Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a tiny miracle. Despite being a cog in the well-oiled Marvel/Disney machine, The Winter Soldier avoids feeling like a piece of mechanization. It succeeds as an independent, inventive and surprising suspenseful installment. In fact, Captain America 2 is the first tie-in movie since the original Iron Man that feels like a self-sustaining entity rather than a commercial for a dozen tie-in films and a billion dollars in merchandising. (Don’t worry folks, you still get two post-credit scenes that hint of more to come.)
Despite the success of prior films — with the Avengers laying the new Hollywood gold standard for large universe tie-in features — Marvel has been smart by letting each solo property reside within the confines of its own universe. Captain America exists in a world that is surprisingly grounded in comparison to the fantastic Thor or the sci-fi driven Iron Man and Hulk. This enables directors Anthony and Joe Russo to create film vastly different from any other Avenger film, even the original Captain America.
This particular film plays more like Tom Clancy instead of Superman.
Captain Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is entrenched in a more complicated place than his World War II roots; working full-time with S.H.I.E.L.D on covert missions meant to protect national security. Occasionally, he’s aided by co-Avenger, Natasha Romanoff/The Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson). Whenever Steve’s not playing hero, which is apparently rare, Steve is quietly adjusting to the 21st century world. He’s done pretty well, adjusting his language and demeanor nicely to a more modern approach while constantly jotting down notes whenever he discovers a new pop culture reference from the past 80 years. His bucket list includes “Star Wars/Trek”, “Apple (Steve Jobs)” and “moon landing”. However, we do discovery that Steve did find time to catch 1983’s Wargames!
During Steve’s rare downtime, he unearths more about his post-WWII legacy and the pieces of the life he lost after being frozen in the Atlantic. There’s a touching reunion with love interest, Peggy Carter (played with some convincing make-up once again by Hayley Atwell). Unfortunately Steve’s anachronistic challenges aren’t really explored again for the remainder of the film. Rather than dwell on Captain America’s displacement, this film focuses his conflict with 21st century world politics, security and corruption.
The plot, thankfully, is one of the more engaging, albeit confusing, in Avenger film lore. Steve soon learns that S.H.I.E.L.D has upped their militarization in lieu of the invasion scare from the first Avengers film and that secrets are being held by Colonel Nick Furry (Samuel L. Jackson) and head honcho, Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford). There are revelations of corruption and Steve soon finds himself a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D. He proceeds to combat cryptic forces at play, including the diabolical and dangerous Winter Soldier. Perhaps the biggest letdown is the eventual revelation of the Winter Soldier’s identity which undermines the villain’s threat and remains fragmented purposefully for the sake of being fleshed out in future installments.
However, in the early stages, Winter Soldier makes a for imposing, believable foe; making for some fun combat bouts with our heroes. In fact, the Russo brothers have crafted a series of action set-pieces which are surprisingly effective. The Russo’s clearly know how to imbue suspense and toy with the audience. They have fun with Marvel’s more vulnerable characters like Cap and Widow. They’re placed in precarious positions that feel overwhelming — as opposed to Hulk, Thor or even Superman who always appear to be biding their time rather than succumbing to any genuine danger.
The film’s highlights include a couple of car chases that dazzle. Surprisingly, these are mostly composed well-crafted stunt pieces than obvious computer-created illusions. The action only seems to fall apart in the final battle where the effects, per usual these days, go into overdrive. However, the overall effects remain convincing enough and never devolve into cartoonish bits, even when a side character unveils a set of comic-book-inspired arsenal that could have easily faltered into the childish kiddie antics from the Avengers.
But Winter Soldier truly triumphs by allowing our characters time to breath and come alive. Chris Evans gives his best work yet as the stoic, noble Captain America. Evans injects a sense of dark, brooding doubtfulness that feels organic to the cynical, corrupt world painted here. Evans’ scenes with Johannson are surprisingly dynamic and open the field to a wonderful bit of romantic banter without blatantly suggesting it through physical connection. Instead, there’s a fun running joke with Widow suggesting S.H.I.E.L.D co-workers as date candidates for Cap, but we all get the sense that she’s actually fishing for some personal info. The script is clever and spacious to allow some fine human elements to seep in between all the action and plot twists.
In a wonderful bit of casting, Redford exceeds as the mysterious head of S.H.I.E.L.D whose purpose I would not dare reveal. However, Redford is perfection at underplaying and remains a wonderful Easter Egg for film buffs who know the actor’s history of roles in which he played the hero fighting government corruption.
In fact, everything about Captain America 2 is played with a straight face and a very slight wink at the irony in play here. The is a Marvel film built around real-life politics and fears. It remains a comic-book film with a sense of action and fun, but casts aside the simpler approaches implemented in original film and Avengers. This is Marvel’s best film since the expanded universe began. Marvel has already drafted the Russos for round three!
Tony Stark remains the face of this franchise, but Captain America has truly taken the leader role!
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