role so well that, even though my existing familiarity with Captain America's origin meant I knew going in that Dr. Erskine wouldn't live to see the movie's closing credits, I was still a little saddened by his demise. Tucci was that good.

I've read more than one review of Captain America negatively critiquing it, railing against the movie because of their perception that it's just an extended commercial for next year's Avengers movie. (And wouldn't you know it, there's a teaser for The Avengers following the movie's credits.) But to knock it for hyping The Avengers just seems like nitpicking just for the sake of nitpicking. As a standalone movie, I thought it worked. The movie is a lot of fun, a really entertaining way to spend two hours. And while we wait another year for The Avengers, I wonder how foreign territories will respond to this movie. Will Captain America be well-received overseas? Hmm...

Final Rating: ****

Captain America II: Death Too Soon (1979)

In my previous review, I spoke of how Marvel Comics teamed with CBS in the '70s to create a number of live-action television projects based on Marvel's characters. And with the exception of The Incredible Hulk, none of them really turned out that well. Of particular note was the movie based on Captain America, which was not only boring, but just a poor adaptation of the character in general. It was awful, but the ratings had to have been decent because they made a sequel. Let me repeat that:

THEY MADE A SEQUEL.

Yes, CBS actually did run a sequel to that piece of crap. Broadcast just ten months after the first one, Captain America II: Death Too Soon was proof positive that its makers didn't learn their lesson from the first movie, because it's awful. The thing is a downright poor excuse for a movie, and if Marvel ever wanted to pretend it never existed, I wouldn't stand in their way.

Steve Rogers (Reb Brown) has set up shop as a caricaturist on the beach boardwalk of a small town on the California coast, continuing to help his fellow man as the masked hero "Captain America." But the muggers and purse-snatchers he's been fending off lately will be nothing compared to what he'll soon be up against. An international terrorist named General Miguel (Christopher Lee) has gotten his hands on a chemical weapon that can greatly accelerate the aging process in its victims. With it, he plans on holding Portland, Oregon hostage for a hefty ransom. And it's naturally up to Captain America to save the day.

I don't know how the first movie performed in the ratings, but I guess it must have done well enough for CBS and Marvel to make a sequel. It's either that or they wanted to test the waters with a second pilot to see if there was sufficient interest in the property continuing as a series. A Captain America TV show never came to fruition, and judging by these two movies, I'm glad for it. The show probably would have been cancelled after a few episodes anyway.

At the helm is Ivan Nagy, whose only other notable credits are a few episodes of Starsky & Hutch and CHiPs (and judging by the names of some of the movies listed his IMDB profile, a whole bunch of porn too). While some things have been improved for this sequel, particularly Captain America's ugly costume from the first movie having been altered to something more closely resembling his comic book uniform, it's readily apparent that Nagy doesn't feel the need to try spicing things up. Sure, the costume is a step in the right direction and the fight scenes aren't as ridiculously goofy as they were the first time around, but there isn't much of a difference in the direction. And really, if you've seen one bad '70s action-themed television show, you've pretty much seen them all.

But let's move on to the script, penned by Patricia Payne and veteran TV writer Wilton Schiller. While the plot is better constructed and the dialogue is a very slight step up from the first movie, it's still an unbelievably silly mess. And Payne and Schiller must not have been able to come up with a script that was long enough, because the movie is padded with scenes that either do not accomplish anything or go on for far too long. Seriously, did that hang gliding sequence need to take up three minutes of the movie? CBS could have taken a commercial break there and come back without missing anything.

Payne and Schiller have at least tried turning in something better than the first movie, but the improvements are slight at best. It seems like they could have turned out a better script if they'd had longer than a few months to write it, and if it hadn't been a sequel to a crappy movie. If it'd been an original movie based on an original character, perhaps Payne and Schiller could have stepped it up a little. But nope, we're stuck with this. Sigh.

And bringing up the rear is our cast, the performances from whom are pretty much exactly the same. Barely anything has changed at all. I could probably copy-and-paste the paragraph from my other review into this space. Reb Brown does seem a bit livelier than he was previously, but the guy is still way too calm. Not once did I hear him even so much as raise his voice. Come on, Reb! I've seen some of your other movies, I know that's not like you! I'd much rather see the Reb Brown that screams and wildly opens fire with a machine gun. The movie still would have been awful, but it would have been a lot more fun.

