Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo.
Starring Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson.
Rating: 7 (out of 10)
Steve Rogers/Captain America missed a lot being kept on ice for 70 years.
He keeps a notebook and jots down a cultural to-do list that includes Thai food, Star Wars and Marvin Gaye. When asked what it's like waking up in the future, Steve quips: "the food's better, we used to boil everything."
But that flippancy belies the disconnect that Cap feels from the modern age. He has taken to wandering an exhibit dedicated to himself at the Smithsonian, for solace. And, as he keeps explaining to persistent matchmaker Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), modern women confound him.
More serious than romantic concerns are political ones: things were more cut-and-dried in the 1940s, when Nazi Germany was the clear threat and the dark forces of Hydra were at work. As an already-reluctant agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve finds it increasingly difficult to figure out what he's fighting for.
Current issues surrounding data mining and pre-threat analysis are injected into the tight script in order to make things feel more relevant. At the core of the story are colossal drones - tweaked by Iron Man, of course - designed to maintain order by blasting human threats before they even emerge (resurrecting the "would you kill Hitler as a baby in his crib?" debate). For his part, Cap finds the moral implications a little hard to swallow: "You're holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection."
Marvel crafts Winter Solider like a Washington conspiracy thriller, complete with Robert Redford. Redford owns every scene he's in as the senator who oversees S.H.I.E.L.D. the man who promoted Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Fury worries that the agency has been compromised and, after impressively cheating death several times, tells Cap to "trust no one."
One person Steve does trust is Ben, a veterans counselor who went civilian after two tours of duty but who willingly jumps back into service when Steve comes calling: "Dude, Captain America needs my help. What better reason to get back in?"
As Ben, Black Widow/Natasha and Cap try to figure out who has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D, a
seriously powerful threat emerges. The Winter Soldier is a "ghost story", a figure who has effectively wiped out people en masse over some 50 years. The Winter Soldier walks around partially masked, Banestyle, and with one shiny, robotic arm flashing a star just like the Captain's. His identity is not that big a mystery, though a few gasps were heard when his mask came off.
Fan boys should know that CNET recently valued Captain America's iconic shield at $54 million, based on the value of fictional element vibranium ($10,000 an ounce, according to an issue of Fantastic Four) and Marvel's official weight of the shield (12 pounds). UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre shares one early scene with Cap, taunting him with "I thought you were more than just a shield," whereupon the Captain proves bareknuckled that he has more than one weapon in his arsenal. The fighting is the real star, innovative and well-choreographed.
But when the lines between good and evil, between bad guy and hero, are so effectively blurred, the story becomes less engaging and more like one long, albeit impressive, brawl. This isn't a superhero sequel for kids, it's an action thriller for adults; but even grown-ups will miss the charm of the original.
