When it comes to the heated debate amongst superhero-movie fans over whether their allegiances lie with DC Comics or Marvel Studios, I will be the first to admit that I am the farthest thing from a Marvel guy. The game-changing studio may have kick started the recent “world-building revolution”, in which blockbusters are obsessed with creating universes of interconnected franchises by any means necessary (see the upcoming Amazing Spider Man 2 or 2016’s Batman Vs. Superman), but from where I stand, Marvel Studios is nothing more than a manufacturing company, churning out the same finely tuned product over and over again for the past six years. Even with the original Iron Man’s undisputed pleasures, most notably the sly star-is-reborn performance by Robert Downey Jr., and The Avengers’ Whedonesque, self-reflexive energy, the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe all share the same strains of DNA, which make them identical in terms of overall lackluster potency. A Marvel movie is super fun the weekend of its release, full of flashy spectacle and wise cracking humor, but come the end of whatever movie season it opens in, usually the Summer or Holiday time frames, it is as forgettable as Rebecca Hall’s Dr. Maya Hensen in Iron Man 3.
Over the course of eight films, the Marvel backbone has become tirelessly exposed. At the center of each film is Marvel’s biggest strength – the high-personality hero, be it Tony Stark/Iron Man’s haughty machismo, Thor’s Shakespearian rapport, or Steve Rogers/Captain America’s cornball Americana. This spirited hero is surrounded by both a leading lady, such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Natalie Portman, who is stuck playing the romantic foil despite the studios’ best attempt to make you think she is an independent heroine all her own, and a supporting cast of recognizable faces, such Anthony Hopkins and Rene Russo in Thor, who are merely cast for star power and are present to do nothing more than serve the plot as living-breathing exposition. The hero is always caught in a semi-exciting, mostly bland adventure that yields one or two incredible action set pieces (the airplane rescue of Iron Man 3, the Asgard spaceship battle of Thor: The Dark World) and a few tantalizing tidbits that push the overall Universe forward. Worst of all, the hero must battle a villain who is an unthreatening presence and, like the plot, exists only to reveal plans that will further advance the Universe (i.e. Maliketh and the Aether of Thor 2). That has been Marvel’s single biggest problem: each movie strives to be a pulpy independent adventure but ends up as a forgettable piece of a larger, way more fascinating puzzle. It’s for this reason that each time a Marvel movie ends you hear way more chatter about the future of the Marvel Universe than about the contents of the new release. Even The Avengers, which united the many franchises in what looked to be the all-encompassing puzzle, ended up being another eye-poppingly fun, thematically empty piece.
All of this is to say that when I sat down for an IMAX 3D showing of Captain America: The Winter Soldier this past weekend, I was not expecting to see the most surprising and most hard-hitting entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Nor would I have bet a single dollar that this Captain America sequel would end up being the most subversive, politically charged superhero film since The Dark Knight in 2008. It may seem like hyperbolic blasphemy to call The Winter Solider the Nolan-equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but just as The Dark Knight was less of a superhero movie and more a sprawling crime saga dipped in post-9/11 themes of terrorism, Captain America: The Winter Solider abandons the tropes that have come to define Marvel Studio films and is essentially a 1970’s conspiracy thriller wrapped in 21st century themes of technology-fueled-paranoia and current events like drone warfare and Wikileaks. A Marvel movie with a potent political thesis? I’ll be damned! But that is what makes Captain America: The Winter Solider the greatest and grittiest Marvel film yet: it is, at its very core, the “anti-Marvel” Marvel superhero movie.
One sees this in almost every aspect of the movie, particularly in how The Winter Solider subverts all of the Marvel staples mentioned in paragraph two above. The most radical and most welcome difference is unquestionably the action. In the talented hands of directors Joe and Anthony Russo, the action here is captured with hand-held cameras and edited with haphazard cuts, giving the movie the feel of a visceral Paul Greengrass or Kathryn Bigelow film. The opening set piece for instance, staged on a S.H.I.E.L.D cargo ship taken hostage by Algerian pirates, moves like Captain Phillips on manic steroids, with the directors paying keen attention to space and movement and crafting some highly intricate choreographed fights that hit with brute force. Whereas most Marvel films have imaginary action chock full of Tony Stark’s boisterous laser blasters or Thor’s Asgardian-fantasy weapons, the Russo brothers relish in Captain America’s hand-to-hand combat style and create action scenes that shed all of the cartoony vibes of Marvel’s past and adds frightening layers of realism in their place. This is the only Marvel film where I’ve ever flinched as characters punched each other and where an actual threat felt scarily intimidating and close to home.
