Escape to the Movies: Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Dark and Action-Packed

[Callate]

It's a good movie, with strong performances all the way around, and it does a great job of raising the stakes and making the audience feel the tension inherent in the atmosphere of fear and distrust that surrounds it.

About that physicality, though... (Small action-related spoilers ahead.)

Spoiler

So, yeah, this is a personal level-of-disbelief thing, and your mileage may vary, and all; if you feel the need to pull out the "it's a comic book movie" club, well, I suppose I can't hold it against you just this once.

Still, as we have made a live-action movie out of that comic book, and have a reasonable expectation of something vaguely approaching real-world physics and physicality, at least in regard to our non-teched-up "mortal" heroes:

Okay, you're a biologically perfect human at your peak, more or less. You have great reflexes and training. You can fall fifty feet, tuck and roll, and come out running. Okay, fine. You're a master of parkour; good for you. You can fall maybe a hundred feet, land on your awesome shield, and walk away, though it looks like it hurts.

...You fall over four hundred feet into water, completely uncontrolled, with multiple bullet wounds in your torso? I'm sorry, your internal organs are going to burst, assuming they don't just escape your body through that wound.

That's also putting aside the injuries to Black Widow and Nick Fury, both of whom are allegedly more-or-less normal humans. Scenes after severe bullet-related trauma, they're back in action like nothing happened. I guess we have a lot more of that T.A.H.I.T.I. stuff from AoS than we've let on?

Also, having been to Washington D.C.: You do not start a firefight in the middle of a public street in Washington D.C. without a hundred cop cars and a SWAT team descending on you. These are people in charge of protecting all of the major apparatus of the U.S. government, and they are a presence in that city. I don't care what kind of powers SHIELD is supposed to have; a big gunfight in the middle of a (clearly) public street is going to bring down the hammer.

...Yes, yes, I know, comic-book action movie. And it's a good one, my nitpicking aside; I enjoyed it, honest. I just would have enjoyed it that tiniest bit more without that nagging going on in the back of my head that the movie is playing a little bit fast-and-loose with plausibility. Especially since it could have avoided those implausibilities.

 

[daxterx2005]

22 years was a good run

 

[Brockyman]

Right now, America kind of needs Captain America right now. Especially in light of recent events where the government is being picked apart, traded and sold of piecemeal to anyone with a fat enough checkbook.

Shouldn't that read "recent events where the government is passing laws and doing things against the average citizens and violating the constitution and rule of law for a radical agenda?"

Yeah, that sounds better. Cap would be proud of me for the truth there.

 

[Ralancian]

Whilst I agree with Bob about The Winter Soldier these it one thing that's driving me up the wall. His revisionist history of the Nolan Batman franchise I'll accept he didn't much care for The Dark Knight Rises. But he dug the hell out the first two and constantly used until The Avengers(good but hugely overrated in my book) The Dark Knight as example of great superhero movie making.

The entire dark brooding Batman backlash that seams to be going on is starting to frustrate. Yeah I get it wasn't everyone's cup of tea at the time but when I see people who loved it jumping on the bandwagon it drives me nuts.

 

[HemalJB]

Whilst I agree with Bob about The Winter Soldier these it one thing that's driving me up the wall. His revisionist history of the Nolan Batman franchise I'll accept he didn't much care for The Dark Knight Rises. But he dug the hell out the first two and constantly used until The Avengers(good but hugely overrated in my book) The Dark Knight as example of great superhero movie making.

The entire dark brooding Batman backlash that seams to be going on is starting to frustrate. Yeah I get it wasn't everyone's cup of tea at the time but when I see people who loved it jumping on the bandwagon it drives me nuts.

Agree to this. I'm especially bothered by the fact that his hatred for dark broody superhero movies vanishes when the MCU does the same. That he says it handles dark better than The Dark Knight really rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Hammartroll]

Ok, so like other people have already said, even though Bush was an appropriate picture to represent those crimes Obama would have been more appropriate and relevant due to his constant signing of executive orders allowing drone strikes, severe crackdown on whistle blowers, massive expansion of the NSA (what Bob was citing Bush for), equal pandering to corporate interests and intervention in other countries, though not as overt as Bush's invasions, in the form of funding terrorists in Syria or illegally offing Gadaffi for example.

