Again, the real saving grace here is Matt Salinger's sincere performance as the title character, but even that can only do so much against a weak script and boring villains. The guy playing the Skull is ineffectual, but he's got a nice looking daughter. Naturally, Captain America catches up with the Red Skull and beats the crap out of him in turn ("Stop calling me your brother!") before saving the world. He also finds out that the Red Skull is still alive and still out to conquer the world. When Cap thaws out, he finds that much has changed while he's been gone, like his old girlfriend and her now adult daughter. Cap narrowly manages to cut off the Red Skull's hand and wrecks the missile so that instead of hitting the White House it lands in the Arctic and freezes him there, but not before he is spotted by a little boy who grows up to be President Ronny Cox.
After Steve Rogers gets pumped up by the super soldier serum he becomes Captain America and gets into a disastrous first mission that ends with him getting his ass kicked by the Red Skull, who straps him to a missile pointed at the White House. Although Arnold's name on the picture might have gotten it a theatrical release instead of going direct to video (a similar fate befell Dolph's "The Punisher").
Actually I think both Dolph Lundgren and Arnold Schwarzenegger, respectively, were both considered for this role, but it's just as well that they didn't get it, seeing as how their accents would have worked against them playing this "All-American" hero. Had this film been left with a bigger budget and gotten a big theatrical release it could very well have made Matt Salinger a star, or at least establish his name and allow him some leverage to pursue other roles in bigger projects like Helen Slater after the endearingly classic disaster "Supergirl" (1984). In a role that could have been made comical or just plain bad by many other actors, Matt manages to imbue the character with an authentic feeling of sincerity similar to what Christopher Reeve gave to Superman and often missing from other actors in superhero films. Most of the half-way decency the film has it derives from star Matt Salinger, the son of over-praised asshole writer JD Salinger. Half-way decent adaptation of the classic Marvel comics character, which many people either love or hate. This scene shows that the Red Skull genuinely hates who he has become. In the 1990's, as Steve Rogers is reviewing the deaths of Martin Luther King and John Kennedy and realizing that the Red Skull is to blame, the Red Skull is shown weeping over the piano seen at the end of the film, re-living the visitation of the Italian army storming into his house, shooting his family, and kidnapping him for their experiments.
Cap then holds the dying female spy in his arms and is reminded of his girlfriend, Bernie, back in the United States. They are ambushed by Nazis, who kill the two spies before Cap finishes them all off. After Captain America parachutes down into Nazi territory, he lands in the forest and is met by two Ally spies, a male and a female, who proceed to show him the way to the enemy base.There is additional dialogue between Steve Rogers and Bernie at the docks before Steve is sent off on his secret mission.Prior to the video release, a pirated copy of Captain America was available which had three extra scenes not included in the final cut: