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selenakOr, Return of the First Avenger, as it's called in my part of the world. In English, I kid you not. At a guess, the change of title is caused by the raging popularity the US currently enjoys over here and the assumptions people tend to make about superheroes called "Captain America". Which is a shame, in a way, because this film happens to be the first addressing the decade-and-more trade off between liberty and "safety", the instrumentalization of fear, the way the various secrent agencies have run completely amuck in their megalomania head on. That's right. This comic hero block buster is a spy thriller worthy of the 1970s classics of the genre, pitch black in its view of what has become of us - and I'm saying "us" because that trade off wasn't limited to the US (while Germany doesn't have a camp in Guantanomo, we outsourced people to be tortured by the CIA; shame on us, and all the power to the one who is currently sueing because of that) - and yet also not cynical; it has a belief in the capacity of humans (and not just those who are in the title credits) for decency that fits its main character, even and especially under pressure. Oh, and it also happens to change the status quo of the cinematic Marvelverse in more than one instance, and in one particular regard breathtakingly so. It's definitely the best of the Phase II films so far (and I'm saying this as someone who loved Iron Man 3 and enjoyed Thor II, and who also thought that Captain America, while enjoyable in its own right, was the weakest of the Phase I origin movies).
Now, considering that it is a thriller with twists and turns (some predictable if you know the genre, some not), I would advise you to watch it unspoiled. Everything below the cut will be spoilery in the extreme because I do want to talk about details. Above cut, let me just add one more thing: pre-movie, one reason why I was looking forward to the film was that the later trailers made it look as if Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff would be an important supporting character. In fact, as it turns out, she's basically the second lead, and until we finally get a Black Widow movie, this is the next best thing, and a very fine thing it is, too. If you're familiar with her comicverse connection to the person mentioned in the original title, this is actually not what her role is about in the movie and not why she's so important in it. The film also settles something fans have been wondering, i.e. whether or not movieverse Natasha would, like her comicverse counterpart, herself be a relic of the Cold War, kept young via serums etc.; we get a definite year of birth for her (1984 - of course it was!), which means her biological age is just what it looks like, which is useful fanfiction information to have. :)
Having read Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier comic arc ages ago (and not since then, so my memories are a bit vague), here's what I expected this movie to be about: Steve meeting his brainwashed bff of yesteryear, Bucky, early in the film, and spending the rest of the movie chasing after him to deprogram him. Which turned out not to be the case. Steve doesn't clue into the fact that the Winter Soldier is Bucky until the last third of the film, and while Steve's attempt to keep Bucky alive make for a part of the emotional punch of the big showdown, Bucky Barnes is actually not as important a character in this particular story as his presence in the title would let one assume. (Also, with the exception of a new flashback to ye olde pre serum days, he spends most of his screentime in brainwashed!assassin mode, which means Stebastian Stan doesn't do the teary eyed stare he's famous for, he does the obsessed blank stare instead. He's a formidable weapon for the villains, but he's not yet a character who does things on his own, with one obvious exception in the finale.) With more accuracy, this film could be called: Captain America: SHIELD.
