Every time I think there isn’t a studio as shameless as The Asylum, someone inevitably steps forward and proves me completely wrong. “Captain Battle” is about a star spangled super soldier who fights the Nazis during the war adapted from a public domain character who is already a Captain America knock off. It’s not Captain America. Repeat. It’s not Captain America. From the makers of the cinematic masterpiece “The Amazing Bulk,” this complete and utter rip off of a certain star spangled superhero is so shameless, Marvel should sue only for how inept the movie is.
I can only imagine the inaugural showing of this film by director David Palmieri to the family members of the cast and crew:
“Is this Captain America?”
“No, this is Captain Battle. It’s my original character.”
“This is Captain Ameri–”
“–Grandma, this is not Captain America.”
“It looks a lot like Captain Ameri–”
“–Mom, it’s not Captain America! Trust me! It’s Captain Battle.”
“All I’m saying is, it resembles Captain Ameri–”
“–That’s it! Show’s over! You all suck! I’ll be in my room!”
At eighty minutes length, it’s still too damn long, and is by far one of the most shameless reproductions of Captain America I’ve ever seen. There’s even a villainous Nazi general whose face is red. Not red as in prosthetics, but someone speedily painted his face red from left over Halloween make up, and sent him in to filming. What Top Cat Films and Director David Palmieri did was take a public domain superhero named Captain Battle, who was infamous for being a Captain America rip off, and decided to make him in to a film, and tailoring him for the big screen with even more alterations to his costume to make him resemble Captain America. For those unaware, public domain means anyone can take an established property without a copyright and do what they want with it. With the long list of public domain heroes, Palmieri is able to film a movie about the character without suffering a lawsuit, while closely ripping pages from the Marvel handbook.
An infantry unit stationed in the Grand Canyon (at one point you can see they’re filming in a reservoir as there’s graffiti on a wall behind two soldiers), apparently, find themselves under attack by broad foreign stereotypes. Soldier Sam Battle is mortally wounded, and then revived by a super soldier serum the local army medic just had lying around, for some peculiar reason. Three months later, in spite of being injected with a top secret serum, Sam Battle returns home to find that he’s developed a mild muscular outline, as well as powers never actually explained. I guess for budget’s sake, they can’t clarify his abilities or else they’d have to deliver. When the Nazis plan to rebuild their empire by stealing women and using them as breeders, Battle investigates with his girlfriend Jane Storm. She’s kidnapped, and Battle goes after her. Most of the movie is mainly comprised of people explaining every plot point without any action.
People travel to one place and sit down to talk, they drive and talk, and then when the action occurs (mostly in back lots, alleys, and parking lots), it’s poorly filmed, and badly staged. When Battle goes to save Storm, oddly he appears with his own costume, and dons an eye patch for some odd reason. You can tell the Nazis mean business, as their soldiers kidnap women with bats and knives, and train outside of a studio lot in broad daylight. Classic Nazi Stealth. If anything the movie has eye appeal going for it. Marlene Mc’Cohen and Jenny Allford are at least very good looking and sexy enough to distract from the fact that they can’t deliver a line of dialogue to save their lives. “Captain Battle” is incompetently made, badly written, and is pretty excruciating, all things considered. I hope there isn’t a sequel.