Hey Russ,
I know, I know. It’s been a while. Moving to a new city,
starting a new job has its stresses so I can’t do everything at once. But hey!
I’m back and excited to review a ton of new movies!
Introduction
The Marvel Universe has been busy. It seems I can’t go one
month without a new blockbuster Marvel film coming out. I know Marvel has a well
thought out franchise in progress and I am a huge fan of it. But at some point,
I’m gonna grow weary of it, right? I mean, in the Avengers world, we have had three Iron Man movies, two Thor movies,
a Hulk movie and now two Captain America movies. We also had an Avengers movie, soon to be followed by
another (my excitement is already holding steady an alarming level). I can’t
even escape Marvel before the movie begins. Marvel had its name on three of the
five previews I saw before seeing Captain
America: The Winter Soldier. First was the upcoming Amazing Spiderman sequel, followed by the highly-anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past and finally Guardians of the Galaxy. Of course, the
rights to Spiderman are still owned by Sony and X-Men is owned by 20th
Century Fox not Disney, so we’ll never see the friendly neighbor take down a
couple bad guys with Iron Man or Wolverine go toe-to-toe with Loki. Shame. My
goodness, imagine how awesome those additions to the Avengers would be!
The truth is, though, I have not grown weary of the Marvel
universe yet. Super heroes make excellent action flick material and, when done
well, they have the capacity to enthrall me more than I would care to admit a
character from a comic book could. I will say though, after The Avengers, I grew more skeptical of the
Marvel universe continuing, for two reasons.
The first problem is one that my friend brought up recently:
if all these guys came together to defeat Loki in The Avengers, why are they not coming together again when there are
major threats in the non-Avengers movies? I mean a little help from the Hulk
might have been really nice for Tony Stark in Iron Man 3. At the end of Avengers,
we see Stark and Banner get into a super awesome car and ride away into the
sunset together as if they are now the best of friends. So why is Banner (or
any other Avenger for that matter) strangely absent in the following films?
Wouldn’t the Avengers have determined that the threat from Malekith in Thor: The Dark World was worthy of a
reunion? I mean, the guy wanted to literally destroy the universe and he chose
the Avengers’ backyard to do it. Yeah, yeah, there are probably contract issues
with Evans, Downey Jr, Hemsworth and others, but Marvel set this up. If you
choose to be ambitious enough to bring the guys together, you’ve got to keep
them together.
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| Marvel will have to work hard to top the Avengers |
The second reason why I’m skeptical of post-Avengers movies is a concern over
content. For one, you can’t have all the movies after The Avengers too dependent
on what happened in that movie. So far, each succeeding movie has merely
referred to the events of The Avengers
briefly and then, I think, tastefully moved on. So props to you, writers! The
second problem is the same one that every sequel faces: whether or not you’re
beating a dead horse. For example, Transformers
was a bad movie in almost every critic’s eyes, but I still loved it. It was
new, interesting and introduced a lot of unique elements to an action movie.
But the second and third movies got boring quickly. Megatron transforming was
not interesting anymore. Explosions in Egypt and Chicago are still explosions.
Ultimately the concept was the same every time, with just a few tweaks to
characters and the threat. Not that I didn’t enjoy those movies, but it just wasn’t
cause for any anticipation or excitement. I knew what was coming. This is what
I fear for Marvel. So far, that has not been the case so I’m still on board!
Continuity
Enough with the introduction. You’ve already been reading
for ten minutes and I haven’t even gotten to the review part. I’m sorry. So
here we go. And be warned; there are spoilers ahead.
With all this in mind, I settled in to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Right off the bat, I have to give some credit to the studio. Even before seeing
the film I knew that I would like a couple of things. First, I liked that the story would keep elements from The
Avengers in play. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
would be making a return with Steve Rogers and I was pleased by this news,
especially since Nick Fury was Rogers’ very first contact after his defrosting
at the end of Captain America: The First
Avenger. It makes sense that Fury would be a part of Rogers’ life after Loki
so quickly (and violently) initiated him into the modern world. Secondly, I
like that the previews did not commit the mortal sin of giving big reveals
away. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for not telling us who The Winter Soldier
actually is in the previews, Marvel.
While I just said that sequels to The Avengers can not depend on the events of that movie, I do like
that Captain America: The Winter Soldier
expands on elements of that movie not yet explored. S.H.I.E.L.D., the World
Security Council and the heli-carrier that were the source of so much good in The Avengers are back and central to the
plot of this film. The Avengers
established the danger of nuclear deterrents and swapping freedom for security.
