Terms to avoid confusion
Captain America: The 1990 direct-to-video film
The First Avenger: The 2011 theatrical film
The Captain/Cap/Steve Rogers: the main character of the comics and both films.
Buried in the obscurity of bad cinema history circa 1990, is the first feature length Captain America film. Like most superhero films of the 20th century, it was a stand alone adaptation made to capitalize on the 50th anniversary of the comics and was one of the most unspectacular fails in superhero cinema. Despite proper preparation in marketing, the film was never released in theaters and appeared directly on video two years after the planned release. Though I don't know the business fiasco that caused this, I can say the punishment fit the crime. The film suffered from an erratic plot, poor characters, and of course, a feeble portrayal of the source material.
Most of these problems were corrected in recently released The First Avenger. Despite its own faults, the film's stronger cast, better script, and Marvel creative team helped the film succeed. For the purposes of a fair comparison, I'm going to ignore the elements that were not a consideration for the 1990 film, such as the references to other Marvel characters, 3D graphics, and a significantly larger budget (for the last one, I feel a good film can be made on a smaller budget. Having a higher one usually just means more icing).
The first thing is the era. In the comics, Cap served during WWII and was frozen cryogenically, during which another man assumed the mantle for several years before dying in the 1960's. The original Cap was then thawed out to continue his adventures. Captain America tried to fully encompass this whole arc. The first few scenes took place during the 1930's and '40's, then Cap was frozen for 50 years before the main story even began. This worked against the film's story because instead of Cap fighting for his country against an iconic evil force, the Nazis, he spends much of the film out of his element before finally jumping in to save the president from anti-environmental terrorists (not even kidding). These lower stakes made the Captain look weaker and less heroic. The First Avenger managed to maintain its focus by having the main plot take place during the war and Cap's adventures in modern times are saved for another story, along with the "man out of time" character development that goes with it.
In an interesting twist, the characters in The First Avenger were actually stronger by being more black and white. Steve Rogers is a true American underdog who doesn't give up, doesn't waiver in his duty, and whose only flaw is inexperience; a true hero through and through. In contrast, his nemesis, Johann Schmidt (a.k.a. Red Skull), is a stereotypical Nazi villain whose ego and ambitions outstrip even his own Reich. He wears his deformation as a badge of his perceived superiority, a unique specimen of a new master race. In Captain America, these two characters were more developed and more human, but it actually worked against their like-ability. Rogers was still an American boy who wanted to serve, but he also felt guilty for leaving his girlfriend behind. He was also slow to step up to service after being thawed and went AWOL to track down said girlfriend. The Red Skull has a more sympathetic origin story. He was abducted by Nazis as a child and given the deforming procedure unwillingly, turning him into the villain. He later has a daughter who was very loyal to him and his activities. These flaws came to a head in the final battle when Cap used Skull's past to distract him, then killed him and his daughter, which made Cap look less heroic and Skull less villainous. Unlike other superheroes, like Batman, Cap is not an amicable character to have such a blurred line between good and evil. I will say one thing for Captain America, and that is the makeup effects for the Red Skull were much more deforming and scary, as opposed to the smooth mask worn by Hugo Weaving. It looked like he took the time to put on some blush before going out to conquer the world.
If there is only one thing that truly divided the success and failure of the two films, it was the different priorities in the story elements. Captain America had more focus on character background and development than on the actual plot (which was pretty weak). The First Avenger did the opposite. Most of the characters were well performed cardboard archetypes that one could find in any WWII period film. Cap himself didn't really change that much throughout the film (other than getting his powers) and all of it worked for the most part. The writers knew they could get away with it because they knew there would be at least one more film with the character (The Avengers) and hopefully more after that. They focused on telling a decent action story and planned to spread Cap's character growth over multiple films. I can't tell if the producers in 1990 planned on any sequels, but it doesn't seem likely since Red Skull was killed at the end and the overall stakes were so low. Even if they had, the continuity would have been eventually erased by the The First Avenger reboot. With Marvel now running things, the superhero film genre is on much firmer footing. Personally, I look forward to writing a follow-up post on any Cap sequels that are released.
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