Note: There are no spoilers for The Winter Soldier, but some plot details for The Avengers are given away.
I have openly said that the first Captain America film The First Avenger was, and still is the worst of all the Marvel Studio’s films (It also sits in my bottom three of all time), as it served as little more than an extended introduction to The Avengers. With Phase Two (set between the first and second Avengers films) part of Marvel Studio’s plan, we are seeing a lot more character specific films and ones that don’t entirely exist to set up a future film.
The basic story, as I will try and avoid spoilers here, for The Winter Soldier, is after a number of attacks on SHIELD's assets and officers, leading to an assassination attempt on one character'slife, which Cap has information on but can’t say anything about, Captain America is then forced to go on the run to try and clear his name.
Led by Chris Evans as Captain America, who still carries a hope that everything can be clear and that people will do the right thing, even though he himself works in a suspect organization, built on factions within other factions, each one with their own morals and objectives. His struggle with this, even though somewhat marginalized at times, is similar to Superman’s in Man of Steel, as he wants to trust the world and do good, but just can’t push aside all of his doubts.
Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is as entertaining as he has been in all of his performances, although this time there is more to it, he is vulnerable and open to serious challenges regarding his direction of SHIELD.
Scarlett Johansson, reprises her role as Black Widow, the arrogant but very competent assassin. Bar The Avengers, this is the film that has given us the biggest glimpse into her past and the crimes that she has committed in the price, as well as showing just how far she is willing to go. It’s a welcomed change of pace, to see more of this character that at times has been an underdeveloped character.
The action sequences in The Winter Soldier are light years ahead of what we see in The First Avenger, they have tried to minimize the amount of green screen and dependence on CGI, instead choosing to shoot as much as they can in camera. The first thirty minutes has the best sequences in the film, a night raid on a ship and one of the best, if at times over the top, car chases you will see this year. The only shame is that Cap isn’t in the car chase, which is probably the action set piece in the film.
As the film goes on, some of the action sequences begin to go on for too long, far past the time when the ‘this is awesome’ or ‘look how cool this is’ factor has left the scene. There are about ten or twenty extra dead (and incompetent) henchmen than we really needed.
But do not let this put you off the action is entertaining and there are genuine stakes and moments of peril within these sequences. Something that was lacking in the previous film and the majority of Marvel’s films.
One common thread running within the Marvel films (bar Tom Hiddleston) is that the villain often seems neglected or under developed, they are evil for the sake of being evil. Here, with The Winter Soldier (I will avoid giving away his identity), we have a villain, who is actually dangerous and evil with a caveat, but due to his mystery and anonymity, he becomes more interesting to watch.
He comes across as a lesser version of The Joker from The Dark Knight as he just from nowhere and causes havoc and destruction while clocking up a staggering body count around him. I know the The Winter Soldier has a personal relevance to Cap, more so than Joker to Batman, but in terms of the way the character is utilised, he shares cinematic similarities.
He isn’t given the dialogue or scene stealing moments that Joker had, but while that does fit the character, it would have been nice for him to be given one or two dialogue driven scenes to give him more depth. Sebastian Stan, does well to create a character and not a caricature with a largely silent performance.
This is the first Marvel film where they have tried to inject any kind of real world subjects or questions into it. There is an obvious and under acknowledged thread about surveillance and then later on a line or two about whistle blowing.
Unfortunately, these ideas are the ones that elevate a film and give it weight, while it may not have been Marvel’s aim to give us these big weighty ideas and questions, I feel that they missed a real opportunity. Anyone comparing this to a Tom Clancy, political thriller had better stop now.
The problem of shared cinematic universe is for me starting to raise some questions for me about the rules Marvel have set, while in the cinema, I turned to my wife and asked, “Where's Iron Man? Hulk? Thor? Or Hawkeye?” It’s hard to believe that not one of these would have shown up considering what was going on.
Yes, they are not all on great terms, but at the end of The Avengers they at least get on (the same can be said for Iron Man 3). Also, the events of the last three solo films do not take place at the same time, the TV show Agents of Shield has proved this. So if you are going to have this kind of interconnected films and shows, you had better start justifying why they aren’t helping each other.
While it didn’t quite reach the hype that it had coming in, this is probably Marvel Studio’s best film to date, as it curbs the humour significantly and focuses on making it’s characters interesting whilst giving them an engaging plot to follow them through.
Directors: Joe and Anthony Russo. Joss Whedon (post credits scene).
Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (screenplay). Ed Brubaker (story).