I started to sit straighter in the scene early in the movie where Nick Fury shows the superdrones (that's what they are, with some fancy fantasy explanations) to Steve and Steve points out this means "we" are putting guns to everyone's heads and that this is not liberty, this is rule by fear. It's important that he says this to Nick Fury, because Nick Fury is not a villain in this movie. He remains a marvellously ambiguous character. (Btw, the only thing I was spoiled for re: this film because of one stupid review was that he'd die, and I'm happy to report he "dies" the way Nick Fury in all his incarnations tends to in the Marvelverse, to wit, he fakes his death, and no, this isn't just revealed at the end but much earlier; Nick Fury is an important supporting character.) But the point made here isn't that bad guys shouldn't have that power, but that no one should have. The big, big twist of this film - the revelation that SHIELD has been infiltrated by Hydra from practically the get go, manufacturing both crisis and solutions through the decades and that way taking more and more power - is a Marvelverse event, yes, but it's also a razorsharp comment on post 9/11 politics until the present day. While walking home from the cinema, it occured to me that basically the revelation was "SHIELD is SD-6 but Fury doesn't know he's Sloane until he almost gets assassinated when starting to figure it out", but this Alias comparison also shows a key difference. Alias, which in its pilot let its heroine learn that the ruthless branch of the CIA she's working for, SD-6, isn't actually CIA but a part of a villainous network, though only some of the employees are aware of this while the rest thinks they are actually CIA, portrayed the "real" CIA as a virtuous organiation, with the occasional bad apple. By contrast, Captain America II doesn't let Steve Rogers and friends save the day via deactivating the evil weapons du jour, which is what I had expected, but lets Steve Rogers insist to Fury that SHIELD, as a whole, has to go. It's as hardcore a rejection as I can imagine of the "just a few bad apples" mantra we in real life have been hearing about a great deal of organizations whenever some news about their awful practices made it into the headlines. And the film goes through with this. It differentiates between individuals - Natasha, Fury, Maria Hill as well as new character Sharon Carter/Agent 13 and an unnamed guy who is the star of my favourite moment in the film, more about that in a second - who are sympathetic and have positive goals - and the fact that the organization per se has been so thoroughly corrupted that you can't keep it going by just expelling a few bad guys. And so by the end of the movie, there is no more SHIELD. Also, there has been the whistleblowing to end all whisteblowing this side of Edward Snowden, as not solely the Hydra stuff but EVERYTHING is put online and revealed to the public at large as a part of the big showdown, the goal of which, as mentioned, isn't just "stop the bad guys-deactivate the weapons" but "end the ruthlessly data collecting and individual rights disregarding super organisation, no matter who heads it". Wow.
Did I mention this entire movie is set in Washington, D.C.?
That moment: comes after Steve has first made the "you've all been infiltrated, look what you're doing" news in the Washington SHIELD building public, and a nameless extra agent is ordered to proceed with launching the start of the super drones. Which this guy, visibly afraid and not with the protection of being a comicverse character, refuses to do, at gun point. I love it when movies offer moments of what we call Zivilcourage in German and gives them to non-main characters, and the cinematic Marvelverse does this now and then (the old man in Stuttgart comes to mind); that it happens here is also thematically important, because as opposed to, say, a great deal of movies in any genre (including btw Cap I), where members of an organization if they aren't leads or important supporting folk tend to be portrayed as just blindly following orders, this movie offers breathing room for individual reactions. And as I said: this means it's not just tell but also show about its main character's belief in people.
Another thing, re: Steve Rogers: he himself of course is a counterpoint to the idea that being a good soldier means blindly following orders. He's comfortable working within the frame work of a team or organization, but he also never stops thinking about what he's doing, and why. The three dynamics the film explores with Steve are: with Natasha, with Nick Fury, and with Sam/Falcon. Sam, introduced in the MCU via this film, is a fellow veteran (if from another war) and part of a group of PTSD suffering veterans, and Steve relates to him on that level before they become comrades; with Nick Fury, it's an uneasy if fascinating relationship of respect and distrust (that Fury both has Steve's apartment bugged and sees him as the ultimate in trustworthiness is typical for that); but to me, the heart of the film is the partnership that develops between Steve and Natasha, which is one of those rare examples of a key m & f relationship in a blockbuster movie which isn't treated as a romantic storyline or written differently than it would have been if instead of Natasha a male character would be in her place. (Well, other than her doing that trusty stalwart of spy movies, a surprise kiss to hide her and Steve's face during a chase scene.) Natasha has the role of wry teasing cynic versus Steve's idealist early on, but first the faked death of Nick Fury (which she takes for the real thing, and btw, the way Natasha relates to Fury in general hasn't been anticipated in most/any of the fanfics I read - there isn't just standard respect-for-boss but a great deal of personal respect and emotion there) and then the SHIELD-has-been-corrupt-since-decades news are heavy blows, and her reaction to the later is a great callback to her red-in-my-ledger conversations in Avengers. Being part of SHIELD meant something to her, and if there is no difference between it and her earlier life, what was the point? And Steve's response, which isn't lecturing or anything like that but just very human, is lovely. As is their comraderie throughout.
