CAPTAN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

At Marvel Studios, we are so deeply entrenched in a universe of films that no one title can stand on its own. Where we’ve arrived at is a place where every film needs to be judged on its merit, on its place in its own series, and on its place within its “phase”. When  a film can succeed on those first two criteria, it has done something good. When a film can radically affect the third, it has done something special.

It just so happens that CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER has done something special.

THE WINTER SOLDIER picks up some time after the events of THE AVENGERS. “Captain America” Steve Rogers (Chris Evans)is now a fully integrated S.H.I.E.L.D. operative and running missions with his Avengers teammate “Black Widow” Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). The pair is under the direct supervision of director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who seems to be pushing them towards some sketchy missions. Those missions may or may not be working hand-in-hand with what senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) has in mind for the division of national security.

Early on in the film, Fury is the target of an assassination attempt by a mysterious mercenary known as “The Winter Soldier”. Surviving the first attempt, Fury finds Rogers at home and tells him that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated and that he should trust no one. Moments later, a second assassination attempt takes place, and Fury takes fire.

This second attempt has Rogers under suspicion, meaning he and Romanoff are disavowed from S.H.I.E.L.D. In an attempt to get answers and follow-up on Fury’s theory, the pair enlist a paratrooper named Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) to work with them, and follow the only piece of evidence he gave them back to a place from Captain’s past.

What they find there slants their view on everything that has happened already, and might well change the shape of things to come.

One of the things that makes Captain America so interesting as a character is the way he’s a man out-of-time. He missed sixty-five years (give or take) and jumped straight from The Greatest Generation to The Information Age. What that does is create something of a walking paradox competing with itself. While his heart and soul come from a golden era where people did the right thing because it was the right thing, his brain and his senses are surrounded with cynicism and corruption. In essence, he is reminded every single day that every single thing he knows is wrong. Meanwhile, the fact that he never lets go of that morality, valour, and strength of character is what allows him to be a great hero.

However, every hero must be tested – and tested Cap is.

After getting thawed out at the end of THE FIRST AVENGER, Steve Rogers didn’t hesitate to play well with others and stand up to a great threat in THE AVENGERS. However, in that film, he already felt that something was “off” in the great white hope that was S.H.I.E.L.D. That desire to protect the innocent is what pushes Cap to be a team-player, but what happens when the people running the team aren’t on the up and up about the game you’re playing. It’s a question that strikes true to the world we live in now – the world of covert ops and drone strikes. A world that is far removed from the one that brought us images like Captain America, and likewise from the world that character would inhabit. Captain America follows orders because he’s a good soldier. What makes him a great soldier is the fact that he can sense when those orders don’t make sense.

The sad reality is that we now live in a world where orders don’t make sense. We live in an era where people are killed because they are percieved as a threat. They might not have done anything wrong, might not intend to do anything wrong, but somewhere behind a very expensive desk in a very tall building, an official on the other side of some line believes them to be a threat. When I spell it out that way, it barely makes sense to you and I. Now imagine it through the eyes of a person who was sent to fight one of history’s greatest monsters well after he’d started taking territory and taking lives. As our hero so eloquently says; “This isn’t freedom. This is fear.” But it’s the fear we’ve been fostered and the fear we’ve been fed, so should we really be surprised when we wake up and see what sort of world we live in now?

That narrative alone could be the source of a solid comic book movie, but there’s something to THE WINTER SOLDIER that makes it a little more unique and engaging as an entry in The Marvel Universe. This is one of the few films that does not involve a figment of our imagination. This movie features no flying robots, no demigods, no aliens, and no monsters with anger issues. Besides a trio of giant pieces of military warfare, this movie feels like it is taking place in our world. What that allows us, and what makes the film so fun, is some exciting action set pieces centred around cars, city streets, guns, and hand-to-hand combat. In short, it allows Captain America to become the focus of a great action film. It’s unexpected, and in an era of “comic book fatigue”, anything unexpected is a welcome flourish.

Indeed, every hero must be tested, and every hero must also test themselves. Where Captain America ultimately pushes the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative not only takes great courage, but it also demands great moral fibre. I’m deliberately being cagey about what the film does for the sake of revealing spoilers, but if you’ve seen the film, you’ll understand its effect on the larger narrative. Within the landscape of these characters, the events of this movie come with great stakes, For the landscape we traverse as filmgoers, the events of this movie are game-changing.

Captain America certainly passed the test; but will Phase Two study hard enough to make the grade as well?

Matineescore: ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of ★ ★ ★ ★

What did you think? Please leave comments with your thoughts and reactions on CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.