With all that said, even though Bob and other liberals may want to support Obama because of his social policies (healthcare, minimum wage, ect.) it should be their responsibility more so than the conservatives to call him out when he escalates the issues of the previous administration rather than pretending everything wrong now is a holdover from Bush.

In other words liberals need to grow the balls to hate on Obama just as much as they did Bush.

On topic: movie looks awesome, but gonna have to Redbox the first one before seeing it. Cap for president!

 

[Ralancian]

Whilst I agree with Bob about The Winter Soldier these it one thing that's driving me up the wall. His revisionist history of the Nolan Batman franchise I'll accept he didn't much care for The Dark Knight Rises. But he dug the hell out the first two and constantly used until The Avengers(good but hugely overrated in my book) The Dark Knight as example of great superhero movie making.

The entire dark brooding Batman backlash that seams to be going on is starting to frustrate. Yeah I get it wasn't everyone's cup of tea at the time but when I see people who loved it jumping on the bandwagon it drives me nuts.

Agree to this. I'm especially bothered by the fact that his hatred for dark broody superhero movies vanishes when the MCU does the same. That he says it handles dark better than The Dark Knight really rubs me the wrong way.

I also think there is something quite interesting in both films concept of mass surveillance considering one is pre-snowdon the other is post. Which could be really interesting to read about if someone could do it without any bias towards the heroes and the whole DC vs Marvel thing.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

I loved this movie for so many reasons but one of the best parts of the movies for me was a blink or you miss it, one line of dialog where someone actually name droped Doctor Strange. The fanboy in me went crazy.

Plus the movie has actualy got me watching Agents of Shield again which is no small feat.

I barely caught the end of it and wasn't sure if I heard right and when I turned to my friend to confirm it he was already fangirl'ing all over the place.

Spoiler: But when we saw the first Post-credits scene

I absolutely shrieked at seeing Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. I yelled at loud, as did the rest of the fans who knew what they were looking at. I seriously just don't know HOW they were able to pull off including them in the MCU

Oh... also

Spoiler: The quote

on Nick Fury's gravestone that referenced Sam L Jackson's character Jules legendary monologue in Pulp Fiction. Apparently I was the only one that caught this because I almost blurted out before looking around and seeing that no one else saw it

You weren't the only one to spot it i mentioned it in a related thread earlier in the week...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.846159-Check-Out-The-UK-Version-Of-Captain-America-2s-To-Do-List#20860026

 

[Therumancer]

Why bring up Bush? Obama has been in charge for 5 years (longer than the USA fought in WWII) and things have only gotten worse.

Kind of my thinking as well. Or if you're going to put up pictures, throw up an image of both Pres. Bush and Pres. Obama. As it is, it really betrays the reviewer's political leanings. (Which is totally okay, I get it, but it also feels completely unnecessary.)

Oh come on. Bob makes reference to 911 in several ways. What has Obama got to do with that? What has Obama got to do with pre-emptive strikes? Your argument is like saying we shouldn't reference Hitler anymore because Angela Merkel is Chancellor in Germany. Having accused Bob of showing his 'political leanings', you've clearly displayed your own with a nonsensical argument.

(No, I'm not comparing Bush to Hitler, and yes, I'm aware of Godwin.)

