I agree to a small extent. It really depends on how grounded in reality you are when you view the movie. If you try to examine every character from a real world point of view (I don't see why you would, but to each his own) then you have a point. However, in the context of the movie I believe the fact that HYDRA poses as much of a threat to the Axis as they do to the Allies actually makes them a much scarier group.
Except Hydra doesn't have the same track record the Nazis had. The Nazis conquered most of Europe and killed millions of people in the process. Hydra failed in all of its objectives. Plus do you really think the average guy on the street would think Hydra are more evil then the Nazis? The Nazis have been icons for evil for over 60 years, compared to them, Hydra just seems goofy. Nazism is a real ideology, Hydra is just a group of generic evil villains who want power for power sakes, that is not nearly as scary or compelling as the ideology of hate that Nazism is built on. The Nazis are far more iconic and menacing then Hydra is, Nazis come off as a bigger threat to the allies then Hydra does.
Plus it seems silly that a control freak like Hitler would allow any group to rival the Nazis in the Reich. Hitler purged his own party of anyone who was considered a threat to him in the "Night of the Long Knives", so Hitler just giving the Skull as much resources as he wanted with no real oversight just seems incorrect. What there were no other Nazis then came asking questions after the Skull killed those first 3? Heck Hitler was such a control freak, he would have likely given the Red Skull SS handlers to be on sight at all times, to make sure the weapons production were going on schedule, not just send 3 Nazi Representatives after not getting any results from the Skull for a year.
Stuff like this takes me out of the movie, it feels like it really isn't set in WWII, when Nazis are hardly mentioned.
One of the most miraculous things this movie does is tackles a seemingly nationalistic character in a nationalistic setting against nationalistic villains and makes it all ''nation neutral''. Seriously, it's pretty goddamn amazing that they managed to pull it off. Some would say that they ''took the coward's way out'' but what they accomplished in the movie was actually far harder. It's easy to say ''Nazis are bad, Allies are good'', and it would have been effective but that's been done in many movies.
In this movie you specifically have a hero that doesn't necessarily want to kill Nazis (''I don't like Bullies'') and a villain that wants to kill everyone, including Nazis (''His target is everywhere''). Like I said, the fact that the movie is ''nation neutral'' despite it's setting is a quite the feat. I appreciate the way they handled a movie that could have easily been too pro America and too anti Nazi. The poor Germans have held this negative stigma like shame on their shoulders since the 40s, so I'm glad this movie took it easy on them for once.
It makes me facepalm so hard when people (not you) claim this movie is jingoistic or patriotic. They did everything possible to make the story show that Steve is just pure hearted and would fight for any country's freedom.
Except Red Skull being "nation neutral" doesn't fit the character. In the comics he was an unrepentant racist, even when giving up his Nazi ideology in the comics, he was still a racist. Red Skull had a bad life so he blamed other people for it. Red Skull's racism is a outlet for the times he felt powerless as a child, being an orphan on the streets. Red Skull was victim as a child, so now he wishes to victimize people and it doesn't matter who he is tormenting, as long as the other person is suffering.
In many ways he represented both Hitler and Wiemar Germany, Hitler was a nobody who was given unlimited power, like the Skull and Germany was a country in civil and economic turmoil that turned to an ideology based on hate, similar to how the Skull was a poor and tormented orphan before becoming a Nazi.
To me all this is interesting then the Skull we saw in the movie, a generic power mad "I'm insane so I am going to kill a bunch of random people, hee, hee!" type villain. The Red Skull in the comics is far more scary then the one in the movies, his acts of cruelty are far more twisted and personal and his reasoning for his both believable and completely unsympathetic. Its believable that some people join hate groups take out the frustrations of their own failed lives, that's what makes the Skull so scary. He is the type of evil that can exist in the real world, unhappy people taking out their frustrations on people different from themselves.
Red Skull in the movie never had that act of personal cruelty that made pure evil, rather then just some Bond villain. Red Skull in the comics nearly throwing his own baby daughter into the ocean seems far more cruel and sadistic then anything the movie Skull did. I think making Red Skull "nation neutral" rather then the racist Nazi he was in the comics, weakened the character, not strengthened him.