Comicverse Natasha had a backstory with the Winter Soldier which was possible because she's decades older than she looks and a romance with him in present day until it got ended by editorial fiat and another brainwashing. Movieverse Natasha has fought him before this film on one occasion but shares no history with him, and other than fight scenes, no scenes in the present. Which I think was a good choice because Natasha already had the "a man I'm close to got brainwashed by villains" story in Avengers. Giving her here another one wouldn't have been nearly as compelling as the "what's really going on with the organization I'm part of, and what do I do now?" storyline she does get. (Not to mention that Steve's "Bucky?!?" recognition and then theYellow Crayon "I won't kill you, I'd rather have you kill me" scene were more effective than it would have been had they doubled this with Natasha.)
Speaking of comicverse liasons and their movieverse counterparts: Peggy Cartner - in her 90s - has a moving scene with Steve who comes to visit her, another thing I hadn't expected but which offers closure for their relationship in the previous movie. (It also confirms that she and Howard Stark together with a third party did co-found SHIELD post WWII; speaking of Howard, there's a blink-or-you-miss it revelation that the accident which killed him and his wife wasn't really an accident but engineered once Howard started to suspect what was up in a later scene.) If movieverse Sharon is related to her as comicverse Sharon was, this doesn't get mentioned, which is a relief, because dating daughters and granddaughters of your beloved never struck me as a good idea, frankly. There is no hint that she is. Movieverse Sharon has a minor part in this film but comes across as an amiable and competent agent who is also able to think for herself; she's the one who saves the earlier mentioned courageous order refusing agent from getting shot. Steve tries to flirt with her a bit when she's still undercover (btw, so much for the idea that the man can't talk to a woman without blushing which you can find in some fanfiction), but not after the reveal that she's SHIELD, and the film doesn't try to jumpstart a romance between them in addition to everything else going on, which, again, good choice. (And leaves the option for future developments in another movie.)
Our villains du jour (beyond organizations): Toby Jones makes a voiceover come back, but if one guy has claim to the chief baddie title, it's Alexander Pierce. His comicverse counterpart is Alexander Lushenko (Lushenko is the last name, right? It really HAS been ages since I read those comics), and again, making the movieverse version not Russian but American, and letting him be played by Robert Redford, makes for a very pointed updating. Spy thrillers and comicbook movies access current day paranoias, and Vladimir Putin not withstanding, no one is Cold War era like afraid of a Russian general. An American government official, on the other hand... and the Redford casting also works on two levels. He's played in two of the classic 1970s paranoid spy thrillers - "The Parallax Connection" and of course "All the President's Men" - and he started his acting career as the embodiment of wholesome all-American-ness. No moustache twirling here. Pierce's face-off with Nick Fury near the movie's climax also involves one of those "you made me and I made you" scenes Le Carré type of spy stories excel at, with Pierce pointing out that he couldn't have wished for a better head of SHIELD than Nick Fury "the most ruthless and unscrupulous man I know", who always gets the job done.
Lastly: the obligatory post-credit scene seems to be a lead into Avengers II: Age of Ultron, introduces a new villain (cue me rolling my eyes at the monocle, though I'm glad Thomas Kretschman has a Marvelverse job)... and Pietra and Wanda: Avengers Edition. We got our first look at the twins and as soon as I saw Wanda, looking very much like River Tam, it belatedly downed on me why Joss was so insistent on having the twins in the second Avengers movie despite the fact X-Men: Days of Future Past also wanted them. Of course he can't resist a superpowered madwoman with a brother who is obsessed with her.
