A well done "Soldier"

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2015)

I guess I should admit up front that I'm not a fan of Captain America, or patriotic superheroes in general. Which is why I have been extremely hesitant about approaching Marvel's "Captain America" film series. I've just never been a fan of the character, that's all.
So, I approach Captain America the same way I approached DC Comics' Superman, in which while I never read the original comics that inspired the character, I entertain myself with the big-budget cinematic depictions, and go from there - like reading the comics if I chose to.
I haven't seen 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger," but I was eager - however - to see its 2014 sequel, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." Part of the problem I was even more hesitant to see these movies was the casting of Chris Evans. I remember Chris Evans from the two "Fantastic Four" movies where he played Johnny Storm/The Human Torch and as one of the few people to like that two-film series, I thought he was perfect there. I have a personal rule about Hollywood actors playing more than one superhero (I'm looking at you, Ben Affleck) - since the superhero bandwagon is one ride it seems that everybody wants to hop onto. But, Evans's golden-boy good looks and straight-forward attitude make him an ideal pick for the role of Steve Rogers/Captain America.
The first "Captain America" was set during World War II. The sequel, "The Winter Soldier," is set in the present (2014), and features Steve Rogers trying to embrace his role in the modern world - since the patriotic ideals and values about freedom and democracy that he fought for 70 years earlier have given way to a shadier, morally gray outlook for the future of humanity. In other words, he doesn't feel he's fighting for the same good reasons now, that he was during World War II.
Part of the problem stems from his immediate superior, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., who stresses that things have changed drastically since Cap's WWII heyday. As the film begins, Rogers and his chief associate Natasha Romanoff/The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) uncover a conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D. that refers to the ghosts of the World War II era - namely the rogue Nazi science division HYDRA, which apparently did not die out with the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies in May 1945. So Captain America and The Black Widow are forced to go on the run as enemies of the government, and the pair are forced to confront the "Winter Soldier," a Russian heavyweight who has a frightening connection to Rogers's past.
Also along the for the ride is newcomer Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), an Iraq War veteran with a secret of his own - he possesses an experimental flight harness that reveals him to be the superhero The Falcon, who in comics history was the first black-American superhero and who was also one of Captain America's closest allies in the comics. I partially wanted to see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" to see the Anthony Mackie debut as The Falcon.
"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is a big, loud superhero-fest. The co-directing team of the Russo Brothers - Anthony and Joe - is one of the more interesting brotherly cinematic pairings in recent memory; the script - by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely - is also quite inspired (it draws heavily from a critically acclaimed comic book story arc called "The Winter Soldier" by Ed Brubaker, which I haven't read). The Russo Brothers and Markus & McFeely do pay particular attention to the fact that Steve Rogers is now a man out of his time, fighting for reasons that are vastly different from what he originally became Captain America for. Another thing the movie also does well is how it pays attention to how much the world has changed since the beginning of the 21st century, or more particularly, after 9/11, and how some people believe that some freedoms must be sacrificed in order to ensure security (and how some will surely exploit the loss of those freedoms for their own purposes). The movie also plays up some of the more recent conspiracy theories that have cropped up as a result of this - and having film legend Robert Redford (as Alexander Pierce, Nick Fury's close friend and colleague), who appeared in a number of conspiracy films back in the 1970s (which resulted from Vietnam and Watergate), is just the icing on the cake here.
In some ways, this is one of the more "mature" superhero films produced since the beginning of the 21st century (I would argue that honor goes to "Spider-Man 2," which came out all the way back in 2004, but I know for a fact that I'm surely outnumbered on this assertion). But as can be expected, some of the attempts at slowing things down to get a grasp on the characters and story and some of the underlying conflicts between the beliefs and ideals of the past (and how they relate to the present day) get drowned out by the special effects and explosions. That's not a fault of the Russo Brothers, really, but just the fact that Hollywood has come to expect so little from some of those in the audience that DO want more, and not less.
8/10