Within the first 20 minutes of 1979’s Captain America made for TV film, I looked up to the popcorn affected ceiling in our condo and said, “Thank Feige for Chris Evans!” Reb Brown, who has an impressive build is given the difficult task of bringing the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created character to live for the first time. Unfortunately, watching this film for the first time after the 1990 ill-fated attempt and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is a very difficult watch to get through three hours and two films.

The one thing I had to keep telling myself was that this was made for TV in the seventies, lower your expectations. On January 19, 1979 Captain America was released on CBS followed up by Captain America 2: Death Too Soon on November 23, 1979. After a few minutes seeing the glaring problems with the script, acting, editing, and even direction makes it easy to pick apart the films.

Unlike the original origin of Captain America, Steve Rogers (Reb Brown) is a former Marine whose father was a government agent, who was “Captain America” in the 1940s. Also Steve’s dad help create the FLAG formula that enhances strength and reflexes. After Steve is critically injured in an accident, Dr Simon Mills (Len Birman) injects Steve with formula against Steve’s wishes. This is not the Steve Rogers that we know and love, this version would prefer to paint, drive his A-team like van and ride his motorcycle.

Part One is all about Steve becoming Captain America and fighting a villain that is completely forgettable that even after watching the film. I couldn’t remember the bad guy except them causing an accident that is the catalyst to Rogers becoming Captain America. Part Two has a terrorist named Miguel (played by Christopher Lee) that is holding America at ransom or he will unleash an aging chemical on a heavily populated city. Miguel’s screen time is limited but at least with Christopher Lee as the villain, it provides someone to root against.

It is very difficult to say anything positive about those two films, the editing is so choppy that you can see the transitions during fights that it looks fake. But its not just during the fight scenes that are terribly shot, in Captain America 2: Death Too Soon there are multiple scenes where the camera is aimed at the character’s waist while they are talking and it feels like the camera is falling down while trying to keep up with the character’s dialogue.

Some of these older adaptations of superheroes have charm that makes them enjoyable viewing but sadly nothing really works well viewing this in 2024. That being said, if I was a kid in 1979 I would have loved seeing Captain America on the TV screen. But the plastic looking shield makes Captain America look like a cheap cosplay and the idea of Cap being more of an Evil Knievel than a super solider is against character. Overall both films are very boring with bad sound mixing/editing, especially in Captain America 2: Death Too Soon where alarms going off and animals in the background drown out what is happening.

The worst thing a movie can be is boring and sadly this is exactly what 1979 Captain America is. After sitting through both films I found myself struggling to stay awake and that is something I hate to admit, making a film is difficult but this was hard to get through. To repeat myself from the start of this, “Thank Feige for Chris Evans.”

Rating: 1 of out 5 stars