The rest of the cast is sadly but expectedly unremarkable. (Geez, it feels like I'm writing the same review twice.) But I must make mention of the actor playing our villain, the one and only Christopher Lee. Yes, the same Christopher Lee that appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun, the Star Wars prequels, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and as Count Dracula in the legendary "Hammer Horror" films. And why he's appearing in this, I have no idea. He's better than this; he always has been. Lee is actually pretty good here, though the material is beneath him. It's just a shame that the role wasn't written better, because had Lee's character been a more proactive villain, it would have been a lot more awesome.

I can't even begin to understand why somebody thought it was a good idea to make this movie, let alone air it on national television. Even if it does try to slightly improve upon the crap that was the first movie, you can only try polishing a turd so much. But I'm actually a little sad that both movies have fallen into obscurity, because this kind of silliness needs to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. More people need to see what bad superhero movies can look like, so they can appreciate the good ones. So yeah, I'm going to give Captain America II: Death Too Soon one star on the scale. And as cheesy as some of his action movies might be, I still want to see Reb Brown in the Expendables sequel. That'd be awesome.

Final Rating: *

Captain America (1979)

For the last decade or so, Marvel Comics has been cornering the market on superhero movies. But you younger readers might be surprised to learn that before they started showing up in movie theaters, live-action adaptations of Marvel's characters were all over television instead. After the successes that DC Comics had on TV with Adam West's Batman and Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman in the '60s and early '70s, Marvel tried duplicating it with their own superheroes.

To accomplish this, Marvel teamed up with CBS — the network that aired the second and third seasons of Wonder Woman — to create a batch of TV shows and made-for-TV movies. Their cartoons during the '60s were popular, so why wouldn't their '70s live-action efforts be? Alas, they didn't turn out so well. The only one that had any sort of lasting impact was the Incredible Hulk TV show that starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. And the movies, which I'm guessing were supposed to be backdoor pilots, just weren't good.

The most notable of these made-for-TV movies were the two (yes, two) based on Captain America, the patriotic super-soldier created by comic book icons Joe Simon and Jack Kirby shortly after the start of World War II. Captain America has always been one of Marvel's most enduring characters, so he naturally wouldn't be left out of something like this. And that's too bad, because these two movies are just plain awful. But let's begin at the beginning and start with the first one, which aired on CBS on January 19, 1979. And take it from me: if you haven't seen it, you aren't missing much.

Our story focuses on Steve Rogers (Reb Brown), an ex-Marine fresh out of the service who's perfectly content to just drive around America and make a meager living as an illustrator. He's approached one day by Dr. Simon Mills (Len Birman), a scientist who has spent decades working on an experimental serum for the government. Named the Full Latent Ability Gain, shortened to just FLAG, the serum has the ability to greatly enhance a recipient's physical abilities. The one catch, though, is that none of the lab rats it's been tested on have survived longer than two weeks.

Dr. Mills and his assistant, the lovely Dr. Wendy Day (Heather Menzies), have reached out to Steve in the hopes that he can help them. His dearly departed father had aided in FLAG's development, even going as far as to test it on himself. The experiment was a success, and he secretly used the abilities FLAG granted him to become a crimefighter before his untimely demise. Since Steve and his father have a similar genetic makeup, Dr. Mills theorizes that Steve would make a perfect candidate for FLAG and could become the super-soldier that his father could have been.

Steve's answer: "No." I'm not sure why; I'm not sure even Steve knows why. But the guy turns it down. It doesn't matter, though, because Steve soon finds himself critically injured in a car accident shortly after leaving Dr. Mills's laboratory. The accident has left him on the verge of death, and in order to save his life, Dr. Mills gives him the serum anyway. This turn of events doesn't sit too well with Steve once he regains consciousness. He pretty much tells Dr. Mills to go screw himself, and that he plans on living his life like nothing ever happened.

What he doesn't know is that things don't always work out as planned. It turns out Steve's car accident had been orchestrated by Lou Brackett (Steve Forrest), an oil tycoon who wants to branch out into domestic terrorism. A recently murdered friend of Steve's had been developing a neutron bomb, the plans for which Brackett wanted for himself. He'd had Steve's friend murdered to acquire those plans, and tried killing Steve under the assumption he knew something about it.

Brackett eventually does assemble his own neutron bomb, and with it plans to nuke Phoenix and steal 1.4 billion dollars worth of bullion from the city's gold depository. And that just isn't cool at all. Unwilling to stand by and let so many innocent people die senselessly, Steve transforms himself into the heroic "Captain America" and vows to save the day.

