Captain America: The Winter Soldier

• Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo
• March 13, 2014 (El Capitan Theatre) / April 4, 2014 (US)
• Based on Captain America created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Steve Rogers teams up with the Black Widow and Sam Wilson to battle the mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier and a threat within S.H.I.E.L.D.

I will say this before I get into too much of anything. I really wish the Captain America movies had stayed set during World War II. Given what the Red Skull was doing I don’t think it would’ve been too hard to have them somehow to connect to Infinity War and Endgame. You do not need to know how Cap (Chris Evans) got in the ice to have him in any Avengers movie. You just need him out. Anywho… 

The plot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is another one of those “We are the bad guy” plots. Not always my favorite and often an excuse by the creator(s) to express negative feelings about the very nation that gave them the opportunity to do it. Biting the hand that feeds them so to speak. For that reason I often don’t like them too much. I could really get into the minutia that separates the ones I do like from the ones I don’t but that would take him far more space than this explanation already has. 

I think it succeeds more than it fails. It’s a story that tests Captain America’s ideals and whether or not he can actually stand by them when compromise would be so much easier. Rogers is a man out of his time and having difficulty adjusting to the modern day and complexities of the modern world. His work in S.H.I.E.L.D. forces him into morally compromising sutations that he cannot always reconcile.

I especially like Captain America’s belief in the goodness of his friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) who is now the Winter Soldier. It’s a prime example of what makes the character special. He believes in the unique goodness of others and will go above and beyond for his friends. Not only that but he believes in the ideals the country he represents were founded on and will do everything to make sure those are not compromised.

I love that they dug a little further into the Captain America mythos. Though I knew of the character when I read Captain America I don’t recall seeing Falcon at all. I am left with the impression until around the time of this movie he had become a character that was largely in disuse. These days though he’s in one of the two Captain America comics.

Anthony Mackie as Falcon is a little too physically slight to be a super hero but his performance is exceptional so that I can forgive that. Mackie makes you actually care about the character. Not to mention the character is cool and charming while Mackie lend authenticity to his part. He is the guy you want on your side.

Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce was a very good choice. As a villain with a veneer of kindness he was quite chilling. Intelligent and a perfect antithesis to Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). While Cap must stop the big threat, Fury must confront the personal threat of S.H.I.E.L.D. and someone he had faith in being a threat.

I’ve never been too impressed with Scarlett Johansson. Aside from Lucy and (controversially) Ghost in the Shell I’ve never really been wowed by her. She looks good but can be flat in her delivery. I think they could’ve done better for Black Widow but at this point they were pretty much locked into work.

I haven’t seen the Black Widow film yet so I don’t know if they ever paid it off but the story of the film alludes to some dark secrets involving Black Widow that could ruin her in the eyes of the public. I cannot recall these mentioned secrets playing into any of her other appearances in the MCU after she dumped all the information onto the Internet. It is a serious tease in the movie that they do little to address.

The story of Captain America: The Winter Soldier centers on an algorithm linked to a series of advanced S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers. This algorithm identifies current and future threats to eliminate them. That part I like. One would assume these are threats that warrant a flying aircraft carrier to deal with them. I think some are but most are individuals ranging from adults to children which is confirmed by S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernández) after he is tossed off a roof. It strikes me as excessive to take out a kid on a soccer field with a weapon that could turn them into a bloody mist.

The movie sets up a lot of dark threads. It also addresses some serious things such as people willingly give up their freedom in the name of security. Control and predictability are ultimately much more desirable than the chaos and even danger that can come with free will. Maybe there is even the suggestion in this that some people are born bad. After all the algorithm can predict which are a threat. What they never explain is what are the parameters for a threat. It wasn’t necessary but it would have made things much more sinister. Especially if those parameters were kind of broad or generally vague.

A consistent gripe of mine is that far too many extraneous characters show up in an MCU movie that have nothing to do with the title character or even the story. They are just very obvious reminders to the audience that they are viewing an MCU production. Sometimes those cameos get so numerous they crowd out story development and the main character. Largely in Winter Soldier the cast is there for the purpose of telling the story and not to remind the viewer that this is an MCU film.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier hits most of the right buttons and is a good sequel to First Avenger. It could’ve gone deeper in some aspects but doesn’t dissatisfy really in any way.