Caps, a Widow, and Fury

Rating: 6/10 (13 April 2014)

Boy, after last year's mess that was Iron Man 3 and the proceeding mediocre Thor 2, my expectations couldn't get any lower for Marvel movies. I mean, there's really nowhere to go but up, and the hype and praise surrounding Cap's latest adventure had me curious on whether or not this would be the movie where Marvel would finally dare to take more risks and establish a less goofy and embarrassing tone. Now, of course, this is one of those crowd-pleasing blockbusters where if a critic bashes the film for a certain flaw, all the rabid fans will suddenly enter a defensive, fanatic stance and refuse to accept the criticism. Frankly, I don't care. I'm not a comic book fanboy. I'm not a superhero fanboy, and I'm certainly not the biggest fan of the countless dumb blockbusters we have nowadays. Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm going to be completely honest, fully aware that everyone else has only been saying good things about the movie.
First of all, let's, at least, credit the film for its substantial improvements in certain areas. Guess what? This follow-up isn't pervaded with cheesy humor like Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 was. With those installments, every other utterance exiting the characters' mouths was a one-liner or quip. With such excessiveness, it began to feel like all the characters in the Marvel universe have the exact same personalities: witty, smug, and not taking anything happening around them seriously. Given, we still have those same recurrences here, just to a thankfully smaller extent. There's more drama and intrigue this time around—you knowactually making it feel like a superhero movie and not a parody of one. In fact, The Winter Soldier is a fresh take on the superhero genre as we're suddenly presented with an espionage thriller that implements quite a bit of suspense and mystery into its plot. How surprised I was to discover that there was no unnecessary on-screen romance tossed in (big shocker for Hollywood!). Wait, you mean Captain America doesn't stumble into a bar and catch the eye of a horny blonde in the back, stimulating a pointless and interfering arc throughout the rest of the film? No! None of that happens here because the focus is all on the threat and the large ensemble of characters involved.
Instead what follows are incredibly intense, entertaining action sequences and monumental set pieces that introduce a fine amount of more close-quarters combat rather than non-stop gunplay. It's definitely more amusing to see Captain America fight than his peers, Thor and Iron Man. In addition, and more related to the story, itself, I found the arc with SHIELD and its outcome utterly fascinating as the big militaristic organization draws interesting parallels with America's undeniably aggressive agencies and foreign policies. I consider the notion of completely flipping things around and casting SHIELD in a whole 'nother (evil) light a pleasant risk that Marvel Studios took here; the most compelling of which is the conception that there's really a lack of variance between Hydra and SHIELD. People might be brainwashed into thinking one belligerent organization is better than the other, but in the end, they just have different targets but essentially the same methods, perfectly exemplified by the line "we don't negotiate" as an enemy is taken down earlier in the film.
However, now that I've applauded the film, let's get down and dirty. I know that everyone's so excited about how much of a spy thriller this new chapter turned out to be, but that doesn't erase the fact that Marvel Studios still hasn't learned how to produce an unpredictable, high-stakes superhero film yet. In every Marvel movie thus far, we face an enormous, over-the-top conflict/threat that means the end of the world, but the whole irony is in the actuality that there's absolutely no peril felt. This could be a spoiler for the film, but the studio is just really scared of killing off major—minor, you name it—characters, or, at the very least, inserting some form of loss for the danger of the situation to actually be discerned or for the villains to be proved formidable. I haven't thought much of any villains in the Marvel universe to this point because they never cause a shocking permanent amount of damage to society/institution or never even kill any of the major characters. See, what makes this all even more infuriating is that Marvel constantly teases the idea. With every film, a significant character is killed off at some point in the film only to return later on due to whatever nonsensical excuse like being revived thanks to some deus ex machina or a silly scheme that was planned out from the get-go. By now, I never believe that any of the deaths which transpire are totally real. That, alone, kills most of the suspense that any other espionage thriller absolutely needs.
Continuing on, I honestly don't find Captain America that captivating or, frankly, that necessary of a superhero. "Oh, look at me. I'm powerful because of my rebounding shield!" There's not much creativeness that was put into the construction of his character and not enough distinction to separate him from the other superheroes. And on a completely unrelated side note, man, was that last post-credits scene totally wasted and lame. All in all, though, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is clearly a vast improvement on its predecessors with its smarter, more thoughtful plot and its merging with the thriller genre, but it still suffers from being too damn predictable in how its characters end up and the lack of impactful, truly threatening villains.