Captain America: The Winter Soldier
With the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we’re now past the midway point in Phase Two of Marvel’s (up-till-now) highlight reel of cinematic victories. For those keeping score at home, Phase Two consists of four sequels (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Avengers) and one new property (Guardians of the Galaxy, arriving in August). But though plenty of questions remain regarding the viability of other Marvel characters on the Big Screen (besides Guardians, there’s an Ant-Man film coming next year), and the success of efforts in other visual mediums (the consistently frustrating Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the four upcoming Netflix original series), it’s probably safe to call Phase Two an unqualified success. After all, even if Guardians falters, it’s difficult to imagine Josh Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron ending anywhere but north of a billion in box office.
For the non-comic book fan curious as to how exactly, after decades of missteps and, at best, hit-or-miss efforts, Marvel is on such a roll, let Captain America: The Winter Soldier serve as your primer.The newest Marvel blockbuster-to-be boasts an array of well-cast leads and supporting characters; a crisply paced, sensible plot; and above-average dialogue. Even more importantly, every scene and every character interaction prove that the movie’s creative team truly understands the core appeal of Cap himself—the tone of not just the character, but the comic book series from which he springs. (That last part might seem easy, especially when the company responsible for the comic is leading the effort, but check out Warner Bros./DC’s Man of Steel again if you want to see how tone-deaf and distracted a creative team can get with an iconic character.)
Directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier picks up post Avengers with Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) in the modern day trying to be that quaint relic from his earlier life during World War Two—the good soldier. But the black-and-white ethical landscape of that time has been displaced by countless shades of gray. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) and S.H.I.E.L.D. itself are all embodiments of a more complex present than that to which Cap is accustomed. To their credit, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely suggest early and often that no matter how much simpler the age from which Captain America has sprung, he’s not stupid. They also suggest—and this is something Captain America has had in common with Superman almost from the beginning—that one of Cap’s unofficial and less showy superpowers may just be a keen, correct sense of what’s right and wrong.