Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Marvel, though eventually coming into their own with the MCU, started out a little polarizing in terms of the quality not just within some of their comics, but in a majority of their movies. Before the first Avengers film graced the screens and changed how people viewed superhero films on a global level, Marvel couldn’t find that perfect blend of interesting complex story and genuine light-hearted humor when it came to structuring their stories or even their heroes. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was the one that showed that not only were they going to get better, but that they could create a film that could be considered one of the best in the entire MCU line-up. Still getting used to living in a new century, Captain America/Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans) works for the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D, along with fellow agent, Natasha Romanov/Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) as a way of continuing his legacy and purpose to protect America from all kinds of threats. His boy-scout attitude is suddenly challenged when the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) is attacked and presumably killed after warning Cap to not trust anyone as the agency has been compromised by his old enemy, the terrorist group Hydra. Captain America and Black Widow, along with his new friend, USAF pararesuemen Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie) try to remain elusive and outside of the watch of the new corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D leader, Alexander Pierce (played by Robert Redford), find a way to stop him from murdering a large population of the world through the use of a data-mining algorithm that could help the group pin-point a future threat to Hydra, and survive the onslaught of the Winter Soldier (played by Sebastian Stan) a Hydra-controlled super solid assassin who Steve unfortunately recognizes. Released in 2014 to critical and commercial acclaim, this film took what could’ve have just been a throw-away bridge film that only served to lead into another future instalment, and created a big, action-packed, thrilling experience that towers over its predecessor. Everything about the story, the characters, the actions, even the music, is heightened this time around, featuring higher stakes, more developed characters with improved writing, very impressive action set pieces, and even with its flaws, helped shape Captain America into a true memorable symbol for the modern world.

The story for this film wasn’t specifically based on a single comic run, but screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who helped write The Chronicles of Narnia film franchise, as well as Captain America: The First Avenger) did take inspiration from Winter Soldier arcs written by Ed Brubaker, as well as various conspiracy fiction from the 1970s to influence the political angle of this narrative. With all this in mind, the evolution of the Captain America brand from an upbeat serialized figurehead to be used in war-propaganda, to a grizzled, tonally messy, spy thriller angle with questions of moral and social stability is not only clever in updating a safe character, but also really benefits the story for the role overall in this film universe. The script for this film may seem a bit overly ambitious and may come across as a little complicated at first, but it is also incredibly tight, super engaging throughout its roughly two-length and does everything it can to explore this hero figure in a way that highlights his strengths, but also questions his ability to evolve and adapt to a less clean-cut world. Its grand in presentation and well as in themes, the slower pace gives moments for the characters as well as the audience to comprehend the story, and while definitely not joke-heavy like some of the previous Marvel films have been, it is by no means soulless. The updates added to the world not only expand upon the Captain America brand of this world, but the environment of the MCU in general, including an element of corruption and secrecy within the governmental force that makes the word even on a ground-level less secure and predictable. The directors for this movie, Anthony, and Joe Russo, have a real great handle on the pace and action of this film, keeping it high-octane and gripping, while never losing track of its core themes and ideas. With that said, once and a while, there are some parts of the script that could be fleshed out more, the length might be bothersome for those who aren’t into these kind of spy-based stories, and the climax does go on for a bit too long.