Now, considering that it is a thriller with twists and turns (some predictable if you know the genre, some not), I would advise you to watch it unspoiled. Everything below the cut will be spoilery in the extreme because I do want to talk about details. Above cut, let me just add one more thing: pre-movie, one reason why I was looking forward to the film was that the later trailers made it look as if Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff would be an important supporting character. In fact, as it turns out, she's basically the second lead, and until we finally get a Black Widow movie, this is the next best thing, and a very fine thing it is, too. If you're familiar with her comicverse connection to the person mentioned in the original title, this is actually not what her role is about in the movie and not why she's so important in it. The film also settles something fans have been wondering, i.e. whether or not movieverse Natasha would, like her comicverse counterpart, herself be a relic of the Cold War, kept young via serums etc.; we get a definite year of birth for her (1984 - of course it was!), which means her biological age is just what it looks like, which is useful fanfiction information to have. :)
Having read Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier comic arc ages ago (and not since then, so my memories are a bit vague), here's what I expected this movie to be about: Steve meeting his brainwashed bff of yesteryear, Bucky, early in the film, and spending the rest of the movie chasing after him to deprogram him. Which turned out not to be the case. Steve doesn't clue into the fact that the Winter Soldier is Bucky until the last third of the film, and while Steve's attempt to keep Bucky alive make for a part of the emotional punch of the big showdown, Bucky Barnes is actually not as important a character in this particular story as his presence in the title would let one assume. (Also, with the exception of a new flashback to ye olde pre serum days, he spends most of his screentime in brainwashed!assassin mode, which means Stebastian Stan doesn't do the teary eyed stare he's famous for, he does the obsessed blank stare instead. He's a formidable weapon for the villains, but he's not yet a character who does things on his own, with one obvious exception in the finale.) With more accuracy, this film could be called: Captain America: SHIELD.
I started to sit straighter in the scene early in the movie where Nick Fury shows the superdrones (that's what they are, with some fancy fantasy explanations) to Steve and Steve points out this means "we" are putting guns to everyone's heads and that this is not liberty, this is rule by fear. It's important that he says this to Nick Fury, because Nick Fury is not a villain in this movie. He remains a marvellously ambiguous character. (Btw, the only thing I was spoiled for re: this film because of one stupid review was that he'd die, and I'm happy to report he "dies" the way Nick Fury in all his incarnations tends to in the Marvelverse, to wit, he fakes his death, and no, this isn't just revealed at the end but much earlier; Nick Fury is an important supporting character.) But the point made here isn't that bad guys shouldn't have that power, but that no one should have. The big, big twist of this film - the revelation that SHIELD has been infiltrated by Hydra from practically the get go, manufacturing both crisis and solutions through the decades and that way taking more and more power - is a Marvelverse event, yes, but it's also a razorsharp comment on post 9/11 politics until the present day. While walking home from the cinema, it occured to me that basically the revelation was "SHIELD is SD-6 but Fury doesn't know he's Sloane until he almost gets assassinated when starting to figure it out", but this Alias comparison also shows a key difference. Alias, which in its pilot let its heroine learn that the ruthless branch of the CIA she's working for, SD-6, isn't actually CIA but a part of a villainous network, though only some of the employees are aware of this while the rest thinks they are actually CIA, portrayed the "real" CIA as a virtuous organiation, with the occasional bad apple. By contrast, Captain America II doesn't let Steve Rogers and friends save the day via deactivating the evil weapons du jour, which is what I had expected, but lets Steve Rogers insist to Fury that SHIELD, as a whole, has to go. It's as hardcore a rejection as I can imagine of the "just a few bad apples" mantra we in real life have been hearing about a great deal of organizations whenever some news about their awful practices made it into the headlines. And the film goes through with this. It differentiates between individuals - Natasha, Fury, Maria Hill as well as new character Sharon Carter/Agent 13 and an unnamed guy who is the star of my favourite moment in the film, more about that in a second - who are sympathetic and have positive goals - and the fact that the organization per se has been so thoroughly corrupted that you can't keep it going by just expelling a few bad guys. And so by the end of the movie, there is no more SHIELD. Also, there has been the whistleblowing to end all whisteblowing this side of Edward Snowden, as not solely the Hydra stuff but EVERYTHING is put online and revealed to the public at large as a part of the big showdown, the goal of which, as mentioned, isn't just "stop the bad guys-deactivate the weapons" but "end the ruthlessly data collecting and individual rights disregarding super organisation, no matter who heads it". Wow.