It helps that Captain America is fighting against Marvel’s most twisted villain yet: America herself. While both Robert Redford and Sebastian Stan are villainous presences as S.H.I.E.L.D senior adviser Alexander Pierce and the titular Winter Soldier, respectively, both characters end up being the results of America’s subversive nefariousness than the movie’s main antagonists. Redford, wonderfully underplaying Pierce and riffing on his 1970s American hero persona, is second only to Downey Jr. as the best stunt casting Marvel has ever done. He’s basically staring as a face of evil in a movie in which he would’ve been the hero decades ago. And Stan, in a mostly mute role, adds some surprising depth to the titular warrior through the slightest facial glance, playing an adversary who has some real, head-spinning effects on our hero. What’s great is that the movie never turns either performer into the “big bad”, letting the progressive dangers of American technology and corporate control speak for themselves. In a great conversation between Captain America and Nick Fury, the Cap brings up the “fear vs. freedom” debate, and though it’s the closest the film gets to spelling out its political agenda, it’s as intriguing as a debate as it ever will be since drones and cyberspace continue to expand beyond our control in the present day. Even more daring is the film’s plot twist, which suggests that our current inter-American conflicts are rooted in a long history of Nazism and interwar struggles for world dominance. The twist may be bogged down in comic book jargon, but major credit to screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely for even implying such a deeply felt and more-truthful-then-it-seems turn of events.
The anti-Marvelness of Captain America: The Winter Soldier continues down the line. At long last, the supporting players of a Marvel movie are given some real expansive ranges to play with. Both Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson at the pinnacle of cool) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, a ferocious flirt) become well rounded characters for the first time in several films, and while Marvel is still hiding both characters’ secret origin stories behind layers of foreshadowing, the emotions both veteran actors are allowed to wrestle with are highly effective so that even though we may not know where these characters come from, we can still see how their unknown origins are effecting their present psyches. This also has to be the only solo Marvel movie where the female lead isn’t the de facto love interest. As Black Widow, Johansson is a vivacious presence, exuding just the right amount of sexual allure to make any man fall under her spell while kicking major ass to prove she can fight with the big boys with confident ease. In fact, there’s barley any romantic subplot this time around. Now that’s really ballsy for Marvel! Even new characters like The Falcon (Anthony Mackie), a war veteran suffering from posttraumatic stress, are able to play with arcs that hit emotional beats and resonate in stimulating relationships with Captain America.
Which brings us to the hero himself, who undergoes perhaps the best arc out of any superhero in a Marvel film to date. There’s an early scene in the film where Cap visits a section of the Smithsonian Museum entirely devoted to his history, and it might just be the first time in superhero movie history where we see a hero actually reflect on his own heroism. It’s a starling idea, and in the hands of Chris Evans’ increasingly impressive performance, it creates the emotional core of Cap’s journey, which is to figure out his place in a modern world that has cut itself off from the past Captain America represents. The scene begs the viewer to compare The Winter Solider with 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, and an intellectually stirring dichotomy appears when one does. The transition from First Avenger’s pulpy, bright-colored American spirit to The Winter Soldier’s daunting, grey-toned anti-American warnings is a potent political comment on the shift from the American nationalism of yesteryear to the more present American paranoia in the face of technology we can no longer control or trust. The fact that a Marvel film is even attempting to wrestle with such contemporary themes is a surprise in itself, but the fact that The Winter Solider pulls it off with stimulating impact is a feat indeed.
Ultimately, The Winter Solider goes as far to subvert the entire history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since S.H.I.E.L.D, the organization that has been the glue binding every feature together, is exposed as being deeply corrupt and unaware of its own internal betrayals. Spending six years setting up S.H.I.E.L.D as the universal good guys only to expose them as frauds nine films later is a risky move, but it is one that is rooted in our own blind trust with America politics. Ultimately, the organization’s secrets are sprawled across the internet by a willing Nick Fury in a move that would make Julian Assange very, very proud.
By destroying S.H.I.E.L.D and being politically minded, The Winter Solider is the anti-Marvel Marvel movie I’ve been waiting for, a feature that forever alters the Universe while providing a standalone adventure with thematically rich material. Through a total of nine films now, Captain America: The Winter Solider is the only time I have ever left the theater genuinely curious as to where this Universe goes, and with Guardians of the Galaxy looking like a screwball sci-fi comedy and Ant Man rumored to be a heist film, it appears Marvel is finally willing to halt production in order to break its own backbone and challenge the genre in ways fans never expected. To my upmost surprise, Captain America: The Winter Solider has singlehandedly turned me into a Marvel guy. Now bring on Guardians!
Article by Zack Sharf
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