Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Pre-Movie

This being my first entry on the site, I like to point out that, yes, I will spoil everything. It's kind of a given with the URL, but for those of you who didn't catch that, you've been warned.

That said, I like to give you guys a little pre-movie info, just so you know where I'm coming from in my discussion. Every critic brings with them certain biases and ideals when they watch a film and I'm no different. As a general rule, I'll try to write a bit about the movie before I watch it. Am I hyped. What am I hoping to see? What don't I want out of this movie? And then I'll get into the whole post-movie discussion. And yes, that will be full of spoilers and ruin everything. This is a site for people who've seen the movie already or just can't help themselves and want to know everything.

And what better movie to kick the site off with than Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Marvel's... ninth(?)... flick in their cohesive cinematic universe. I should say this pre-movie section is a bit unfair, as I watched the movie a week ago, but I can give you a little summation of what I was thinking when I walked into the theater.

Honestly, I'm not a huge Captain America fan. It could just be that I grew up with punk music and was in a liberal arts program during the George W. Bush administration, but I was never into the comics and as a character I never quite got why he even mattered for comic book fans. The shield was probably a sweet weapon for little kids in World War II era USA, but even in the first Captain America movie it wasn't all that exciting. Chris Evans in the first movie and The Avengers did an awesome job giving the character heart, but of all the characters in these movies, he's a few steps below Iron Man and Thor.

Honestly, I was kind of hoping a certain somebody would randomly show up in the third act and hulk out a bit.

What? Mark Ruffulo was signed on for six Marvel movies and there's no Hulk sequel planned.

An interesting thing about Marvel setting up this universe is that now, despite the disaster that was Iron Man 2, we're all kind of looking forward to those little cameos and guest appearances. Not just Nick Fury and Agent Coulson. At some point, Marvel is going to have to bring out the big guns. Maybe not a full on Avengers affair, but in Iron Man 3, surely Hulk could've helped fight The Mandarin as long as they were working in tons and tons of CGI anyway. A team up of two of the major heroes for these lesser world shattering threats only makes sense.

Anyway, walking into the theater, I wasn't a huge Captain America fan. But Marvel movies have come to be known for a certain level of quality. Big directors. Big stars. Awesome action. Great special effects. For example: I've never read an Ant-Man comic. I think the concept of the character sounds dumb. But it's a Marvel movie directed by Edgar Wright, starring Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas. Hell yeah, I'll go see that.

Guardians of the Galaxy? You had me at James Gunn, Lee Pace, Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, and Vin Diesel. Okay, okay.

Actually, I started reading the comics of GOTG and all of you should too. Turns out, pretty awesome.

So maybe Captain America himself isn't all that exciting, but I could pretty sure that I'd be in for a good time. So that said, here's the trailer and your final spoiler warning. Everything below this paragraph is going to completely ruin the movie for you.

Post-Movie

I was thrilled during the ending credits to confirm, yes, Gary Sinise was the voice of the narrator at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum.

So the most interesting thing here is that in a lot of ways this felt like a sequel to Iron Man 2 just as much as the first Captain America and The Avengers. I don't know if it was just Black Widow, Nick Fury, and Gary Shandling's return as Senator Stern. But I kept thinking back to Iron Man 2.

That said, out of the three movies that feature Steve Rogers, this is the first one where he was truly an interesting character.

Again, Chris Evans gave him a lot of heart in the first movie and The Avengers. But in both of those he was just the straight laced good guy with a heart of gold. He was a symbol of American idealism and better times, and it didn't quite mesh well with my NOFX.

Let's be honest. The first Captain America was so-so. A movie that felt throughout as though it was being made because somebody at Marvel said, "Well, we HAVE to have a Captain America movie before we do The Avengers." A by-the-numbers comic book flick that really didn't have anything too special about it. The action was fine. The shield combat... had its moments. The character didn't so much grow as he did... have costume changes. And that may have been by design. "I'm just a kid from the Bronx." Something like that.

In The Avengers, Captain America was cool. They did enough that he was able to be established as an acceptable comic character in the modern world. They justified his costume just as much as him. But he didn't really have any screen time to develop. We were given enough to say, "Okay. He's the man out of time. We get it. When is Thor going to show up? Will somebody please have a god damn hulk out?"