Did I mention this entire movie is set in Washington, D.C.?
That moment: comes after Steve has first made the "you've all been infiltrated, look what you're doing" news in the Washington SHIELD building public, and a nameless extra agent is ordered to proceed with launching the start of the super drones. Which this guy, visibly afraid and not with the protection of being a comicverse character, refuses to do, at gun point. I love it when movies offer moments of what we call Zivilcourage in German and gives them to non-main characters, and the cinematic Marvelverse does this now and then (the old man in Stuttgart comes to mind); that it happens here is also thematically important, because as opposed to, say, a great deal of movies in any genre (including btw Cap I), where members of an organization if they aren't leads or important supporting folk tend to be portrayed as just blindly following orders, this movie offers breathing room for individual reactions. And as I said: this means it's not just tell but also show about its main character's belief in people.
Another thing, re: Steve Rogers: he himself of course is a counterpoint to the idea that being a good soldier means blindly following orders. He's comfortable working within the frame work of a team or organization, but he also never stops thinking about what he's doing, and why. The three dynamics the film explores with Steve are: with Natasha, with Nick Fury, and with Sam/Falcon. Sam, introduced in the MCU via this film, is a fellow veteran (if from another war) and part of a group of PTSD suffering veterans, and Steve relates to him on that level before they become comrades; with Nick Fury, it's an uneasy if fascinating relationship of respect and distrust (that Fury both has Steve's apartment bugged and sees him as the ultimate in trustworthiness is typical for that); but to me, the heart of the film is the partnership that develops between Steve and Natasha, which is one of those rare examples of a key m & f relationship in a blockbuster movie which isn't treated as a romantic storyline or written differently than it would have been if instead of Natasha a male character would be in her place. (Well, other than her doing that trusty stalwart of spy movies, a surprise kiss to hide her and Steve's face during a chase scene.) Natasha has the role of wry teasing cynic versus Steve's idealist early on, but first the faked death of Nick Fury (which she takes for the real thing, and btw, the way Natasha relates to Fury in general hasn't been anticipated in most/any of the fanfics I read - there isn't just standard respect-for-boss but a great deal of personal respect and emotion there) and then the SHIELD-has-been-corrupt-since-decades news are heavy blows, and her reaction to the later is a great callback to her red-in-my-ledger conversations in Avengers. Being part of SHIELD meant something to her, and if there is no difference between it and her earlier life, what was the point? And Steve's response, which isn't lecturing or anything like that but just very human, is lovely. As is their comraderie throughout.
Comicverse Natasha had a backstory with the Winter Soldier which was possible because she's decades older than she looks and a romance with him in present day until it got ended by editorial fiat and another brainwashing. Movieverse Natasha has fought him before this film on one occasion but shares no history with him, and other than fight scenes, no scenes in the present. Which I think was a good choice because Natasha already had the "a man I'm close to got brainwashed by villains" story in Avengers. Giving her here another one wouldn't have been nearly as compelling as the "what's really going on with the organization I'm part of, and what do I do now?" storyline she does get. (Not to mention that Steve's "Bucky?!?" recognition and then the
Speaking of comicverse liasons and their movieverse counterparts: Peggy Cartner - in her 90s - has a moving scene with Steve who comes to visit her, another thing I hadn't expected but which offers closure for their relationship in the previous movie. (It also confirms that she and Howard Stark together with a third party did co-found SHIELD post WWII; speaking of Howard, there's a blink-or-you-miss it revelation that the accident which killed him and his wife wasn't really an accident but engineered once Howard started to suspect what was up in a later scene.) If movieverse Sharon is related to her as comicverse Sharon was, this doesn't get mentioned, which is a relief, because dating daughters and granddaughters of your beloved never struck me as a good idea, frankly. There is no hint that she is. Movieverse Sharon has a minor part in this film but comes across as an amiable and competent agent who is also able to think for herself; she's the one who saves the earlier mentioned courageous order refusing agent from getting shot. Steve tries to flirt with her a bit when she's still undercover (btw, so much for the idea that the man can't talk to a woman without blushing which you can find in some fanfiction), but not after the reveal that she's SHIELD, and the film doesn't try to jumpstart a romance between them in addition to everything else going on, which, again, good choice. (And leaves the option for future developments in another movie.)
