11 Days of Marvel: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Day 9 of 11 Days of Marvel is here! In this project, Bill and Erin go through every sin­gle extant film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and write their reac­tions to them! The project start­ed here, with Iron Man, or you can click here to see all the arti­cles in the project so far. Today is about:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Erin’s Response: How Captain Got His Groove Back

This movie is about alien­ation, about return­ing to a world you don’t remem­ber. Anyone who has been abroad for an extend­ed peri­od of time remem­bers the cul­ture shock upon return­ing home. I think the worst part for Captain is that the America he knew is com­plete­ly gone, and that noth­ing can replace the time he has lost. Furthermore, he is still try­ing to make sense of America, and his place with­in world pol­i­tics while catch­ing up on years of music.

While this is a super­hero movie with all the prop­er asso­ci­at­ed punch­ing of things, the less hero­ic parts are what kept me inter­est­ed. Captain’s rela­tion­ship with Sam Wilson, the Captain’s lit­tle note­book dili­gent­ly mark­ing the things he needs to research, Black Widow try­ing to set him up on a date, the very sad hos­pi­tal meet­ing with the demen­tia rid­den Peggy Carter—all of these moments kept me invest­ed in Steve Rogers as a per­son. The world-shattering, cat­a­clysmic Avengers plot is all but over, and now he must face what his new life will be like. He can’t put off choos­ing any longer.

Luckily, this is where the plot kicks in and makes our Lawful Good Captain ques­tion his alle­giances. I have to admit, I thought hav­ing to com­plete­ly scrap S.H.I.E.L.D because it was infest­ed by Hydra was a bit silly, but it was a nice set­ting for Rogers. Rogers remem­bers fas­cism, and he won’t stand for it.

This is a well-made movie, but it isn’t my favorite of the fran­chise. Perhaps it is because it is so sad, so exis­ten­tial that it takes away some of the magic of the MCU. I know why they exac­er­bat­ed Steve’s pain by mak­ing S.H.I.E.L.D. yet anoth­er unsta­ble thing in his life of unsta­ble things, but the truth is I am mad at them for mak­ing his life hard­er still. That is because Steve feels like a good friend. I guess they did their job too well for my taste.

Favorite Moment: Samuel L. Jackson’s awe­some car scene. In a movie fran­chise that has so much CG grandios­i­ty, it was great to be remind­ed that Nick Fury is a badass. He doesn’t have any super pow­ers, yet he is a super­hero.

Close Runner Up: When Rogers decid­ed to put on his old suit again; he is a sol­dier, not a spy.

Least Favorite Moment: I didn’t like that they ground­ed the Falcon so early in the ulti­mate bat­tle. He deserved more screen time, not less. Also, it would have been inter­est­ing to see the inter­ac­tion between him, Captain America, and the Winter Soldier in those clos­ing scenes.

Favorite Expository Device: So, I dis­like infor­ma­tion dumps in gen­er­al, and in super­hero movies they are down­right ridicu­lous. Part of my beef with Thor: The Dark World was that the whole plot hinged on objects and wars that the movie took pre­cise­ly 1/3 of a minute to explain to me in a tired voiceover. At this point in the fran­chise, nine movies in, there is a lot of back­sto­ry the audi­ence should prob­a­bly know. So I under­stand the need for expo­si­tion, but it’s often han­dled clum­si­ly. Accordingly, I real­ly enjoyed the more than a bit over-stated Smithsonian exhib­it on the Captain. Very rarely do exhibits actu­al­ly have over­head voic­es explain­ing the dis­play, but I enjoyed this attempt at diegetic recap­ping.

Erin’s Rankings:

1. Captain America: The First Avenger

2. Iron Man

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

4. The Avengers

5. Iron Man 3

6. Thor

7. The Incredible Hulk

8. Iron Man 2

9. Thor: The Dark World

Bill’s Response: 

I don’t want to just gush about this movie. A lot of peo­ple have done that already, so I wouldn’t be adding any­thing to the con­ver­sa­tion. But it’s hard not to: I real­ly, real­ly like this movie.

It appeals to just about every­body. You want cool action scenes? Check. You want some clever dia­logue? Check. You want a fair­ly diverse cast? Check. You want it to even sort of be about some­thing rather than just peo­ple punch­ing other peo­ple? Check. You want sat­is­fy­ing ref­er­ences to other MCU movies? Check. You want this movie to nev­er­the­less stand pret­ty well on its own? Check. People want a lot of dif­fer­ent things from their comic-book movies, and this movie seems to sup­ply all of them.

Also, every sin­gle human being in this movie is impos­si­bly badass. Winter Soldier throws around fan­tas­tic stunts, beau­ti­ful­ly chore­o­graphed fight scenes and gen­er­al Crowning Moments of Awesome like cheap candy at a parade. In our age of enor­mous, hyper-CG slugfests between giant robots and mon­sters1, there’s some­thing delight­ful about a movie which is pri­mar­i­ly about badass­es fist­fight­ing other badass­es. If you haven’t seen this movie, go watch it on Amazon or some­thing. I’ll wait.

So, rather than just gush, let’s talk about my favorite part of the movie.

At the end of the cli­max, Captain America stands on a cat­walk. His goal: a con­trol panel. If he gets there, he can pre­vent the deaths of hun­dreds of thou­sands of inno­cent peo­ple. Between him and his goal: his old friend2 Bucky Barnes, The Winter Soldier, brain­washed and exper­i­ment­ed upon. He does­n’t remem­ber Steve, and Steve is ter­ri­fied to lose his old­est friend again. “Don’t make me do this,” he says.