I just don't know where to begin. This movie is just so frustratingly awful that any words I could use to describe it escape me. I can forgive a bad movie as long as it's cheesy and at least somewhat entertaining in its ineptitude. But where Captain America fails as a bad movie is that it's a tremendous bore. Don't be fooled by the fact that my plot synopsis is five paragraphs long; there's nothing going on in this movie. Nothing happens during this whole stupid thing. I loathe bad movies like that too, because it's much more fun (and frankly, a lot easier) to mock crappy movies that have an aura of silliness to them. But movies like this, ones that are not only bad but boring to boot, are nothing less than painful to write about.

If this was really supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a Captain America TV show as I suspect, then it's a pretty miserable attempt at such. I was more filled with contempt for its existence rather than a desire to see the further televised adventures of Steve Rogers. This piece of crap is practically a chore to get through. And what makes it that way is a combination of a number of things. One is the unbelievably mediocre direction from Rod Holcomb, a veteran TV director who's helmed episodes of a ton of classic shows over the course of his three and a half decades in the business. Captain America was one of his earliest forays into directing, and frankly, he does a piss-poor job.

I can understand that the movie looks like a low-budget TV show, since it pretty much is. But Holcomb doesn't even make an attempt to inject any sort of life or excitement into the movie. He doesn't draw good performances from his actors, the cinematography is weak, and the action scenes are just plain boring. And then there was the stupid decision to not show Captain America in his full costume until 71 minutes into the movie! If you watched it on television without the commercials edited out, it's 94 minutes! The movie had the balls to take that long to give us Captain America in his costume. That's just not cool. And call me crazy, but I get the idea that Holcomb simply did not care.

But then why should he care when the writer couldn't be bothered to? The script was penned by Don Ingalls, himself a veteran within the TV industry. I just can't believe how bad the writing is. The worst part of it all is just how badly Ingalls screwed up the title character. In the comics, Steve Rogers was a frail yet strong-willed young man who wanted do nothing more than serve his country in World War II. A military science experiment turned him into a super-soldier, advanced to the peak of natural human ability and made into the living embodiment of everything good about the United States and humanity in general. He's one of the most respected and beloved superheroes in the Marvel Universe. But in this sweaty turd of a movie, Steve Rogers is some burly dude who just wants to drive around the country and not do much of anything. He's shot up with super-steroids against his will and does nothing but whine about it until essentially being talked into becoming a superhero.

I don't know how it was in the '70s, but this utter lack of respect in regards to the source material is disappointing and insulting. Ingalls practically stripped away every bit of dignity the Captain America character had and turned him into a lunkhead wearing cheap spandex tights and a motorcycle helmet. I know comic books were viewed differently then than they are now, but Cap is a character who could have kicked ass on television if he were treated right. Ingalls doesn't swerve into full-blown camp parody like William Dozier did with the Batman TV show, but his apparent lack of respect for the comic book character is sad.

Beyond his crappy take on Steve Rogers, Ingalls doesn't write anything worth talking about. The plot is so threadbare that it barely exists at all, a 30-minute story stretched out to three times that with no improvements made to fill the added running time. You know, I'd like to go back in time and ask Ingalls just what in the blue blazing hell he was thinking when he wrote this thing. I'm sure he was just hoping to cash a nice CBS paycheck for writing some dumb little comic book movie, but is it so hard to friggin' try to write something that doesn't suck?

Even the music totally sucks. Composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter, a pair of musicians who contributed to some of the most famous television shows of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the music quite simply does not fit at all. Their music here is remarkably bland and quite unbecoming of a superhero movie, which I guess is a pretty good summary of the whole movie in general. It's way too mellow and doesn't suit any scene in the movie at all.

And naturally, the acting blows too. Like you'd expect any different. In the title role is Reb Brown, star of the tremendously awful Space Mutiny. Captain America is actually a departure from Brown's usual performances. Instead of yelling and screaming and acting like a total spaz while blowing things up like he does in most of his movies, Brown is laid back and casual. It's like he took a whole bunch of downers during production. Nobody will ever accuse Brown of being a good actor. But his cheesy overacting in bad foreign action movies is a heck of a lot more entertaining than this.

The rest of the cast also fails to make any sort of positive impression. Lens Birman seems like he wanted to put forth an earnest performance, but he just struck me as being stiff. Heather Menzies is forgettable, and Steve Forrest simply doesn't make for a very believable villain. I know Captain America doesn't have a very well-known rogues' gallery outside of the Red Skull, but couldn't they come up with something other than an oil tycoon holding a gold depository hostage with a bomb? That's worse than the worst Bond villain. The fact that this is such a weak character doesn't help Forrest's performance any, though he isn't all that great regardless of the writing.