Our villains du jour (beyond organizations): Toby Jones makes a voiceover come back, but if one guy has claim to the chief baddie title, it's Alexander Pierce. His comicverse counterpart is Alexander Lushenko (Lushenko is the last name, right? It really HAS been ages since I read those comics), and again, making the movieverse version not Russian but American, and letting him be played by Robert Redford, makes for a very pointed updating. Spy thrillers and comicbook movies access current day paranoias, and Vladimir Putin not withstanding, no one is Cold War era like afraid of a Russian general. An American government official, on the other hand... and the Redford casting also works on two levels. He's played in two of the classic 1970s paranoid spy thrillers - "The Parallax Connection" and of course "All the President's Men" - and he started his acting career as the embodiment of wholesome all-American-ness. No moustache twirling here. Pierce's face-off with Nick Fury near the movie's climax also involves one of those "you made me and I made you" scenes Le Carré type of spy stories excel at, with Pierce pointing out that he couldn't have wished for a better head of SHIELD than Nick Fury "the most ruthless and unscrupulous man I know", who always gets the job done.
Lastly: the obligatory post-credit scene seems to be a lead into Avengers II: Age of Ultron, introduces a new villain (cue me rolling my eyes at the monocle, though I'm glad Thomas Kretschman has a Marvelverse job)... and Pietra and Wanda: Avengers Edition. We got our first look at the twins and as soon as I saw Wanda, looking very much like River Tam, it belatedly downed on me why Joss was so insistent on having the twins in the second Avengers movie despite the fact X-Men: Days of Future Past also wanted them. Of course he can't resist a superpowered madwoman with a brother who is obsessed with her.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 01:38 pm (UTC)/the point made here isn't that bad guys shouldn't have that power, but that no one should have/ - Oh, well said.
/not with the protection of being a comicverse character/ - LOL! Also, I love the word "Zivilcourage", seems like a perfect depiction of moments like that!
/Which I think was a good choice because Natasha already had the "a man I'm close to got brainwashed by villains" story in Avengers. Giving her here another one wouldn't have been nearly as compelling as the "what's really going on with the organization I'm part of, and what do I do now?" storyline she does get./ - Oh, this is a really good point! The fact that they removed Bucky and Natasha's connection was the only thing that bothered me a bit about the movie but seen in this light it totally makes sense! Thanks to you I'm a bit more reconciled with the idea now. ^^
/It also confirms that she and Howard Stark together with a third party did co-found SHIELD post WWII/ - Yay, that was an awesome revelation! Also the revelation that Howard's death wasn't accidental was really interesting too! I wonder if there are going to be ramifications...
/making the movieverse version not Russian but American, and letting him be played by Robert Redford, makes for a very pointed updating/ - Oh, that's another good point for deviating from the original Soviet storyline. *nods*
/Of course he can't resist a superpowered madwoman with a brother who is obsessed with her./ - LOL now that you point it out is rather obvious indeed... *shakes head*
BTW I added you silently ages ago 'cause I'm addicted to your reviews and I love your fics besides, so, yeah, this is also just a random note to say keep it up with the good work! (And sorry for being shy...)
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Date: 2014-03-29 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 03:05 pm (UTC)Did you guys get the final post-credits scene, too? There's one after the Wanda & Pietro appearance...