OT: Looks like it should be a fun film

Well, to be honest there has been a number of criticisms about this one. To be blunt it wouldn't surprise me if Marvel winds up having the exact opposite message that seems to be going on here in the long run. After all more than a few people have been quietly pointing out this movie could be called "Captain America 2: The World's Biggest Hypocrite". Not to mention that it seems the backlash over NSA-spying, and post-911 crackdowns is slowly backfiring as people gradually wake up and brain cells start to fire. After all, your starting to see people realize that the whole NSA info gathering thing isn't that big a deal, and is probably a good thing ironically enough, because after all the technologies exist, those who threaten the US aren't going to be concerned about civil liberties or what they do to gather information (with nations like China, Russia, and even North Korea being quite tech savvy when it comes to these kinds of thing) so it's stupid to intentionally deprive our own defenders of the same information and technology needed to counter them. What's more it's fundamentally too late to act AFTER someone has already wiped out dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people in a given attack. If you say arrest the half a dozen people you might be able to find who are responsible for such an act after it happens you might as well give carte blanche to terrorists because that's how they inspire fear, not being pro-active to a degree basically means everyone is vulnerable and you had better give these guys what they want, because to the victims it doesn't matter if they say eventually get Bin Ladin in Pakistan years later.

At any rate as this applies to Captain America, it should be noted this is a guy who was basically empowered by a secret government project, even if he became an icon afterwards. He's also a dude who joined, and in the comics actually leads, what amounts to a group of vigilantes who depending on the timeline may or may not have official government sanction (in the movie they do). Indeed in the comics attempts to send in a government liason to keep The Avengers on some kind of leash has been portrayed as a bad thing (and in the context of the universe it is).

As a point, a few people analyzing this movie have commented on the sheer irony in a premise where you fundamentally have one group of fundamentally unaccountable government agents, taking on another group of fundamentally unaccountable government agents. You wind up with the CIA of all people being the ones who arrest the "bad" dudes in SHIELD, and for the most part Captain America, and Black Widow are fundamentally going to be doing what they have been doing, and the TV show "Agents Of SHIELD" despite a tie in episode is likely to not be fundamentally altered that much in the way it's going to function as a result. The entire point here is that it's pretty much "Black Ops. are fine as long as it's the right people doing them".

What's more as a lot of people are pointing out it could be argued that as brutal as the bad guys in SHIELD are, time is likely to prove them right. After all we had one assault on New York, and we're priming for Ultron to pretty much create another catastrophe on at least a similar level. At some point if Marvel plans to take itself seriously at all someone is going to pretty much say "Gee, maybe this wouldn't be happening on the same scale if we actually had three heavily armed helicarriers and someone was being pro-active about stuff like this... how many people are dying horribly now in the crossfire compared to the number that would have been lost".

Interestingly this point might very well lead to a cinematic version of the "Civil War" event which handles things better than the actual comic version did. In the comics they had to have people acting REALLY out of character and made dumb analogies (like slavery) and focus almost entirely on the secret identity aspect of things to try and make Cap not look like an idiot. When they brought out "super gitmo" (which really wasn't that fundamentally different than "The Raft", "The Vault", or other things which had The Captain America seal of approval for years beforehand) it got particularly eye rolling. Then of course Cap basically "wins" by having an old buddy who happens to be a super villain as much as a hero, do the villain thing by having his army attack New York and do exactly the kind of thing that people have been spending decades preventing this villain (Namor) from doing... at which point he surrenders because "durr, maybe this wasn't the right thing to do". Really Cap, really, siccing the Armies of Atlantis on the drylanders to try and demonstrate why too much security is a bad thing, especially when they start leveling the city, and kind of defeats your whole point? Wow, what a rocket scientist.

At any rate, pretty much everyone is saying this is a decent movie on it's own merits, but whether it's one of the "deepest" or "dumbest" seems to be a matter of opinion. I think it might have been business insider (though I'm not sure) that made some of the same points I just did yesterday in their review. It seems I'm not the only one that thinks in the long run half the point might be that Cap is doing the wrong thing in the big picture, especially in how the situation is handled, and that this is going to snowball. By basically castrating SHIELD he's creating an environment where super heroes are going to be increasingly needed (to take matters into their own hands in fact), and it seems inevitably after a crisis or two he's going to be called on it, and that will probably be by Iron Man. With less heroes involved the whole "Registration" aspect will be tertiary to the security aspects, and if the story goes down similarly Cap's side is likely to inevitably win the "war" but only by sort of making the point of the other side, followed by a surrender.

