cinemuck

BY CONTRIBUTING WRITER ANDREW MARSHALL

It’s two in the morning and I have to be up for work in four hours. But the spectre of Captain America II has been hanging over my head since The Cinemuckers watched it three days ago, and I think I’ve finally come to the emotional point of being able to talk about…that film.

Fellow Cinemuckers, perhaps you are like me and foolishly assumed that having watched Captain America, a viewing of it’s highly unnecessary sequel would be a walk in the patriotically themed park. Oh, if only it were so.

When last we left the Cap’n (played, as you might recall from CA 1.0, by the disturbingly blank Reb Brown) he was settling into his new life as a swollen chunk of brainless meat stuffed into an upsetting tight blue suit. For those of you just tuning in, I’ll give you but a momentary slice of the horror that I’ve now spent over four hours of my life looking at.

Magic Dance Pants II: Electric Boogaloo

Once again, the first ten minutes or so of this bootlegged disk was damaged, so we skipped straight into the action as CA utilizes his super strength, hearing, sight, reflexes, flimsy plastic shield, and all the moral and financial support of the American government to chase down purse snatchers for a random old lady in the street. (Here at Cinemuck HQ we are wondering if contributor Nick Ramey purposefully damaged his disks so that no one would accidentally watch them; kind of the cinematic equivalent of a child safety lock on a handgun)  The ensuing chase between the Cap’n on his “motorcycle” and the purse snatcher in an orange dune buggy currently holds the Cinemucker record for “Most Frigg’n Ridiculous Chase Scene in the History of Known Cinema”.  It’s ironic when you consider that the previous holder of that title was Captain America 1.0, which featured a chase scene shot at night and illuminated only by the headlights of the cars involved.

Moving along, we meet our villain, a gaunt and zombie like Christopher Lee. Old St. Chris is trying to find the secret to “curing the disease of aging”.  A noble goal, to be sure, marred only by the fact that he’s doing it by crop dusting the town of Nowhere, Nowhereton with a chemical that makes people age 28 days for every hour that they live.  Oddly enough, Chris looks older in this film than he does thirty five years later playing a wizard in LOTRs. Somebody explain that one to me.

So of course the Cap’n stumbles on to the evil doings (or is sent by the government, in typical Cap’n America fashion, nobody seems to be really sure) and proceeds to investigate. Somewhere along the way he gets a cat that rides around in his seagull van with him, (see my review of Cap’n America 1.0) makes friends with a local kid, falls into mild, chaste attraction with the kid’s sheep ranching mom, and generally emerges victorious by virtue of being only slightly less stupid than the villains he is chasing.  Included within are all the inane helicopter chases, clunky lines, and shockingly bold lack of acting that one might expect from Cap’n America II, only all of the afore mentioned elements are twice as bad as the original movie.

As a finale, we get to see Christopher Lee doused with his own aging compound and wither away a la Donovan in Last Crusade, the only difference being that the effect in Indy was kind of cool and this one totally sucks.

At some point in the middle of this movie I dozed off (or my brain shut down) and when I awoke the first words that spewed forth from my mouth (much to the shock of my fellow Cinemuckers) was “Man, if only nuns looked that good in real life.”  I’m not kidding. I don’t know why. It’s just what my brain made me say. I think that kind of random insanity is a good indication that no one who wishes to maintain firm contact with reality should dare to watch Captain America II.

SO WHAT’S THE MUCK?

Why Should I Run? If you’ve seen Cap’n 1.0, you know what you are getting in to, only more so. Watcher beware.

Why Should I See It? You really shouldn’t, but a certain type of mind will insist upon it if only to complete the experience of version one.

The MuckOmeter: I’m gonna give this one a solid nine, guys. This movie was so bad that it made the experience of watching Daughters of Satan the next day almost pleasurable. Nuff said.

–Andrew

P.S. Stay tuned for reviews of Orca (Chris Wiley), Mutant Chronicles (Nick Ramey), and Deathrace (yours truly) And leave some comments, guys. I know people are reading this. Let us know what you think!