Originally written May 6, 2012

According to Wikipedia, this is the first Marvel movie ever made. Although, technically it’s not a movie, it’s actually a serial. It runs for 15 chapters, each chapter being a little over 15 minutes long (except for Chapter 1, which is 25 minutes), all for a grand total of about 4 hours. So really, it’s just a long movie. Still, being such a rich part of Marvel’s movie history, I had to watch it.

The story is really weird, even if only for the fact that aside from there being a guy named Captain America in it, it has nothing to do with Captain America. The typical CA story is about the super solider Steve Rogers who fights Nazis and carries around a shield. Instead, in this Captain America is a guy named Grant Gardner, who is a district attorney (who doesn’t have a shield, but instead a gun). This serial has him trying to stop a villain named The Scarab (also never seen before).

However, in this case different isn’t bad. I would hardly consider him Captain America, but it’s an interesting serial nonetheless. I like how every chapter ends in a cliffhanger, with Captain America being in situations such as being stuck in a burning building or being thrown out of a window. While sometimes too similar, the action scenes were pretty good too. I suppose my only real complaint is that it does get formulaic after a while. Almost every chapter has The Scarab trying to steal some device off someone, Grant Gardner investigating into it, then Captain America fighting some henchmen, and a cliffhanger ending. It’s not the worst thing by any means, it just sometimes feels like it’s getting a little old. Other than that though, I thought this was fantastic for its time.

4/5