 

[webby]

Webby. Bob's on record as having said both the original Superman AND Batman the Dark Knight are two of his favorite superhero movies. I think that alone shoots down any notion of Bob being a Marvel biased.

I don't know where your notion of Bob's over the top praise comes from. Bob criticized Thor 2 pretty heavily for fucking up the pacing. I also recall him picking at both Iron Man sequels for their problems.

Why? I'm not saying his bias makes him dislike rival comic book companies, I'm saying he is incredibly pro Marvel Studios. You can like both Coke and Pepsi whilst still over hyping one of them and that is still bias.

My notion of Bobs over the top praise comes from... well... watching his videos. I'm not the only one to mention it and even his criticism of Thor boiled down to "I wanted MOOOOOOORE" which is fine, but when the films already 2 hours long it seems like an odd complaint. As for the Iron Man sequel reviews, watch them again, it's full on glowing praise. In his Iron Man 3 review he even points out that he was overly generous about Iron Man 2 which I pointed out earlier.

Wait, Spiderman is certainly a Marvel character and the boards go sour with people complaining how Bob Chipman can't stop complaining about the new Spiderman movies.

A different company makes Spiderman, I assume the same is true of Agents of Shield. Perhaps I should have specified I meant the movie company.

People seem to be taking this all a bit seriously when it was a throwaway joke initially, if you watch the films and agree with Bob that they're all brilliant then that's cool. As a guy who thinks some of them (even the Avengers which I really liked) have been over hyped by Bob for literally years now then it's just kind of funny to see the exact same pattern playing out again, even down to the specific phrasing. If that doesn't bother you then go nuts, I think I will wait and see what other reviewers have to say though before I commit to going to see it since Bob has priors with this sort of stuff.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Shouldn't that read "recent events where the government is passing laws and doing things against the average citizens and violating the constitution and rule of law for a radical agenda?"

Yeah, that sounds better. Cap would be proud of me for the truth there.

Yeah, you missed the part where that agenda was being paid for by the Koch brothers. Good on you for trying though.

 

[romxxii]

Water is wet, the sky is blue and Bob heaps glowing praise upon another Marvel film. I swear this is like the 3rd film to be classed as "the best non-Avengers Marvel film" and since one of them was Iron Man 3 (which was pretty terrible) the words have began to lose all meaning.

Doesn't change the fact that the movie is that damned good.

 

[Ralancian]

Water is wet, the sky is blue and Bob heaps glowing praise upon another Marvel film. I swear this is like the 3rd film to be classed as "the best non-Avengers Marvel film" and since one of them was Iron Man 3 (which was pretty terrible) the words have began to lose all meaning.

Doesn't change the fact that the movie is that damned good.

See the thing is it's a better movie than The Avengers but apparently it was decreed that the Avengers is the best movie eva! Even before it came out.

Also non Avengers movie sounds a bit stupid as it implies there's been more than one.

 

[Silverspetz]

Whilst I agree with Bob about The Winter Soldier these it one thing that's driving me up the wall. His revisionist history of the Nolan Batman franchise I'll accept he didn't much care for The Dark Knight Rises. But he dug the hell out the first two and constantly used until The Avengers(good but hugely overrated in my book) The Dark Knight as example of great superhero movie making.

The entire dark brooding Batman backlash that seams to be going on is starting to frustrate. Yeah I get it wasn't everyone's cup of tea at the time but when I see people who loved it jumping on the bandwagon it drives me nuts.

Agree to this. I'm especially bothered by the fact that his hatred for dark broody superhero movies vanishes when the MCU does the same. That he says it handles dark better than The Dark Knight really rubs me the wrong way.

You know, it really helps to pay attention before posting. Bob clearly explained the difference between DC's kind of GrimmDark and Marvel's, and why one works better than the other. The short version of it is that DC throws their heroes into dark settings that forces them to compromise their ideals and their heroism, while Marvel throws their heroes into dark-ish settings and let their heroes change IT for the better through their ideals and heroism.

