Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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).

Django Unchained

Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino’s eight feature film and sees a return to the historical genre that he explored so well during Inglorious Basterds, albeit with the same kind of wit, humour and dialogue driven scenes that he is known for. Considering the coincidence of having this and Spielberg’s Lincoln (a film I haven’t seen yet) come out at the same time, as they both deal with slavery in a similar time period, Django takes place two years prior to the American Civil War, they both seemingly address it very differently, one dealing with the politics of removing slavery while the other, in very Tarantino way, deals with the experiences of the slaves and world they lived in.

The basic story of Django Unchained is relatively straight forward, it follows Django (Foxx), a slave freed by Dr King Schultz, a bounty hunter (Waltz), as they knows what three wanted criminals look like, the Brittle brothers. After they are dispached (it’s very early on, so shouldn’t be classed as a spoiler), Django tells Schultz of his wife and how they were separated and sold to different owners at a market. Schultz agrees to help Django go and rescue his wife, if he works with him through winter to collect more bounties.

Jamie Foxx plays the titular character of Django, a character that has to play to different personalities, one the vengeful husband out to find his wife and the other, an act put on when he is with Schultz and around white people of a black slaver, one of the lowest things you can be in this world. It is Foxx who holds the films performances together, he plans the straight man, which allows everyone else the freedom to go off and take it that bit further, something that the other three male stars do very well with.

Violence has always been apart of Tarantino’s films,  none more so here. The effect of the weapons of the time on the bodies is more than likely exaggerated, but leaves no doubt of the destruction that these early firearms would have done. One gun fight in the second half of the film, literally covers the walls in blood as the bodies are hit with all manner of different guns. This is the only gun fight where the level of blood my risk pushing going over the top, but it just manages to keep a hold on it.

The fighting violence and slaver on slave violence is however more restrained and brutal, one parlour fight between two slaves where two white owners watch on, is one of the nastiest fights I have seen on screen and is no doubt how fights like that would have looked, sounded and ended like. There is one dog scene, which I will say nothing about, but is hard to watch and actually shows some restrained camerawork and editing by Tarantino.

Christoph Waltz is an actor perfectly suited to Tarantino’s worlds, he is able to get across the dialogue and mannerisms of his characters and make them look and feel complete. Like his near perfect turn in Inglorious Basterds, Waltz gives us another great German character, the dentist turned bounty hunter who is cleverer than probably every other character in the film. He is charming, cold blooded, caring and intelligent and one of the highlights of Django Unchained.

Django Unchained is Trantino’s longest film, coming it and around 2hours and 45 minutes, so it is a commitment, but unlike other people who have seen the film, I didn’t find that it dragged at all, there are maybe parts that could have been shortened or omitted to get the running time down. But never did any of the scenes or sections feel drawn out or needlessly placed there. If the film does feel long, it’s no doubt due to the average length of scenes in Django, as with Inglorious there are a number of long scenes, that are very dialogue driven that last for over ten minutes, the standout being the Candieland dinner scene which comes close to the German pub scene from inglorious.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L Jackson play what would easily be described as the villains of the film, although both are not merely one dimension slavers. They are both cruel and treat their slaves as nothing but meat to bought and sold and then treated as they see fit. But both have motivations for their turns, which I won’t give away as it would ruin the second half of the film. DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie comes across as a spoilt teenager given too much power and money, then let loose to do as he sees fit with everything that his father had left for him.  Jackson, is the cruel house slave, who is in charge of all the other slaves, a role that is lower than even the black slaver in Django’s eyes. His performance, without giving anything away, is probably as scary and unsettling as Hans Lander in Inglorious.

Django Unchained sees Tarantino back to his best form and marks the second in a historical trilogy, which gives us more of his great dialogue and his flair for characters while paying homage to number of different genres, all within one that we are seeing less and less of.