Captain America: The Winter Soldier fixed this, and fixed it well. It wasn't a man getting used Google and iPhones (although those gags were certainly thrown in for good measure). It was a man getting used to a world that no longer held onto his values.

This movie justified the lack of character development from the first movie. I'd actually argue this was the movie Marvel wanted to make for Steve Rogers all along. They just had to get through all of their phase one crap so they could finally make something really cool.

And, yes, it was damn cool.

Not just the waaaaaay better choreographed action. Or the relevant politic drama. The way Rogers fit and didn't fit into the world around him was what made the movie.

Also the explosions.

Over the weekend I heard somebody refer to it as "The Dark Knight of Marvel movies." As difficult as it is to place any other comic book movie in a league with the first two Christopher Nolan Batman flicks, for a Marvel movie, yes. This is the closest they've come.

It's still the Marvel universe. It's a certain level of quality and entertainment. Is it as say... as close to Oscar worthy as the first two Batman flicks? No. But it's damn good popcorn entertainment.

I'd say the worst part of the movie was the trailer for an upcoming Luc Besson flick prior to the movie. 

That's not to say The Winter Soldier wasn't without its flaws.

The character, The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes, could've been done better. Yes, he was totally and completely badass in all of his action scenes. With the exception of the bit where he first catches Captain America's shield. Something about the special effect just doesn't look right. He should've had more of a reaction. But over all... holy shit! That dude can kick some ass.

The problem comes in for people like me who've never read the comic. The Winter Soldier is discussed by Black Widow and given a couple of scenes to show his brain washing and simple mindedness. But it wasn't enough. Maybe comic fans are joyous or furious with his on-screen portrayal. As somebody new to the character, sure. He's badass. But it's a comic book movie, so there really isn't much to make his badass-ness stand out against any other character.

He actually goes through the same problem Steve Rogers had in the first movie. No development and his entire role felt like a setup to later, better things. The problem is that we're going to be waiting a few years for those better things. If he even appears in part three.

For this movie, he was just a henchman. That's it. Which I honestly wouldn't have thought twice about had he not shared half the title of the movie. An equivalent would've been if Goldfinger had instead been called James Bond: Odd Job.

When The Winter Soldier is on screen, you say, "Hell yeah!" When he's off screen you really don't care. When Captain America is going through his "I'll have to fight my best friend" drama, there's not a lot of feeling to it. Not that Evans doesn't sell it. It's just, as an audience, we're already there to watch Captain American fight his best friend. We've known it's his best friend since the first trailer hit last year and we all asked Yahoo, "Who is the winter soldier?" Any chance of that being a surprise for 99% of the audience was dead. And we know it's going to be an awesome, epic fight. But no matter who the character was in the last movie, there's no real weight for the audience if The Winter Soldier is somebody we don't have any attachment toward.

The movie itself never gave us an attachment, good or bad, toward the character. He was just a badass. Just an evil henchman. The one moment where we really felt something for him was after the credits.

But it was damn cool to watch them fight.

How did you guys feel about Hydra's return?

I thought it was kind of wonky until I started thinking about The Avengers. The fact that SHIELD still has all of those weapons and such from the first Captain America is what brought it home for me. It really was an excellent way of tying everything together. I was a little slow buying into it, and my final feeling during the third act battle was more of a, "Sure. Why not?" than anything else.

The one part that made me giggle was when Gary Shandling whispered, "Hail Hydra."

Yes! Great twist and this is a dick character who we've all enjoyed hating for a few years now so it made sense to push him in that direction. But it was such an awkward and clumsy thing to do. I kind of wanted the other guy to take a step back and say, "Whoa! Calm down there, guy. I know you've been waiting for the big day for a while but let's not get all 'club house handshake' in the middle of the street." 

Maybe it was just me. For a deep cover, secret organization that manipulated American ideals to rise in their ranks and infiltrate every part of a covert agency's infrastructure while more or less giving the message, "Look Americans! The stuff we're doing isn't too far off from Nazism!" I would think their members would be able to hold it in a little better. It was just one of those little "Cool for the audience, not so great Hydra" kinda moments.

I guess even Hydra would have its over zealous members. The guy who can easily be placed in a powerful position during a coup, but probably doesn't get invited to all the meetings and Hydra balls.

