Steve Rodgers becomes Captain America and must fight against the Nazi super soldier Red Skull. Captain America is however frozen in time until he awakens in 1990. Red Skull still wishes to fulfil his plan of world domination by becoming the president of the United States.

I went into this movie expecting to hate it since that seems to be the general consensus. What I saw was bad on many levels but not what I would call irredeemable.

On the positive side the production isn't too bad. The editing is passable except for those awful montage sequences. The cinematography and lighting is not what I would call inept. The acting is okay but the terrible writing makes for some awful line deliveries.

However, this movie has quite possibly the worst superhero costume of all time, rivalled by the motorcycle helmet wearing Captain America from the 1979 TV movie. He seems to have prosthetic ears attached to his head and the wings makes his appearance seem comical.

The tone is also all over the place. You have Nazis and Germans executing people and at the same time you have a running gag where Captain America pretends to be car sick and hijacks cars.

It's bad in a cheesy way. I would say the Fantastic Four 1994 movie was miles better in being faithful to the source material while having an extremely low budget. However, as I said, I did find some little things enjoyable like the action, special effects and even production qualities.

I think you will either hate it or find it as a harmless bit of cheesy entertainment and fun.

After the Nazis have developed a process to turn an innocent boy into a super human entity, the Americans likewise experiment on average American youth Steve Rogers (Matt Salinger),who has polio. Steve develops incredible strength and resilience, is given a costume and shield, and is rechristened Captain America. The Cap fails spectacularly in his first mission, which is vanquishing Red Skull (Scott Paulin),the adult version of that Nazi experiment. He ends up frozen in Arctic ice for 47 years, reemerging in 1990 to do battle with the Red Skull once again.

It may be that this initial feature film vehicle for the legendary comic book hero (after two TV movies in the 1970s) will appeal more to casual viewers than longtime fans of the character. As it is, it lacks the spit and polish of major American product, and it will come off as cheesy and tacky to many viewers. Also, the scenario requires Steve to spend more time in civvies than in costume.

But this viewer didn't find it completely worthless; it's not without some amusements. Like the sight of the President (Ronny Cox),who'd glimpsed the Cap as a child, engaging in fisticuffs with various bad guys. Paulin is not a truly great villain, but he's a mild hoot anyway, and his minions include some very sexy (if inept) female assassins, including Red Skulls' own daughter (Francesca Neri). The action scenes won't blow the audience away, but they're adequate.

The main draw is a remarkably sincere Salinger, who makes for an appealing hero. Kim Gillingham, who gets an "introducing" credit, plays both Caps' lady friend and her daughter, and comes off better as the older lady. A variety of familiar faces - Ned Beatty, Michael Nouri, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Bill Mumy - are kind of wasted here, although McGavin at least gets a chance to be somewhat funny (it'd be a shame if he didn't).

Kids will likely be less judgmental than their adult counterparts, and might have some fun with it.

Five out of 10.

Steve Rogers is turned into a super soldier to fight the Red Skull during World War II. He loses and is frozen for fifty years. When he comes back, he finds the Red Skull has assassinated Kennedy, King and has become one of the world's most powerful supervillains and businessmen. Can he stop the Skull now?

This film is fun if you like seeing a guy in a bad costume run around and throw a shield, while a man who looks and acts like Jimmy Carter is a crime-fighting president (and protector of the environment). It's light on plot, light on character development and even the action comes off as more cheesy than anything. But to be honest with you, this was more fun than almost any of the modern comic book films. (For example, "Batman Begins" is a phenomenal film -- but it's not as easy to sit back and laugh at with a beer.)

Why is the Red Skull Italian? As I recall from the comics, he's quite German, and there was no real reason to change this for the movie. I mean, if you're fighting the Nazis, isn't it just more logical to have the villain be German? Where did he get a daughter from? This remains unanswered. Other things seemed fishy... and even the decoder ring, which was important to the story, never paid off as fully as I would have liked (and what exactly did it decode?).

If you get a copy of this movie, keep your expectations low and your supply of Busch Light very high. Not a good movie, unless you love ripping apart such films. I do, so I loved it. But I wouldn't foist it anyone... but maybe the old "Punisher" film...