THE FOLLOWING CONTAIN SPOILERS!!
Disney and Marvel have been consistent in giving us quality superhero movies. Their three recent films have gone on to gross earnings in the billion dollar range with quality actors and storyline. Those films showed not only the toughness but also the human side of the heroes. And Captain America: The Winter Soldier keeps that trend going. Steve Rogers is slowly adapting to life seventy years after he was frozen. It is hard for him as he is still coping with the fact that everyone he knew and loved is either dead or in a nursing home. Steve visits his girlfriend who is now old and suffering from Alzheimer’s. He still sees her as the young lady he left behind to fight the Nazi’s in WWII but he can’t be with her like he wants to. Natasha Romanoff tries to play match maker for Steve while also being his partner in S.H.I.E.L.D. Unlike Tony Stark, Steve is not really comfortable separating his personal life from his life as Captain America. Even when he is not donning the stars and stripes, he still cannot walk around without somebody noticing him. But a new threat looming with tear down the walls of Steve’s world and a blast from his past comes to haunt him.
The one problem Steve has is with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s way of operating and Nick Fury’s secrets. The agency is constantly shrouded in secrecy and Steve is beginning to distrust the system. When assigned to rescue hostages aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship, Steve has suspicions about the situation. And those suspicions ring true when he returns home after that and finds Nick Fury badly injured. Nick tells him that S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised but he is shot before he can reveal more. And from there every plays out like FOX’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” with Steve Rogers discovering more about his past. With help from Natasha, his search takes him a back to the army base where he used to train. There, he and Natasha find a munitions bunker where Steve is greeted by a supercomputer containing the consciousness of Arnim Zola. He tells Steve about Hydra and their integration into S.H.I.E.L.D. where they intend to kill anyone who would be a threat to them—Steve included. What is interesting are the other characters that were named on this list which included Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. What got me was that Stephen Strange was mentioned. This might suggest the sorcerer supreme getting his spot at the box office. We’ll have to see about that one. Anyway, poor Steve gets another blast from yesterday when his best friend Bucky is the Winter Soldier and has apparently been kept on ice for the last seventy years as well. Beautiful, just when Steve has been musing over the loss of those he knew, he has to fight his best friend and beat him. Talk about twisting the knife.
Now on to the action! Winter Soldier boasts amazing fight sequences and killer effects. It was entertaining seeing Captain America run through a ship, taking out soldiers like it was a walk in the park. He whips his shield at the bad guys and has it return to him like in the comics. Another of this scenario is when he is branded a traitor by S.H.I.E.L.D. top brass, played wonderfully by Robert Redford, and he has to fight several agents inside an elevator. I have seen action take place in close quarters before but this is just down right awesome. Steve is so agile and athletic that it makes Zumba look like kiddie gym. After defeating the agents, he manages to escape S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters by running through several walls using his shield as a battering ram. I can’t help but be reminded of the Juggernaut doing the same thing while chasing Kitty Pryde in “X-Men: The Last Stand”. Falcon joins the cast and he brings his wings with him. He doesn’t shoot blades from them but this doesn’t mean that Falcon has been cheapened. Falcon packs twin handguns and mostly using his incredible speed and aerial acrobatics to take out the enemies. Natasha is still as sleek and deadly as ever and she brings her shock gauntlets with her. Bucky aka the Winter Soldier is a deadly enemy that can match Captain America’s speed and strength. He takes down Nick Fury with little effort and nearly adds Natasha, Falcon and Cap to the list. During his first encounter with Captain America, the Winter Soldier has his mask taken off by Cap and revealing his face which sparks something in Bucky who still has memories of his friend. He not inherently bad, he was just created that way. This is evident during the film’s climax when Bucky fights Captain America one more time and has him beaten but hesitates in delivering the final blow. Those latent memories seem to be surfacing.
Let’s tie it all together. If you have been watching “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” then you know that the agency has been compromised in that series as well. Agent Sitwell, who appeared in the series, shows up in the film as a part of Hydra which intends to bring down S.H.I.E.L.D. and rule the world. This might also help bolster the series. The fact that the series has taken on the subtitle of “Uprising” and displays Captain America’s shield in the title sequence suggests that some serious stuff has happened with S.H.I.E.L.D. There might be a reference to the film in the series, be it Hydra or what happened to Nick Fury.
All in all, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an action-packed thrill ride that keeps you on the edge of your seat while it shows us that even heroes are human. It has humor of the previous Marvel films—Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor—amidst the action and gives a look into the hero by stripping away the layers and revealing the heart behind the shield.
