Marvel Studios is on a roll. Like the latest renditions of the 007 and Batman franchises, films within the Marvel universe seem to strike a perfect balance in tone that allows for those iterations to be near perfect versions of themselves. Captain America: The Winter Soldier upholds the standard.
I come to the latest Captain America as a novice nerd, more accustomed to Marvel from toys and cartoons than comics, and even then not so much; thus much of the Easter-egg fan service may have eluded me, but as a stand-alone film within the ever-expanding Marvel film family tree, The Winter Soldier is as much, if not more, fun than its comic book-based brethren. The earlier reference to James Bond is fitting, as The Winter Soldier plays like an American version of a recurring Fleming plot, with SHIELD filling in for MI6, and Steve Rogers’ Cap’m (Chris Evans) as Bond. After a near fatal attack on M, er, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), a re-emerged Hydra (see SPECTRE) has infiltrated SHIELD, implicating the recently thawed, new-to-the-Internet-age Captain America in the attack, forcing him to go rogue and get to the bottom of Hydra’s evil plot. What follows is a delightful little political espionage thriller set in the Marvel-verse, differently toned, yet perfectly fitted next to the super-hero romp of The Avengers, or the fantastical space mythology of Thor.
Between excellently orchestrated and exciting action sequences, Mr. Rogers enlists the aid of a fellow serviceman with access to some nifty backpack tech, Sam Wilson (Mackie), and the Black Widow herself, Natasha Romanoff (Johansson in her biggest Marvel role yet). To add to the Double O similarities, the film gets its subtitle from the metal-armed henchman foil to Steve Rogers’ shield-toting Captain: The Winter Soldier, a super-assassin of shadowy legend who seems to appear at all the wrong times.
What pushes CA: TWS beyond a solid action flick may lie within the credentials of its dual directors, brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, whose previous work on both Arrested Development and Community could hint at the success of the effortless, witty banter between the Captain and his cohorts. Pepper in some tasteful political commentary and Captain America: The Winter Soldier stands as the embodiment of Marvel Studios’ hard-earned recipe for being great at being really good.