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Date: 2014-03-29 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 05:27 pm (UTC)Firstly, thank you for the very detailed review! I was going to copy my favourite bits, then realised that my comment was going to be as long as your post, so didn't. Mostly, I wanted to say that I loved the spy thriller vibe of the movie, and yes, it is by far the best of the Phase II outings so far. I love that although Steve is clearly the main character, the supporting characters of Natasha and Fury (and Sam to a slightly lesser extent) have really strong roles - so much so, that it was almost a 'team' movie for me. And yes, short of a Black Widow solo, this was the best possible outcome for Natasha - and thank you for your interpretation of why Natasha and the Winter Soldier have no prior history, it makes so much sense now!
So overall, there was fabulous development for Steve and Natasha, and even Fury, there's an ending which is a real game-changer for the MCU - and you're right, it had to be this way if Steve is involved, it had to be all or nothing and not just 'a few bad apples'. It was a movie that felt unMarvel-like, but worked so much better for it.
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Date: 2014-03-29 07:58 pm (UTC)There are so many moments that reverberate through me, and this movie has pretty much made Steve the most relatable movie superhero to me. Like I told my mom, sometimes superhero movies feel like boys with toys, but Steve feels like that weak kid from Brooklyn. I don't know who among the people involved gets what it's like to be disadvantaged, but someone does. (And while the movie isn't quite brave enough to call out issues of gender, race and class, it's all there. Like the conversation about Fury's grandfather, how it's not stated but it carries this whole history of the people in charge are not on your side.)
Bucky Barnes is actually not as important a character in this particular story as his presence in the title would let one assume.
I kind of think that he is, not as a character perhaps, but on a thematic level. Because he ties into Steve's personal desire to find someone to connect with (there are so many moments that foreshadow the revelation that Bucky's alive), but he also ties into the political issues: Steve doesn't follow orders blindly, but the Winter Soldier does, and in order to do so he has to be reduced to nothing but a soldier. I don't think the plot would have been as strong without Bucky being thrown back into that machine, because it showcases so clearly what they consider perfection; someone who is tortured out of his entire personhood. And, as you point out, the whole story is so tied to real life issues that this is too.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 11:09 pm (UTC)I also appreciate that the enemy here is not a nation, but Americans with extreme philosophies.
I loved the introduction of Agent 13, its a great introduction to someone who's going to be important to Steve in the future, although I thought there was a hint that Sharon was related to Peggy when she mentioned during the hallway scene she was talking to her aunt?
I didn't realize that the themes was trust and identity until I started reading reviews. All the relationships in this movie is complicated and nuanced, and I love that of all the movies in the MCU Steve has the most complicated relationships. Fanon always seemed to want to box Steve in a certain stereotype (which I don't get unless they really skipped the first movie) as an unquestioning soldier.
Steve deciding to burn both houses shows how much he isn't. Thanks for sharing your review!
BTW, in my head I'll definitely be calling this Captain America: SHIELD now!
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Date: 2014-03-30 08:06 am (UTC)Possibly, though honestly I hope they're not related in the MCU. Sharon should be a character in her own right.
Fanon always seemed to want to box Steve in a certain stereotype (which I don't get unless they really skipped the first movie) as an unquestioning soldier.
They must have skipped Avengers as well. Where Steve isn't thrilled with Tony but does after Bruce brings up there's something fishy go to check, and finds the proof - i.e. the phase 2 weapons - himself, before Tony's virus does. There is a wrong "either/or", it seems, for people that either you have to be a smart person who does all on their own and never obeys orders or you hare a tool who never questions them. Whereas Steve is okay with following orders - as long as they don't go against his principles, and don't damage people.
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Date: 2014-03-30 12:19 am (UTC)I love knowing that it has so much Natasha in it (and Fury and Sam), and not just as a love interest. I've been aggressively failing to care about Bucky at all (though now I see why others do), or about shipwars. This sounds like it has actual substance to it.
And if the job of a jester is to point out the flaws of the king, it sounds like comics movies are doing it right, with this one. It's rather awesome when the ideas pop culture sneaks in are actually good ones.
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Date: 2014-03-30 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-31 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-31 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-31 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-01 11:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-04-01 07:57 am (UTC)Terrific review! It so eloquently sums up all the jumbled thoughts in my head.
