Comic Book Movie Fail

Since J.D. Salinger died recently, I thought it would be appropriate to review the Captain America movie they made for 200 bucks back in 1990. My reasoning should become apparent soon.

*SPOILER ALERT*

First of all, who knew that famed recluse J.D. Salinger even had a son, let alone a B-Movie actor son? That's right, the actor who plays Steve Rogers/Captain America is Matt Salinger, son of the aforementioned author of Catcher in the Rye. About the movie though: I wouldn't rate this as a horrible movie, but it sure wasn't good. Salinger did an okay job as the Cap but his acting prowess wasn't quite good enough to pull off the 50's guy coping with the 90's lifestyle the script called for.


And the Red Skull? How do you mess that up?! He's one of the scariest freaking villains in all of comicdom, how could you go wrong? Oh, buy making him a Caucasian Greek mob boss, that's how. I would only recommend this film to die hard fans of the Cap or true movie geeks. I happen to be both so I made myself find some good qualities (but it was really, really hard).

As for those of you who share my affinity for comics and bad movies but can't seem to get their hands on this gem, I can only tell you that it's been out of print for more than a decade now and your best bet is to find it at the next comic con in your area or at a flea market that sells bootleg tapes (ditto that for the Fantastic Four movie from '94). Additionally, if the president gets GITMO shut down I'm sure there's a copy or two laying around in their interrogation wards that they could sell on eBay.



All in all, I have to call this movie bad. They tried their damnedest back in the heyday of the Gen-Xers to get some superhero stuff off the ground but they, simply put, failed miserably. In the end we had to wait ten years for Bryan Singer, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Captain Picard, and Gandalf to bring the X-Men to life and herald in a new age of superhero films.

3 out of 10 stars.

R.I.P. Jerome David Salinger 01/01/1919 - 01/27/2010