Here’s how this scene would play out in a less­er movie: Captain would put down his shield, utter some hol­low plat­i­tudes, Bucky would mag­i­cal­ly remem­ber who he is, and there would be a tear­ful reunion before they stop the destruc­tion Together, as Best Friends. The movie would try to make some hol­low point about self­less­ness and faith in peo­ple, and it would have been fine.

That’s not what hap­pens. Steve does­n’t put the lives of hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple at risk just to maybe save his one friend. Instead, once it’s clear that Bucky isn’t going to stand down, Steve beats the crap out of him and accom­plish­es his mis­sion. Then, and only then, once every­one is safe, does he put down his shield and try to save his friend.

This makes his even­tu­al refusal to fight Bucky so much more pow­er­ful: we know he can fight him, and can prob­a­bly win. It’s not that he “can’t bring him­self to do it.” He can, and he did. He would have killed Bucky if nec­es­sary. He is per­fect­ly will­ing to put his own life on the line for the slight­est chance of sav­ing his friend. But he is not will­ing to put the lives of oth­ers on the line. Once they are safe, he never throws anoth­er punch. That’s a much more inter­est­ing moral dynam­ic than you usu­al­ly get in these movies.

Favorite Moment Other Than The One I Just Talked About: The time the Winter Soldier pulls the steer­ing wheel out of Wilson’s car. Wait. The moment when Steve says “Before we get start­ed, does any­body want to get out?” to the ele­va­tor full of trained killers he is about to beat the crap out of. No, WAIT. Black Widow shoot­ing the Winter Soldier right in the gog­gles from a very long way away.  WAIT WAIT WAIT the lit­tle com­put­er jock­ey guy who refus­es to launch the heli­car­ri­er because Captain America told him not to.

You know what? I can’t pick one. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.

Least Favorite Moment: I did­n’t believe Nick Fury was dead for a sec­ond. He’s NICK FURY. Also, the MCU has Samuel L. Jackson signed on for a bil­lion movies. They real­ly should­n’t release con­tract infor­ma­tion if they want peo­ple to believe this sort of thing.

Bill’s Rankings:

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

2. Captain America: The First Avenger

3. The Avengers

4. Iron Man

5. Iron Man 3

6. Thor

7. The Incredible Hulk

8. Iron Man 2

9. Thor: The Dark World

And Now, A Conversation

Erin: I think you have per­fect­ly under­stood that scene in the heli­car­ri­er. That is exact­ly what makes it so pow­er­ful. That he saves every­one, because he is a super­hero, and then he tries to save Bucky. That is exact­ly what makes this movie so good — the way it actu­al­ly treats it char­ac­ters like real peo­ple faced with real choic­es. A real per­son does­n’t sac­ri­fice mil­lions for one. A real per­son saves the mil­lions, and then goes for the starfish.

Bill: Well, and it’s also that to throw all of the peo­ple on the Eastern Seaboard away for the chance of res­cu­ing his best friend would be incred­i­bly self­ish. Like you said in our dis­cus­sion of The First Avenger, Steve is self­less to a fault.

Erin: Exactly! He might even feel more strong­ly about Bucky, but he knows that it is right and self­less to save every­one else, so that is what he does. Honestly, I real­ly enjoyed this movie. Perhaps the most inter­est­ing thing we dis­agreed on is its rank­ing in the MCU. What do you think caused our diver­gence?

Bill: Well, to be fair, I had a hard time decid­ing where it should go. The top four movies in both of our lists (Iron Man, The First Avenger, Winter Soldier, and Avengers) are all real­ly solid. That said, I think it depends a lit­tle on what you want out of these movies. I know you men­tioned that Winter Soldier isn’t as “fun” as The First Avenger, and that’s absolute­ly true. Also, I loved your point about being mad at them for mak­ing Cap’s life dif­fi­cult in this one. I agree. It would be nice for him to have a nice day, for once. We get to see almost every­one else enjoy them­selves at some point, but the MCU is pret­ty much just MEAN to Steve.

Erin: “ROGERS MUST SUFFER. ROGERS MUST SUFFER.”

Bill: Really, though. I would total­ly be will­ing to watch Captain America: Pleasant Day At the Park where the most dif­fi­cult thing that hap­pens to him is when he has to decide what fla­vor of ice cream to buy.

Erin: Well, I would­n’t go that far. But still. Steve is a good guy. Why can’t any of the things he stands for be as good as he is?

Bill: Well, because noth­ing is as good as he is. It’s just like any well-written Superman story, but it’s much worse because Steve is just a human, not a god­like alien. When we aren’t as good as Superman, he can just smile benev­o­lent­ly and know that it’s because we are puny, weak crea­tures. When we’re not as good as Captain America, he does­n’t under­stand why not. He’s just some kid from Brooklyn. So what’s our excuse?

Erin: Nothing. That is why I love these movies.

Well, that’s it for Captain America: The Winter Soldier! We’re gonna take two days off while Bill fin­ish­es a huge law school project, so come back for Guardians of the Galaxy on Sunday and Avengers: Age of Ultron on Monday!

1. I don’t hate the hyper-CG stuff as much as some other peo­ple do. I real­ly liked Pacific Rim, after all. But still. [↩]
2. Yes, Tumblr, his friend. [↩]