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Date: 2014-04-04 09:28 am (UTC)I was really surprised at how pointed the film was. I looked it up, and the Snowden disclosures happened just as the film was starting principal photography, which means the bulk of the plot must have already been set by then; it's interesting how well they managed to predict it. And yes, I really liked Fury's role in this. He seemed human for the first time, even while staying larger-than-life and ambiguous.
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Date: 2014-04-04 10:10 am (UTC)That was such an awesome surprise. It really took on a really important topic of the day in a way I haven't seen "serious" thrillers (movies or tv shows) sans comic book surroundings do so far. For example, The Good Wife, much as I love the series, tends to use the NSA as comic relief.
This Fury has now become my favourite version since 1602!Fury. *points to icon* Precisely because the narrative doesn't let him get away with the usual "someone has to get their hands dirty" justification while also avoiding to demonize him. He really is ambiguous, which isn't the same as "good in a tough way", though that's the impression you get from how a lot of fanfic renders ambiguous characters.
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Date: 2014-04-04 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-05 02:33 am (UTC)I thought Redford was a fascinating choice for Pierce, and his reputation made me not immediately leap to the conclusion that he would be the Big Bad.
So much fascinating stuff. I adored this movie and I can't wait to see it again.
Evans really sells the character. It's a hard character to make human (as hard as Frodo was), but he does it. I'm admiring his work more and more.
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Date: 2014-04-05 07:41 am (UTC)Oh yes. One of the several problems I had with the film version of Watchmen - not the most severe one, but definitely a problem - was the casting of Ozymandias. Because to my mind, Ozymandias needed to be played by a young Robert Redford All-American-hero type, that kind of golden handsomneness with a twinkle that makes the audience trust, not by someone who comes across as suspiciously slick the moment he appears on screen, otherwise the shock revelation isn't one. And had a big production Captain America movie been made in the late 60s or throughout the 70s, Robert Redford would have been a shoo-in for the part. So casting him as Alexander Pierce really was perfect in all the layers it provided.
Evans really sells the character. It's a hard character to make human (as hard as Frodo was), but he does it. I'm admiring his work more and more.
*nods* what impresses me most is: he really makes me believe that Steve was this scrawny powerless kid who lived through poverty and never forgets the experience, in a way that has nothing to do with the special effects used for pre-serum Steve's body. Given Evans' actual physique, this could have easily come across as the male equivalent to the annoying movie cliché of giving a drop dead gorgeous actress glasses, call her an ugly duckling, then take the glasses away. But it doesn't, and that's due to Evans. There is a stillness in Steve, a capacity for quiet observance (in Cap 1 in the scene where he's still touring with the USO girls and making a sketch of himself as a monkey, for example), and his facial and physical reactions when Fury shows him the superdrones before he says something out loud that to me always comes across as the legacy of someone who didn't have brawns or status to defend himself through most of his life.
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Date: 2014-04-05 03:27 am (UTC)EDIT: Joss does like his super powered mad women. :) I'm on the fence as to how well it'll work out. The brief glimpse we got wasn't enough for me to form an opinion.
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Date: 2014-04-05 07:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-04-06 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-06 08:53 am (UTC)I was really happy and impressed with this, and I really didn't think they'd go there.
I LOVED the moment of the nameless agent refusing to launch the drones, and I thought the actor did an awesome job - like, he was SO visibly and convincingly terrified, and I was terrified right along with him even knowing the movie almost certainly wouldn't really let him get shot.
All in all, I thought this was a fantastic movie, and definitely my favorite one of the post-Avengers series so far.
I happened to see in another comment that you're planning to rewatch the movie in Munich. Would you be interested in some company? I'm planning to drag and to go see it, but neither of them are really all that invested in the Marvel Universe, and it'd be fun to have someone along who I know enjoys the movie as much as I did.
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Date: 2014-04-06 09:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-05-01 05:35 pm (UTC)She got married and she had children. And Steve became a fond memory from her past. Much missed of course, but an inspiration, rather than a lodestone that kept her from moving on.
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Date: 2014-05-02 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-21 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 08:08 am (UTC)