Captain Derperica

Captain Derperica

The fish out of water story is great for telling a narrative. Captain America: The First Avenger, Harry Potter, Austin Powers, Demolition Man, and Planet of the Apes are just a few examples of the out of place main character to allow the audience to learn everything at the same time as the protagonist. It’s a nice plot device that lends itself to film well and allows the director to create a world and gives the opportunity to explain it without it feeling forced. The 1990 Captain America movie could have been a decent movie if it didn’t completely forget why people like Captain America.

OH YEAH!!!

OH YEAH!!!

Our main complaint is that there is no character development in Captain America whatsoever. There are only 2 characters we get any development on and we don’t care about them. Red Skull is seen to be a victim of circumstance which makes me pull for the guy through the rest of the film. He was abducted as a child while practicing piano, then he was strapped to a chair and forced to listen to dub-step and a light show until his skull turned red. I was really hoping he was going to win in the end and destroy the world or take it over or whatever he was trying to do.

Thanks for the explanation, in that case you can take my son away from me

Thanks for the explanation, in that case you can take my son away from me

The other character we learn not to care about is the President. He is a cocky bureaucrat that doesn’t seem to understand how to dress, even for the 90’s. He comes off as entitled and Ronny Cox cannot play a good guy. Sorry Ronny, you just have a face people want to punch. I don’t think he played a hero before or since this straight to VHS masterpiece.

Good to see the director of Tool's music videos branching out

Good to see the director of Tool’s music videos branching out

Don’t misunderstand me, the plot, costumes and acting are terrible too. Plot-wise we have a guy that gets experimented on and immediately becomes Captain America. No training, no boot camp, he doesn’t even get an 80’s “doing stuff” montage. We go right from experiment to superhero in a matter of 10 minutes. At least we got to see Red Skull get taken as a kid and we can assume he was forced to eat nothing but fish heads and watch “Who’s the Boss?” on a constant loop to make him so evil his face is constantly embarrassed. They square off, Cap gets frozen and eventually thawed out. After that stuff happens, we have Captain America and he is ridiculous. His suit looks like a blueberry fruit roll-up and his mouth hole isn’t even straight. I can understand not giving a crap as much as the next person but you would think at least one person in production would put apathy aside for a minute and catch that.

Al Pacino's plastic surgeries is really paying off

Al Pacino’s plastic surgeries is really paying off

The acting is bad adult film quality at it’s finest. I think an awkward love scene between Captain America and his elderly former love would have been brilliant. It would have pushed that movie right over the edge from bad to so bad it’s good. The way I see it, go big or go home. If you are going to make a crappy movie, make a crappy movie better than all the crap before it.

All jokes aside he looks like a testicle

All jokes aside he looks like a testicle

As far as a makeover goes, Marvel and Chris Evans beat us to the punch. I wouldn’t change anything about The First Avenger. We think a re-cut of this movie mixed with some other footage could make a brilliant “fan-cut” of the movie. Take this movie and combine it with footage from fan made Captain America YouTube videos. Using this movie as a base is perfect because you have the outline of a movie but with no real substance. Mixing in the YouTube backyard videos would give you a unique fan-made combined experience and allow you to enjoy the crappiness of this movie without it being so boring.

Thanks for reading. As always I am Tim McDonald, your movie watching stunt double. I would like to give a special thanks to Kurt Hoffman for watching this filth with me. Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook to make suggestions or comments. I have a good sized list of movies to review but I am always open to suggestions or requests.