This was actually a large part of what made that film so rewarding. Instead of
proliferating and creating weapons, an imperfect team of “lost souls” works
together to save the world. But what happened to all that stuff that
S.H.I.E.L.D. was doing to secure the planet? Well, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was going to address that. I’m
a fan!
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| Captain America reunites with Black Widow in CA2 |
Is Steve Rogers Still Boring?
I didn’t know what to expect going into Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I will refer to as CA2 from now on, for the sake of my
carpal tunnel syndrome. I guess I went in with low expectations. The first film
was not the best Marvel movie at all, and it seemed to be thrown together
simply to get Captain America to the 21st century for The Avengers. Plus, Steve Rogers isn’t
exactly the most interesting character when considering the other people in the
Marvel Universe. It would be easy to say that Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man is
by far the most captivating character and the one Marvel has chosen to develop
the most so far. After that, when considering all of the Avengers, even based
only on their roles in the Avengers
movie, I would put Steve as second-to-last in terms of “interesting,” only
ahead of Hawkeye. Stark is the leader, Banner is central to the story, Thor has
a relationship with Loki and, let’s face it, Black Widow is hot and Nick Fury
is Samuel L. Jackson. Even Agent Colson had his own unique humor and was a
connecting factor for many of the characters. Rogers is just too… perfect. He is
the model American: strong, determined, sacrificial and morally unshakeable. And
therefore he’s boring. Unfortunately the first movie didn’t really do much with
him and The Avengers didn’t have a
ton of character development in order to have me change my mind. So if the
second film was going to be any good, I wanted to see more on Steve.
I was not disappointed. CA2
addresses Rogers’ incomplete development right away. The film’s first half hour
or so, besides an action-packed boat hostage rescue mission, is dedicated to
Rogers’ acclimation to his new life and shows this in tastefully dramatic,
emotional and occasionally humorous ways. Towards the beginning of the movie,
after meeting Sam Wilson for the first time, Rogers pulls out a notebook with a
list of maybe fifteen things he is getting caught up on that have happened
since the 1940s, including Star Wars/Trek, the moon landing and disco. This is
a clever scene that instantly draws the audience to Rogers. Suddenly I felt
like I wanted to add things to the list for him too, and I instantly connected
with Rogers in the same way I connect with someone who is genuinely interested
in my opinion. I recently read that this list of things is actually different from
country to country. For example, if I had seen CA2 in Great Britain, the 1996 World Cup would be on the list along
with Sean Connery; Australia’s list includes Steve Irwin and Russia’s includes
Yuri Gagarin. That is just cool.
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| Captain America's list of things to catch up on |
Throughout the first act of CA2, we catch glimpses into Rogers’ state of mind. He is clearly
lost in his new world. He expresses frustration with Fury that the hostage
rescue mission was not carried out like a proper military operation and further
clashes with him over his methods. Later, Rogers goes to the Smithsonian, where
he walks through an exhibit dedicated to Captain America, clearly in an attempt
to reach out and return to the world he used to know, which now only exists as
an assemblage of replicas and displays. He lingers in front of a television
interview of Peggy Carter. The scene transitions quietly to Steve beside a
hospital bed and what follows is my favorite scene of the movie. Steve has the
chance to talk with Peggy as an old woman. She has lived a long life, married
and had children while Rogers was frozen in the ice. Now Rogers has awoken only
to remain stuck with S.H.I.E.L.D., moving from conflict to conflict, stuck in
the only life that even closely resembles his old one. He expresses this
frustration with Peggy. He questions himself and what is right, revealing a desire
for at least a sense of purpose in a new world that he doesn’t recognize.
Carter sympathizes, saying, “I have lived a life. My only regret is that you
could not live yours.” An emotional moment is shared between the two as Rogers
consoles Carter, reminding her “I couldn’t leave my best girl. Not when she
owes me a dance.” Beautiful and revealing, this scene connects the first film
with the second and gives depth to Rogers. As an audience we know he is lost
and not sure what to do. The Rogers who always had a clear mission before him
is gone. What remains is an uprooted legend living in a world he not only
doesn’t understand but also fears. He considers quitting but doesn’t even know
what he would do outside of the life he’s in. He is still the model American
but now struggles with doubt, guilt and uncertainty. And in keeping with the
message the movie attempts to address - that of security vs. freedom – these concerns
of Rogers’ mirror those of the audience as well. We value and defend freedom
but often struggle and debate the lengths we are willing to go to defend it. At
this point in the movie I was totally behind Steve Rogers because I sympathized
with him. Instead of an overly heroic, dutiful soldier proudly carrying the
flag, I saw a troubled man, wondering where to go in life.
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| Seeing Steve Rogers grow and develop was crucial for my satisfaction with Captain America: The Winter Soldier |
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