 

[Ralancian]

Whilst I agree with Bob about The Winter Soldier these it one thing that's driving me up the wall. His revisionist history of the Nolan Batman franchise I'll accept he didn't much care for The Dark Knight Rises. But he dug the hell out the first two and constantly used until The Avengers(good but hugely overrated in my book) The Dark Knight as example of great superhero movie making.

The entire dark brooding Batman backlash that seams to be going on is starting to frustrate. Yeah I get it wasn't everyone's cup of tea at the time but when I see people who loved it jumping on the bandwagon it drives me nuts.

Agree to this. I'm especially bothered by the fact that his hatred for dark broody superhero movies vanishes when the MCU does the same. That he says it handles dark better than The Dark Knight really rubs me the wrong way.

You know, it really helps to pay attention before posting. Bob clearly explained the difference between DC's kind of GrimmDark and Marvel's, and why one works better than the other. The short version of it is that DC throws their heroes into dark settings that forces them to compromise their ideals and their heroism, while Marvel throws their heroes into dark-ish settings and let their heroes change IT for the better through their ideals and heroism.

Watch his Dark Knight review because he clearly thought it was a terrible film...

The film isn't better than The Dark Knight and nobody will seriously suggest that in a year or two. The reason why this is good film with dark elements is it understands who it's lead character is and how he should effect the world. The Dark Knight did exactly the same thing but newsflash Bruce Wayne is not Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

 

[Silverspetz]

Whilst I agree with Bob about The Winter Soldier these it one thing that's driving me up the wall. His revisionist history of the Nolan Batman franchise I'll accept he didn't much care for The Dark Knight Rises. But he dug the hell out the first two and constantly used until The Avengers(good but hugely overrated in my book) The Dark Knight as example of great superhero movie making.

The entire dark brooding Batman backlash that seams to be going on is starting to frustrate. Yeah I get it wasn't everyone's cup of tea at the time but when I see people who loved it jumping on the bandwagon it drives me nuts.

Agree to this. I'm especially bothered by the fact that his hatred for dark broody superhero movies vanishes when the MCU does the same. That he says it handles dark better than The Dark Knight really rubs me the wrong way.

You know, it really helps to pay attention before posting. Bob clearly explained the difference between DC's kind of GrimmDark and Marvel's, and why one works better than the other. The short version of it is that DC throws their heroes into dark settings that forces them to compromise their ideals and their heroism, while Marvel throws their heroes into dark-ish settings and let their heroes change IT for the better through their ideals and heroism.

Watch his Dark Knight review because he clearly thought it was a terrible film...

The film isn't better than The Dark Knight and nobody will seriously suggest that in a year or two. The reason why this is good film with dark elements is it understands who it's lead character is and how he should effect the world. The Dark Knight did exactly the same thing but newsflash Bruce Wayne is not Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

You ARE joking right? Bob loved the Dark Knight, the thing is that he can still be very tired of that movie in terms of what kind of superhero it presents and still recognize it as a vastly superior film on account of the filmmaking skills it took to make it. Bob isn't saying that TWS is a better movie than TDK, he is saying that it does a better job of being a SUPERHERO-movie. There is a difference.

 

[Gerardo Vazquez]

Hiya Bob. Listen I'm a big fan, and I REALLY appreciate that you reviewed TWS ASAP because it inspired me to go see it ASAP, and it was REALLY good, but I also kinda want to hear your thoughts on Mr. Peabody And Sherman, because I have been putting off watching that film like crazy, and part of me feels like I'm unfairly judging it as a kids movie and "getting to old for those kinds of things", and that kinda scares me, but also I've seen the trailers, and none of them have made me laugh so maybe I'm NOT unfairly judging it, not to mention Mr. Peabody being a dog kind of bothers me since he feels like a cheap ploy to bring in kids because, well it's a talking dog, and he's only really a talking dog in order to make scenes that AREN'T funny be funny by having them center around a talking dog instead of just a normal person..... UGH Dammit I'm conflicted. So.... yeah Moviebob...... Mr. Peabody and Sherman.... please get on that. I'd really appreciate it.

 

[webby]

See the thing is it's a better movie than The Avengers but apparently it was decreed that the Avengers is the best movie eva! Even before it came out.