He's the kind of guy who would blow everything by saying, "The first rule is I'm not supposed to talk about it. And the second rule is I'm not supposed to talk about it." To anybody with an octopus on their shirt.

"What are you talking about, guy? I'm a Red Wings fan too and we're more than welcome to discuss it. In fact, that's how we relate as fans. We even have multiple television networks where people are paid to talk about it."

That was actually my biggest complaint. Apart from some of the trailers. And, yes, there was the fact that Iron Man was referred to but didn't show up.

Marvel is going to have to do this at some point. They've taken all the time in the world to establish these characters as existing in the same universe. Early in the movie, Nick Fury mentions that Tony Stark had a hand in designing the turbines on the new heli-carriers. Falcon's winged jet pack has Stark Industries written on the side of it. And at no point does Tony Stark show up.

I'm actually more forgiving of this than I am not having Hulk show up at the end of Iron Man 3.

But let's be honest. Nick Fury is dead. Shield is in turmoil. They're launching three ships that Tony Stark had a hand in designing. Surely at some point Pepper Potts would roll over in bed and say, "You should probably be there for the final bit of construction and unveiling of heli-carriers to the world, Tony."

I realize, for a film studio, to suddenly include Tony Stark in the movie is to pay Robert Downey Jr. however many millions of dollars and it uses up one of the movies he's contracted to make with them. It's cheaper to have him not show up. But when it makes so much sense to include him in the story, you might as well make him have an appearance.

Steve Rogers could've just called Tony Stark and said, "Hey, guy. There's all sorts of madness going down and you're Iron Man. With or without the thing in your chest. I know you might be recovering from surgery  and/or you just detonated all your awesome suits, so you probably have to sit this fight out, but say, I've got this guy here who needs a jet pack and he says the only way to get one is to steal it. Any chance you could give us a hook up?"

Or alternatively, somebody from Hydra who infiltrated SHIELD, and was planning on killing Tony Stark anyway could've just made a phone call and said, "Hey, guy. These new heli-carriers are about to take flight and we sure would appreciate it if you could stand directly beneath them and make sure everything is looking okay. Could you do that for us? Buddy?"

Even better, Tony Stark could've flown in immediately after the battle was over in a shoddy Iron Man suit, panting heavily, saying, "I flew in- I saw it on the news *heavy breathing* I just built this suit in like- twenty minutes. Am I too late? Did I miss it? What's a Hydra anyway?"

At some point, Marvel is going to have to include a team-up movie. Maybe not a full blown Avengers affair, but Hulk could sure use Thor's help in a sticky situation and Bruce Banner is clever enough to communicate with Asgard. Something. For this movie, it made sense not to include Hulk. And Thor was across the galaxy. But Tony Stark was heavily referenced and could've easily been utilized without stealing the show.

"Okay. There are three enemy ships taking flight and we need to replace chips in all of them. Falcon, you are capable of flight, so you take one. I will handle the other two."

"You mean you don't know anybody else who could just fly up real quick and replace the chip on the third ship while you handle the other one?"

"...Nope. Nobody comes to mind."

Or maybe Hawkeye could've shown up at some point. I guess. He used to work for SHIELD, right? Somewhere in there. Given that the movie was just as much as SHIELD movie as a Captain America movie, it might've made sense to include him. At least in that Mexican stand off scene. Of course he would have to be the first person to get shot. Let's face it, SHIELD or Hydra, everybody wants to put a bullet in the asshole who brought a compound bow to a gun fight.

"An entire army of aliens is approaching. Better pack the big quiver."

On another note, why exactly was Nick Fury telling his car to hold on deploying its defenses? He wanted the glass weak enough to shoot through with his first bullet? Over all, great scene. I just didn't see his reasoning there beyond, "It's not dramatic enough if I don't wait until the last second to start firing!"

It also would've been funny if he went to use the retinal scan with his bad eye and it didn't work. And Robert Redford could've explained, "No. We removed your security clearance and everything. Left eye or right eye, it's all stored in the same file. Fury, Nick dot pdf." Of course Nick Fury would've responded by plucking Redford's other eye and using it for his scanner.

Anyway, sweet movie. Honestly, I don't know why you guys are even reading this. You'd be better off just going and watching it again.