I don't know what else there is for me to say about this stupid movie. There are only so many nasty things you can say about a bad movie before you get tired of it, and Captain America is awfully close to wearing out its welcome. It's a failure as a superhero movie; it's a failure as a pilot for a TV show; and it's a failure, period. It's actually worse than that Captain America movie from 1990, and that's saying something. So this movie gets one star and a recommendation to avoid at all costs. But do you want to know the really sad part? It gets worse. It gets much, much worse. Stay tuned.

Final Rating: *

Captain America (1990)

In the early days of World War II, one of the most popular varieties of comic book superheroes were the patriotic ones that proudly flew the American flag. Before the United States even entered the war, comic book publishers were giving their readers characters ranging from The Shield and Captain Freedom to Uncle Sam himself. But perhaps the most lasting of these characters is none other than Captain America. The creation of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, he made his first appearance in 1941, knocking out Adolf Hitler on the cover of Captain America Comics #1. He defended the United States against Nazi and Japanese troops during World War II, but his popularity waned once the war ended. He faded into obscurity, outside of a short-lived reappearance in 1953 to fight the red menace of Communism.

Captain America remained in limbo until 1964, when Kirby and Stan Lee resurrected him to be a member of Marvel's superhero all-star team, "The Avengers." He's been around ever since, yet despite his long tenure in the comic world, he's never truly achieved the same kind of mainstream recognition as Batman or Superman. Then again, Captain America hasn't really seen much success in other non-comic forms of media anyway.

Believe it or not, there was a time when movies based on Marvel properties were average at best (and horrendous at worst). But prior to movies like Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man, Marvel was tied to less-than-stellar adaptations in the early '90s, and one of them was based on Captain America. It was intended for a theatrical release in America in 1990, but it was instead held back, seeing European releases before being shuffled off straight to American video store shelves in 1992. Maybe the distributors realized just how awful this movie was and tried to keep people from seeing it for as long as possible.

The movie opens in Italy circa 1937, where a young child prodigy named Tadzio de Santis (Massimillo Massimi) is held captive by Nazi soldiers and forced to watch them murder his family. The Nazis have developed a process to create super-soldiers, and their best choice is a psychologically fractured little boy that can play piano like a champ. I guess that makes sense to someone. One of the process's developers, Dr. Maria Vaselli (Carla Cassola) objects to using a child as their test subject, and flees to the United States.

The expatriated Nazi scientist sells her super-soldier secrets to the Army, who have developed their own version of the process (named "Project Rebirth") after seven years of work. Project Rebirth's first lucky volunteer is Steve Rogers (Matt Salinger), a gangly all-American young man stricken with polio. The experiment is a success, but Dr. Vaselli is shot and killed immediately thereafter by a Nazi spy. Steve gets shot too, but he isn't gonna stand for that kind of crap, so he electrocutes the spy on some lab equipment.

Two days pass, and the fully healed Steve has adopted the name "Captain America," donning a fireproof costume and wielding an indestructible shield that doubles as a weapon. He's dropped into a Nazi camp just in time to stop them from launching a missile pointed at an unknown target in the United States. He fights his way into the missile command center, where he is immediately confronted by The Red Skull (Scott Paulin), the now-adult subject of Dr. Vaselli's previous experiment with the Nazis. I have no idea why he would pledge loyalty to the Nazis after he watched them murder his family, but hey, I don't write the movies. I just review them.

Getting back on track, Red Skull is a physical and intellectual equal to Captain America, only his face is incredibly deformed (thus earning him his name). The two fight, but Captain America finds himself incapacitated and strapped to the Nazi missile. The Red Skull reveals that the missile is pointed at the White House, so Captain America decides that if he's going down, he's taking the Red Skull with him. He grabs Red Skull by the arm just as the missile begins to take off, so what does the crimson-faced villain do? He doesn't pull his arm away, nor does he shoot Cap to make him let go. Instead, he chooses to cut off his own hand. Brilliant idea, Red. The missile is launched with Captain America still hitching a ride, but as it approaches its target destination of Washington, he manages to throw it off course and sends it flying into the Alaskan tundra. Man, that must have been one hell of a rocket if it made it all the way from Germany to Alaska. Anyway, Captain America ends up getting frozen in suspended animation, and he'll be staying there for quite a while.

