Very well executed

Let's be realistic.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's like I was watching Batman from 1943. all over again, only with lame version of Captain America instead of Batman in leading role. Literally nothing new in it. Exactly the same pattern with minor details changed. Captain America is normally less fun than Batman, and here they destroyed him to such extension that it's beyond any comparison. Very disappointing.

Captain America was far and away my favourite hero when I was growing up in the 1960s. A lot of this was do do with artist Jack Kirby's dynamic drawings of Cap in the Marvel Comic Tales of Suspense. I especially enjoyed the war-time setting of the comics and the hero's battles with his arch-nemesis The Red Skull. When CA joined the Avengers, I bought every one of those comics, too. All this is by way of saying I was (and am) a major fan of the character.It wasn't until years later, as I was getting more into movies and hunting down classic Hollywood serials, that I got to see CAPTAIN America.Now, this serial has taken a lot of stick on this site for not following the comics ... but I have less of a problem with this than some people here.Yes, the plot is a bit repetitive - but folks, it's a serial. You're supposed to watch it one episode a week. It's going to look a bit cheap, because the budget was tiny. It's going to have second-grade actors, because A-listers would never agree to appear in serials. This was where the studio tested out new talent and put old actors (and stunt men) out to pasture.As serials go, it's one of the better ones. I was astonished at just how much the stunt men in this throw themselves into the fight scenes. How these guys weren't hurt, I'll never know. The direction from John English (who, incidentally WAS English and was responsible for all the best serials of the period) it very slick and Lionel Atwill (one of the great b-movie actors) is excellent as the villain - though he does seem to forget his lines from time to time.All in all, one of the better serials of the 1940s - great fun if you fast-forward past the lengthy episode recaps. And I don't mind a bit if it doesn't follow the comics exactly. What comic book adaptation does? This serial is quite enjoyable enough to stand on its own terms.

This serial isn't exactly what fans of the Captain America comic book character might expect. Here's the "bad" news: The hero in this serial isn't the same Captain America as in the comic books. This hero is called Captain America and wears a costume close to the one in the comics, but that's where the similarities end. This guy isn't Steve Rogers. He doesn't have a special shield and instead he just uses a gun!Now here's the good news: This isn't bad! There's plenty of fun stuff in this one for serial fans. Some have commented on Dick Purcell's "pudgy" physique, but he still makes a fine 1940's serial hero whose quick on the trigger. I wouldn't mess with the guy. Purcell's Captain America is far more lethal than his comic book counterpart and he has no problem pulling a gun and sending his enemies to their graves. Purcell's Captain is one deadly superhero. His Captain America kills four different guys in just the first 15 minutes of the serial! The Captain's gal pal Gail Richards (who is very cute) also packs a pistol and knows how to use it!The silly: There are always silly elements of comic book movies and my favorite bit of silliness in this serial is "the vibrator". The bad guys really want to get their hands on a brilliant scientist's "vibrator". At one point the scientists actually asks the chief villain "What do you know about my vibrator?"!LOL! The verdict: Captain America is an extremely entertaining serial with plenty of enjoyable moments. This Captain America is a different guy from the comic version, but he's more of a straight shooting vigilante and I liked Purcell's Captain's style. This is fun stuff! It's a blast of entertaining escapism and I enjoyed every second of it. Captain America isn't the best serial you'll ever see, but that's part of it's charm. I give Captain America an A+ for being topnotch fun.

In the 1940s, every studio had at least one genre they excelled at. Universal had horror films, Warner Brothers had crime dramas and social commentaries, MGM had lavish musicals and costume dramas. Republic Studios was near the bottom of the barrel, but they had something they did better than anyone else: serials, weekly chapterplays where the heroes faced a deadly peril at the end of each episode. No one did them better than Republic. They had the best writing, music, special effects, stuntmen, and these factors added up to the best serials of all time: `Zorro's Fighting Legion,' `The Lone Ranger,' `The Adventures of Captain Marvel,' `Spy Smasher,' and others.But by 1944, the Republic formula had become just that, formula. `Captain America' is a product of a studio and a genre in decline. While the movie is technically proficient and slickly produced, the thrill and excitement is gone.Any Captain America fan seeing this movie without prior warning is in for a shock: Republic was notorious for making arbitrary changes to characters, and Captain America had it worse than anyone. Instead of being Private Steve Rogers of the United States Army, now he was Grant Gardner, District Attorney of an unnamed American city. His trademark shield was gone, replaced by a mundane .38-caliber revolver. His sidekick, Bucky, was also missing, so Cap was assisted by an efficient secretary, Gail Richards (Lorna Grey). Most bizarre was ignoring the whole World War II angle – instead of having Captain America battle spies and saboteurs like he did in the comics, they had him battling a run-of-the-mill criminal mastermind, Cyrus Maldor (Lionel Atwill), alias the Scarab. It strikes me as an odd choice for an overtly patriotic hero in the middle of a world war, but…Dick Purcell does a good job as Grant Gardner / Captain America, although he wasn't the best physical match for the part. Most of the young, trim guys were off fighting the war, so instead you have the nicely-rounded Purcell in the tights. Sometimes he looks more like Captain Dad than Captain America, but Purcell still does a decent job. Lorna Grey makes a surprisingly sexy sidekick (I can imagine younger moviegoers in 1944 lamenting Cap hanging out with a girl instead of his pal Bucky, while the slightly older audience would see the improvement). Lionel Atwill is appropriately scheming and menacing, but his climactic fistfight with Captain America stretches credibility a little too much.The two words that best describe `Captain America' are `competent' and `tired.' The serial goes through all the paces and delivers some excitement, but the classic Republic crispness, the snap, is gone. The serials would die slowly over the next twelve years, doomed to exhaustion and competition from television, but the glories of those years live on in memory.