This is probably the first sequel in the MCU where the characters are stronger than they were in the first movie. Even in movies like Iron Man and Thor, their sequels didn’t offer anything worthwhile, whereas this did what a sequel should do and evolve its roles to a new level and provide new context about who they are and what shapes them. It really feels like the film takes advantage of putting a character like Captain America is a brand-new environment in more than just a typical ”fish-out-of-water” manner, as it calls into question that character’s ethics, manner of enacting justice, and even his ideals of fighting for American and what that even means anymore. He has usually always been a blank slate character; a figure that could represent good morals and act as an unoffensive role model that could beat up bad guys and nothing much else, but as those kind of blank slates go, he’s explored pretty well here. They don’t pull the usual dumb cliches that come with this idea, it addresses the tragic and even mentally scarring elements that add to the tone of the story. His rule-following mindset and approachable demeanour is now entire flipped on its head in this modern era, especially with the discovery of the supposed head of American safety being corrupt and filled with terrorist ideals, creating a situation where the easy outline of ”allies versus Nazis” isn’t a thing anymore, and it becomes much harder to not only know who to put faith in, but also how much of yourself you can dedicate to a system that might at its core be flawed. Chris Evans in the role may feel a little out of place as he doesn’t entire feel like a militant man from the 1940s, but he does still do a decent job in the role. New additions like Anthony Mackie make for a fun new character, Samuel L. Jackson feels right at home in this kind of environment, and Scarlett Johansson seems to really come into her own as Black Widow. After a few appearances in other films that mainly used her for her looks and nothing else, this was the first movie that gave the character a sense of purpose, weight, and personality. The glimpses into her past are interesting, but never fully stated, her action scenes are really solid, she and Cap work great off each other, and Scarlett brings this tough and no-nonsense, but still sympathetic appeal to the role that makes her really likeable, it’s a very welcome improvement. Even some of the smaller roles feel decently memorable, with actors like Frank Grillo, Toby Jones, Hayley Atwell and even Gary Shandling providing some great scenes despite barely being featured. With that said, the villains for this film are still pretty weak (which is a common trope for most of the MCU) and they feel like the one element that isn’t expanded upon to be stronger. Though the plan is intimidating in a way that ties back to real life in a disturbing manner, his motivation is not that strong, he’s laughably bland, it’s beyond obvious that he’s evil even before he actually turns, and Robert Redford doesn’t bring anything that any other actor could’ve pulled off. The Winter Soldier comes under a different problem, where he has all the right workings to be a great villain, but the execution is just not strong enough to work as well as he could. He has a good design, some of his fights are cool, and you do feel the turmoil between him and Steve, but for something that should be a huge element that climaxes in a big tragic rivalry, it moreso just feels like any other superhero versus villain conflict.

Marvel was able to pull off the high-budget action set pieces in something like Avengers which featured a lot of superhero theatrics and otherworldly powers and creatures, and this film was the first that truly excelled at the close combat style of action set pieces. Given the Russo’s affinity with action films later in their careers, it would make sense that they would be able to craft a film with such engaging action, but it’s also refreshing to see this kind of style of fighting in a universe where it normally isn’t scene. Any fight that involves two people facing off against each other is very well choreographed by Chris Carnel, paced out in a way that makes the whole thing engaging, and shot by Trent Opaloch in a way that involves a shaky quality that isn’t distracting. Almost every scene has that fierce deadly atmosphere that feels almost uncomfortably realistic, but it also has its dabbles in the typical superhero antics in order to spice things up, and while they might not be as good as the more close-quarters stuff, they are still handled okay and even some of the effects are handled pretty good (enough so that they were even nominated for an Oscar). As mentioned previously, the climax does drag a bit once it reaches the final stretch of the movie, and it does often come from certain fights not having the correct level of intensity or even weight that they require, but considering how much was built up within this film and how much of it was spent in mostly talk-heavy scenes, a climax of this size probably does make sense.

For something that should have and could have easily been filler in this Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America the Winter Soldier didn’t settle for being a sloppy second and improved on everything that its first film started and took the idea of a superhero to the next level. For a character that people at first didn’t find interesting and even thought was kind of silly looking, it evolved him to a level that not only stayed true to what he represented, but actively made him a figure that people nowadays could look up to (its honestly a pretty fitting cycle). The story is much darker and intense but is still very much a comic book story with all the usual theatrics, the characters are stronger and more defined while paired with some entertaining actors, the action is stellar and fresh for the brand at the time, it honestly has everything you’d want from a movie of its kind and gives so much more than you’d expect. If the villains were stronger and you felt the conflict more between the lead and the titular character (for being in the title, he definitely feels like the least interesting part of this movie), it could have reached to even higher levels, but as it is, it’s still a very impressive feat. Definitely check it out and watch the American symbol fight the power.