Also non Avengers movie sounds a bit stupid as it implies there's been more than one.

I can't tell if this was aimed at me or not, but just in case it was: I aren't saying The Avengers was the best film ever, I was just pointing out that that is a common description of movies used by Bob. I'm not sure why but for some reason The Avengers has become the yardstick that he measures all films against which is why I said he over hypes all Marvel films, even the good ones (The Avengers is good but it doesn't make it near my list of "best films ever").

As for criticising the grammar, that's a pretty pedantic point to be getting worked up about since the meaning was clear enough, imagine I said "the Best Marvel film since the Avengers" if it makes you feel better.

Doesn't change the fact that the movie is that damned good.

Good. It was a light hearted jab at the end of the day, not a scathing criticism of either Bob or the film. I aren't sure why people are so quick to rush to his defence over this since one of Bobs own lines of logic is that reviews shouldn't come from a vacuum or hide the reviewers personal opinion. Pointing out that the favouritism is there doesn't negate the praise from the review, it just means that people should perhaps take it with a pinch of salt in the same way people shouldn't immediately think a JRPG is awful because Yahtzee doesn't like it.

 

[Professor_Fate]

Why bring up Bush? Obama has been in charge for 5 years (longer than the USA fought in WWII) and things have only gotten worse.

Kind of my thinking as well. Or if you're going to put up pictures, throw up an image of both Pres. Bush and Pres. Obama. As it is, it really betrays the reviewer's political leanings. (Which is totally okay, I get it, but it also feels completely unnecessary.)

Oh come on. Bob makes reference to 911 in several ways. What has Obama got to do with that? What has Obama got to do with pre-emptive strikes? Your argument is like saying we shouldn't reference Hitler anymore because Angela Merkel is Chancellor in Germany. Having accused Bob of showing his 'political leanings', you've clearly displayed your own with a nonsensical argument.

(No, I'm not comparing Bush to Hitler, and yes, I'm aware of Godwin.)

OT: Looks like it should be a fun film

Sorry, but your assumption is incorrect. From Mother Jones:

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Is About Obama's Terror-Suspect Kill List, Say the Film's Directors

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/04/captain-america-winter-soldier-obama-kill-list-politics-drones-nsa

Liberals just can't NOT blame Bush/Cheney.

 

[Ralancian]

See the thing is it's a better movie than The Avengers but apparently it was decreed that the Avengers is the best movie eva! Even before it came out.

Also non Avengers movie sounds a bit stupid as it implies there's been more than one.

I can't tell if this was aimed at me or not, but just in case it was: I aren't saying The Avengers was the best film ever, I was just pointing out that that is a common description of movies used by Bob. I'm not sure why but for some reason The Avengers has become the yardstick that he measures all films against which is why I said he over hypes all Marvel films, even the good ones (The Avengers is good but it doesn't make it near my list of "best films ever").

As for criticising the grammar, that's a pretty pedantic point to be getting worked up about since the meaning was clear enough, imagine I said "the Best Marvel film since the Avengers" if it makes you feel better.

Doesn't change the fact that the movie is that damned good.

Good. It was a light hearted jab at the end of the day, not a scathing criticism of either Bob or the film. I aren't sure why people are so quick to rush to his defence over this since one of Bobs own lines of logic is that reviews shouldn't come from a vacuum or hide the reviewers personal opinion. Pointing out that the favouritism is there doesn't negate the praise from the review, it just means that people should perhaps take it with a pinch of salt in the same way people shouldn't immediately think a JRPG is awful because Yahtzee doesn't like it.

Wasn't really aimed at you was more agreeing if anything.

Also to previous post I was being sarcastic I know Bob in the past has praised TDK. However in recent times he seams to be saying it was terrible or at least not good. Look at his Lego Movie review, this one and it's been growing for a about a year. It's actually getting frustrating. It's not the first thing like Green Lantern which he wouldn't shut up about now Man of Steel. I get he didn't like the movies I don't think their works of art either but it's flogging a dead horse.