Captain America – The Winter Soldier (or to the average movie-goer: Captain America 2) has been hailed by many critics and fans as the best comic-book movie of the year. Some have even declared it the best comic book movie ever. I agree with most of this praise for the first 1/3 or so of the film but…
Let the Flame-wars Begin
I’m fully aware from the number of Facebook/Twitter comments I’ve seen as well as talking with friends and reading reviews that I’m in the minority here. I know many of you will disagree with my comments and maybe even be angry that I didn’t like Captain America 2 as much as you did. And let me be very clear, I DON’T HATE THE FILM. I was just disappointed and by the end, even bored with where it ended up going.
I hope you can at least see my point of view even if we don’t agree.
Warning – Spoilers Ahead
I waited to write this post for a few months so that hopefully, most everyone who wanted to see the movie has already done so. I can’t really discuss my reservations about Captain America 2 without also mentioning some key plot points and spoilers so be warned, if you haven’t seen it and don’t want anything spoiled, you may not want to read on…
Why Captain America 2 cheats the viewer
The set up to the film is fabulous. Captain is working for SHIELD, fighting the “bad guys”, when he discovers SHIELD may not be what it says it is. There’s corruption from within SHIELD but there is also some kind of clandestine deep-operatives that appear to be doing things Captain America would never approve or be part of.
It’s an amazing premise: What if Captain America (the soldier of truth and morality) is working for a corrupt organization? What would he do if he found out the people he thought he could trust were his enemies?
That’s how the film starts and it rocks for the first third or so. This is such a great premise because it has echoes of what we’re experiencing here in America with our leaders sending drones to kill our own citizens and orchestrating a massive spying program on everyday people. Having Captain deal with similar issues of trust is smart writing. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next…
Then we get the most ridiculous plot twist that 1) makes no sense and 2) doesn’t payoff the themes that had been introduced at the start of the story. Hail Hyrda? It’s laughable and continues to get more ludicrous as the film goes on from there.
Where the story told us it was going
Things go from bad to worse after the Hail Hydra computer scene until the movie finally devolves into 30 minutes of non-stop overstimulation and explosions.
But what if the writers had chosen to pay off their set up with:
- Having Nick Fury be somewhat involved in the conspiracy, working from the inside, playing double-agent inside of SHIELD
- Having Robert Redford’s character have a clear motivation for corrupting SHIELD and hold leverage over Nick Fury to coerce him to follow instructions.
- Having Captain America be forced to choose between
Think of how much more powerful the conflict between Bucky and Captain would have been if there were some real meaning there.
Following through with the original premise would have truly put this film into the list of best comic book movies ever. It would have been smart and relevant and “the masses” could have still had their explosions and action but the themes would have meant something beyond just another silly comic-book villain story like Hydra.
I always like hearing how a reviewer would have told the story differently. Of your bullet points, I liked the idea of the second one best. Really cool! I expected to not like the movie and ended up being pleasantly surprised, so I didn’t have the same alarms going off. But I can totally see your points. Predictably, I just wanted even more Black Widow.