Our hero thaws out fifty years later, and a lot has changed since 1944. The Red Skull has gone back to living under his real name, had facial reconstructive surgery (for the most part, anyway), and controls a vast criminal empire responsible for murdering Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers. Already bummed due to a combination of some wicked culture shock and the belief that he failed his country, things don't get much better for ol' Steve Rogers when he discovers that his old girlfriend Bernice (Kim Gillingham) has gotten old and has a family of her own. But to his amazement, he sees the Bernice he knew in her lookalike daughter Sharon (also played by Kim Gillingham). These changes in the world leads him to put away his mask and shield and live life as a simple civilian. But once he learns that the Red Skull has kidnapped the President (Ronny Cox) and killed Bernice while he was at it, Steve must once again adopt his Captain America persona to save the day.

Well... what do I say? Though it probably isn't as bad as its reputation lets on, it's still far from good. The movie does manage to have a very weird charm, but charm does not a good movie make. The directing is uninspired, the writing is lame, and the acting is stiff and wooden. I've heard that director Albert Pyun and screenwriter Stephen Tolkin have done interviews professing a total lack of interest in Captain America, and it shows. The movie's protagonist spends maybe twenty minutes of the movie actually wearing the Captain America costume, which is a total rip-off if you ask me.

I can understand making a mediocre movie due to budget restraints or constant studio interference, but part of me believes that Pyun and Tolkin made a crappy movie just because they didn't respect the source material. And when your tale of a patriotic super-soldier that gets frozen before his triumphant return fifty years later is getting out-shined by direct-to-video obscurities like Matthew Blackheart: Monster Smasher, you're obviously not doing a very good job. And is it just me, or does that costume just look like a star-spangled body condom? People think the costumes in Joel Schumacher's two Batman movies were ugly, but the one worn by Captain America here has them beat. Don't get me started on the fake ears on the sides of the mask, either.

Let's hit the cast really quick, shall we? The son of reclusive author J.D. Salinger, lead actor Matt Salinger has all the appeal of a dirty mop, showing none of the charm or determination that makes his comic book counterpart so engaging. Scott Paulin is also flat and unaffecting as Red Skull, even through pounds of latex makeup. I'd have forgiven him if he'd played Red Skull like a villain on the old Batman TV show, because that would have at least made it fun. But no, we don't get that.

Kim Gillingham is forgettable, and both Ned Beatty (who has a small role as a reporter) and Ronny Cox are just there. I can't blame the cast, though. They need work just like any other actor, and if the director can't motivate them into a good performance, it isn't their fault. Like I've been saying, the only awards Pyun's direction would have won were a couple of Razzies, but then again, we're talking about a guy who has movies like Alien From L.A. and Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor on his résumé.

Where the movie's real problems lie are in Tolkin's script. You can use words like "inane" or "banal" to describe the script, and you'd be totally right. I know it's probably not that big of a deal in the long run, but why change Red Skull from a German Nazi to an fascist Italian mob boss? It's not like it was an itty-bitty detail like the white Kingpin being played by a black man in Daredevil or the brunette Daisy Duke being played by a blonde in the Dukes of Hazzard movie. He's a Nazi terror in the comics, and that's what he should be in the movie. And Red Skull is given a pathetic childhood trauma origin story, when we really shouldn't be feeling sympathy for the evil monster.

And the change in Red Skull's home country isn't the only stupid thing in the movie. Once Dr. Vaselli is killed, it is revealed that Captain America is one of a kind because she kept all the info on her super-soldier serum in her head. Couldn't they think of something a little more believable? They could have said the serum was dependant on a rare blood type or some rare gem/element, or there was a fire that destroyed all her notes, or something. But no, she didn't even bother writing it down. And then she goes and puts some important information like Red Skull's real name and the location of his hideout in her diary, of all places. Tolken may not have liked Captain America, but at least he could have tried to write a script that was, y'know, good. If it were me, I'd have set the whole movie during World War II, and had them frozen at the end to set up Captain America 2. But again, that's just me.

Those behind the movie's production really hit the nail on the thumb with their depiction of Captain America. I've definitely seen worse comic book adaptations, but I've definitely seen a lot more that were better. A newer version with a bigger budget (and hopefully, a good cast and a competent director and writer) is in the works at the time of this review, and hopefully it'll turn out a lot better than this steaming turd. Captain America wasn't totally awful, but it didn't make me want to watch it more than once. I'll give the movie one and a half stars, and you shouldn't feel bad if you miss it.

Final Rating: *½