Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
I just realized that neither Megan nor I ever reviewed Captain America: Winter Soldier. I’m not sure how we could call ourselves a nerd opinion site if we didn’t have a review up of the best superhero movie of the year, so here goes. (Editor’s Note: I was holding my opinion because i’ve been waiting to see all the ramifications this has had on Agents of SHIELD! ~MS)
The movie was pretty darn good. It had a great mix of action and drama, and tipped the hat well to the rest of the Marvel universe. Chris Evans once again turned in an excellent approach to the character of Captain America – nuanced without being either Captain Emo or Captain ‘murica. Scarlett Johansson’s performance as the Black Widow was good enough that I’m excited for the Black Widow movie. And Jackson really brought it as Fury this time around. In fact, what I liked most about Winter Soldier was this: it wasn’t actually about Captain America. It was finally the Nick Fury movie we’ve all been waiting for.
The entire movie revolves around Nick Fury finally being forced to come to terms with the idea that his desperate drive towards making the world safer by building the biggest guns is precisely what is elevating the superpowered threats to its safety. While we are mostly over the shoulder of Steve Rogers watching his emotional struggle over fighting elements of the establishment that he found so hard to protect, it is the actions of Fury that we have seen building since Marvel kicked off it’s new movie universe that drive the plot. In The Avengers we saw the culmination of Fury’s efforts in the superhero Cold War, when his Avengers project saves the Earth from an alien invasion. In The Winter Soldier, we see the consequences of those actions when we discover that Fury has been manipulated by Hydra for most of his professional life, and that the world has been opened to the predations of the terrorist organization because of Fury’s unethical decision making.
I thought Redford did a fine job of selling a manipulative man on the edge of achieving the power he’s so long been desiring. It was like watching a role reversal from “Sneakers”, where Redford and Kingsley had traded places. Redford is such an old Hollywood heavy that even though this is the first time we see his character in the Marvel movie universe, we accept his importance without question. Even the plot that he was masterminding wasn’t THAT ridiculous in the scope of a film about a man that is roided out almost as much as Barry Bonds.
The kicker that really sold the movie for me, though, was the effect that it had on the Marvel movie universe. After Winter Soldier, it’s pretty clear that the origins arc ended with The Avengers, and now we’re entering into a new long term arc of storytelling for the universe. It was fun watching the first several Marvel movies get little bits of crossover, with things like cameos or objects and artifacts from other films showing up, or Nick Fury showing up in post credits sequences. Winter Soldier kicked it up to a whole new level though. The ramifications of what happened in the film are going to fundamentally shape every single other Marvel production after this. In fact, it seems that the main long term plotline of Agents of Shield is going to solely deal with recovering from the fallout of Winter Soldier. Which is, you know, a hundred times better than everything in the show leading up to the moment of the Hydra betrayal.
As a final comment, I want to mention how well they sold Sam Wilson, the Falcon. As one of the VERY few black superheroes in comics not called “Black X”, it was satisfying to see them give him a meaty role in the movie and not relegate him to sidekick status. Even if his “powers” are pretty lame, the character is pretty cool, and I’m glad they executed it well.
So, I highly recommend checking out Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier. Even if you don’t care for Captain America as a character, you’ll enjoy seeing the the root of many of the plots we’re going to see resolved in the next few Marvel movies to come out. I’m all the more excited for Guardians of the Galaxy now.
Hail Hydra.
