Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The price of freedom is high — but it’s a price I’m willing to (wait, how much?!)
+: everyone kicks ass, action comprehensively great, compelling plot
-: little actual Winter Soldier, slight ending fatigue, political metaphors have small but visible panel gaps
On the cover of my DVD for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there’s just one image with enough information for anyone to identify the scene it’s from: Black Widow, leaning forward (#LeanIn) and smiling towards the camera. The other images are just specific enough to tell us who the main characters are. This was Marvel Studios in 2014: even for what was one of their weaker properties, actual effort in the marketing was optional.
Then again, the best promotion is the product.
It’s the first thirteen minutes that establish Winter Soldier as raising the game. Two scenes: one an ostensible re-introduction to Steve Rogers, although it serves better as an introduction to Sam Wilson, the Falcon. Afterwards, there’s the scene on the Lemurian Star, in which Captain America is recast as a sort of ninja-boxer, floating like Usain Bolt on steroids, stinging like a truck to the face, slowing only when faced with starter-villain Batroc the Leaper. These are great sequences, character and action-wise, and even if the rest of the film turned into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), it’d still only pull the whole thing down to ‘average’.
The crucial thing here is influence. Yes, there are obvious ones such as Three Days of the Condor (1975) and other conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s — Robert Redford’s here as a pretty obvious nod. Maybe the less obvious one, though, and most extensive, is Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight (2008) has had plenty of rip-offs, most deleteriously in the Bond franchise (hell, Spectre (2015) just goes ahead and steals Winter Soldier’s premise too). Here, though, the Russo Brothers know exactly how the Nolan approach works. The point was never about tone, or darkness (although Winter Soldier is notably grimmer than pretty much any prior MCU film) or even about realism, or any particular set of tropes, so much as verisimilitude: the idea of a grounded story — a crime drama or conspiracy thriller — into which superheroes and supervillains are impeccably photoshopped in.
And it works. Sure, there’s some quibbling to be had about how little the actual eponymous antagonist is in this film, and whether the return of HYDRA fits the political argument (here, they’re cast almost as an Al-Qaeda/Daesh style anyone’s-in-if-they-say-so kind of organisation), although I’d ultimately argue that it works as a slightly-blunt metaphor. There’s no arguing against the car chase, though, or the elevator fight, complete with dialogue both subtle and on-the-nose (“forensics”).
There’s also no doubting the characters and cast. Captain America is a little more understated in this film — his doubt is just that, not angst. He still radiates the fundamental decency of the previous two films, although the zealotry is starting to creep in (“this is how it ends”). Black Widow is, as ever, a completely different person in this film, as is fitting for a super-spy. The Falcon manages to be more than the Black Sidekick, although at this point not a huge amount more.
The MCU often gets criticised for its grey visuals, but for Winter Soldier — the greyest of said films — this seems unfair. The cinematography isn’t exactly Kubrick, but it is full of clever touches — notice how the elevator shot descending towards the Zola bunker mimics a similar shot at a SHIELD facility near the beginning of The Avengers, or the long shot of Black Widow in the engine room, framed like a theatre stage, or the drone’s-eye view of an incoming missile (criticism about the soundtrack might well be fair, although the synth-scream cue for the Winter Soldier is pretty great).
Winter Soldier isn’t a perfect film, and it gets a little frayed after ninety minutes. The finale gets a bit needlessly quippy (“Done… and it’s trending”) and the pacing is off — two helicarriers are fixed easily, but the third goes down to the wire because of course it does. These are minor issues, though. Captain America: The Winter Soldier proved the MCU could thrive beyond Iron Man. The next entry would show it could bound worlds away from him, too.
High Points: the car chase, the elevator fight, any time the Winter Soldier shows up.
Low Points: Alexander Pierce kills his housekeeper, because he’s eeevil, see. Bit daft, thankfully brief. Also, a scene we don’t see: it’s implied that the Falcon jetpack is hard to get, but we never see the heist.
Curios: sure, Heimdall can take out a spaceship with knives, but Captain America can knock down a Quinjet with a shield. Also, Captain America learnt to steal cars in Nazi Germany; it turns out the Nazis were so evil the very land they occupied could corrupt the Marvel Universe’s moral paragon like a radioactive fog.
Flagrant Product Placement: Chevrolet, Hubba Bubba, Apple, the Smithsonian, Stark Industries, civil liberties.
Connections to Elsewhere: extends back to Iron Man 2 with Senator Stern, confirms Tony Stark’s suspicions in The Avengers (and how), and foreshadows not just Captain America’s next two appearances but Doctor Strange too. The fan theory of the Punisher making unseen cameo appearances is just that, but it’s too fun to go unmentioned.
Stan Lee Cameo: as a Smithsonian prison guard, who is, by his own assessment, about to be fired. Eh, it’s OK. (5/10)
End Credits: Baron von Strucker reveals that he has Loki’s sceptre, and also both Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. One of the creepiest and best end-credit scenes Marvel’s done. (10/10) Also, Bucky realises he’s Bucky. Not really worth sitting through the credits for. (4/10)
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Next: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
