In Captain America: The First Avenger, we got the origin story of how the scrawny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was injected with super serum and turned into the beefy superhero, Captain America. He swashbuckled through the 1940s, killing Nazis, thwarting the terrorist HYDRA organization, and defeating the Red Skull. But then he crashed in the Arctic and got frozen in time for 70 years until he re-emerged in the 21st century, where he was recruited by Nick Fury to join S.H.I.E.L.D. Subsequently in The Avengers, "Cap" was the moral center, leading the motley band of superheroes and telling them to put aside their petty difference to fight for a greater cause. But now in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it's just him and Natasha Romanoff (a.k.a. Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson), and he needs to learn what it means to be a soldier in the modern world.
The movie opens on Washington D.C. in the early morning, a perfect setting for our American hero. Steve is running laps and strikes up a friendship with fellow runner, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), a young veteran who now works at the VA. The two bond over their shared war experience, understanding each other psychologically even if their wars were decades apart. Then Steve and Natasha are called away on a S.H.I.E.L.D. mission to rescue hostages on a ship, where plenty of impressive action and fighting takes place. However, Steve discovers that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) gave Natasha a solo mission to retrieve some data from the ship. That mysterious data will set the stage for the rest of the movie.
This entire movie is about trust and paranoia, and old versus new technology. When Nick Fury is attacked by mysterious assailants, Cap is left with no idea who he can trust to help him unravel the mystery. Of course, Natasha coerces him into cooperating with her, but every other character has to go through a vetting process, until we reach the movie's climax, where it becomes clear why it was so difficult to determine who the good guys were. Robert Redford plays Fury's longtime friend Alexander Pierce, a senior official at S.H.I.E.L.D. who is working on some high-concept project with the World Security Council at the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters on the Potomac River. Even though the building is a transparent, shiny, tower of glass, it hides many secrets both above and below ground. As Natasha points out, Steve is a terrible liar - now that he's caught up in a web of lies at S.H.I.E.L.D., he will be forced to air out all their secrets.
Steve's slow acclimatization to the modern world allows for some humorous exchanges, but also highlights the very real challenges he faces in this new world, not all of which were explored in The Avengers. This movie offers a chance to get to know Steve Rogers - Captain America is not a very deep character but the writers have done their best to imbue him with a more compelling inner life. His friendship with Natasha is warm and delightful, and doesn't veer off into the typical romcom territory one might expect. Of course, the banter isn't up to the Whedonesque standards set out in The Avengers, but it will do. To take the place of witty exposition, the writers have crammed in a slew of action scenes, filled with car chases, helicarriers, and explosions. The big stuff is a bit dull, but the fight sequences are quite mesmerizing. A great deal of attention has been paid to the fight choreography, particularly because Black Widow and Captain America don't use many weapons or fancy gadgets. They rely on brute strength and hand-to-hand combat, and their moves are dazzling to behold. Also, the movie is only two hours long, so it never feels like you're watching an overly extended action sequence - everything wraps up before you could get a migraine.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a solid entry in the Marvel filmverse. Not outstanding but by no means terrible. It offers a perfectly fun night at the movies and gives us slightly more insight into these characters, which I'm sure will come in handy for the next Avengers movie. The movie delves into some interesting themes and concepts: they are dealt with fairly superficially because this is still a superhero movie, but it points to Marvel's desire to elevate this particular genre of movies and make them both entertaining and thought-provoking. I'm certainly not tired of the Marvel universe, and you can be certain I'll be blogging about these movies for many years to come.
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