Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Cinematography:
Trent OpalochCast:
Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Dominic Cooper, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Emily VanCamp, Robert Redford (more)Plots(1)
From the Studio that brought you Marvel Studios' Avengers Assemblecomes an epic adventure that teams Captain America (Chris Evans) with the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the Falcon to battle an unexpected and formidable enemy - the Winter Soldier. Expand your Marvel collection as you relive the ultimate battle for the future of mankind. (Disney / Buena Vista)
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A movie with two different halves. In the first, Marvel departs from its usual, inoffensive colorful safe family content into as yet unexplored waters of the more seriously-inclined comic book movies like those from DC. And believe it or not, this does the Captain unexpected good; the hand-to-hand, nineties style action is exactly what Marvel movies so badly needed. Unfortunately, everything falls apart after the bunker in New Jersey when the movie suddenly turns into a parade of one dumb deus ex machiny after another. Which wouldn’t necessarily have to matter in a standard, painted “ha, ha, ha" Marvel cartoon, but it seems really out of place here. When you add the unnecessarily disproportionate length, the unused potential of certain characters and with regard to all preceding contact action in the form of utterly unsuitable, commonplace CGI, editing-party finale, then... This way, this is certainly a good Marvel movie (and one of the three best so far), but nothing more. And the pleasant first half promised “more" in a style that I have been waiting for from Marvel since the first Iron Man.
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Just as Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View were responses to Watergate, the second Captain America can be seen as a Hollywood interpretation of the events surrounding WikiLeaks and the NSA. What Steve Rogers has in common with the protagonists of those films by Pollack and Pakula is that he doesn’t know what’s going on around him or who he can trust, thanks to which the filmmakers can further develop the “fish out of water” motif without copying The Avengers (where the new age was the main source of Rogers’s confusion). Besides the inwardly focused disillusionment of those 1970s thrillers, recalled through the iconography of Washington, the casting of Redford and the music, this new Marvel flick contains a bit of the Cold War conservatism of movies – such Rambo (especially the first and third instalments) and Rocky (which The Winter Soldier recalls at least with the filming of the opening run) – that championed direct physical action over data analysis. Again, just as in the first, intentionally old-fashioned Captain America, the traditionalist protagonist takes on references to films with a different value base than that on which contemporary society stands. However, those values are not so clear. Only the final third of the film is unambiguous. With regard to the protagonist’s application of straightforward military logic, the restoration of calm does not involve diplomatic negotiation, but large-scale action that becomes less clear the more the characters go at each other (raw firefights in the streets in the style of Heat thus replace fights in which the action is created solely by editing, music and sound rather than by movement). The spy games with a touch of paranoia after the originator of the “contagion” has been revealed – with the use of black-and-white framing similar to that used today by the Russian media to justify the annexation of Crimea – can come across as hypocrisy in a film that outwardly express unease about a cynical system while actually defending its ideology. However, this reading is at least partially called into doubt by the closing repudiation of some of the old structures. At the stylistic level, I enjoyed the smooth (perhaps even too smooth) transition from brisk political thriller to conservative superhero adventure and I take it as evidence of the effort to not rely solely on the guaranteed teenage target group, but to also appeal to new viewers. And the film appeals to female viewers more imaginatively than other comic-book adaptations. Not even one of the three female characters has an identity derived from a male character (though there is a romantic subplot, there is no time to develop it), there is no sexualisation of the female body and all of the heroines are as comparably independent and courageous as their male counterparts. In summary, I don’t think that The Winter Soldier (whose titular character, incidentally, wouldn’t even have to be in the film and doesn’t have much of an impact on the plot) was such a safe bet as it may have seemed and or could have afforded to be. 85%
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Boring, boring, grey. There was some effort put into it, though. However, cinematic Marvel adventures set in the present are for a different target audience. I prefer to have some of that sequential art, as the film version of The Winter Soldier only served to make me cry over Steve and Peg's reunion. That was really touching. Other than that, I didn’t even enjoy Robert Redford, and that's saying something.
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The Captain’s second stop will wipe the grin off the faces of most doubters. A pithy techno-thriller atmosphere starts the opening unbelievably. Well, opening... The first half hour is perfect, crowned by the fight on the freeway which takes your breath away in Heatstyle. The ending then heads into familiar Marvel waters and in a raunchy finale it easily abandons the endeavor to do it slightly differently. Nothing exceptional, but never mind. Evans was born for the role of Steve Rogers, but I hope the Winter Soldier gets his own movie some day, or else they’ll deal with it comic book style (if you read it, you know what I mean ;-) because it... I mean he has the mojo for it. Redford disappointed me a little for not being the man I thought he was, and with the final confrontation. The Russo brothers are on an outrageous roll and maybe it’s thanks to Opaloch’s dynamic camerawork, but the action is a feast for the eyes. The moments where the story diverges from the comic book are interesting, offering many interpretations of things to come. The glance into the Age of Ultron also lured into and hinted at the dark atmosphere I mentioned above. Sock to me, I want more.
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Marvel is a cult, outwardly accessible to everyone and open to unconventional souls for whom building their universe may be the ultimate peak stint. Yet inwardly, it is bound by the hard doctrine of Kevin Feige's infallibility and unwillingness to let go of the reins of even one brand. Cap steps into it quite uncompromisingly and holds on for a long time. The contact fights are once again cool, the plot is not a stupid rehash of traditional clichés, and the main villain enters with a really unprecedented vigor (excellently supported by Jackman's musical theme). The bad thing is that the grand rules of destruction have to be respected and in the end, everything collapses into a traditional 0 1 mess and the thriller game in the old-world tone becomes bitter in but a few moments (moreover, it stops being clear). I believe the Russo brothers had a very free creative hand on set, but the concrete dramaturgy for years to come must inevitably lead to hell. [I'd be quite interested to see how Shane Black zigzagged in IM3, as he more or less manages it here for almost 100 minutes].
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Photo © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
