MOVIE REVIEW: Captain America: The Winter Solider I really wasnt planning on seeing the new Captain America film, mainly because most superhero movies dont interest me in the slightest, the exceptions being the original Spiderman trilogy (the new one has me excited too) and the most recent trilogy of Batman movies. I moderately enjoyed the first Iron Man, but the next two were boring to me. Ive never had any interest in a single X-Men movie. The Avengers was mildly entertaining at best. But I happened to be extraordinarily bored and cabin-feverish today so I took a ride over the local movie theatre and saw The Winter Soldier. The film picks up sometime after the previous installment ended, after what Im told was some massive destruction of New York or something like that, I dont know, I didnt see it. Anyway, here we are in Washington, D.C. The characters are all re-introduced (or introduced for the first time for me) properly, giving a series newcomer a good idea of who everyone is. The plot truly begins when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is killed, and Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and his team try to find out who did it, and eventually to try to take down S.H.I.E.L.D. and most importantly a division of it which seemingly had grown unnoticed over the decades, HYDRA. The film is filled with subtle and not-so-subtle undertones of current issues the world is facing, which helped me enjoy it more than I normally would have. I usually am a sucker for espionage and terrorism thrillers, so the idea that a division of the US government, as opposed to some random super-villain, is the enemy in this film played to my love for those plot lines. The script was about on par with any other average superhero movie. The same semi-cheesy one-liners (albeit delivered beautifully by Scarlett Johanssen), characters making arguments that in real life would convince exactly zero people ever but are necessary to move the plot forward, etc. The plot twists that were supposed to surprise you really didnt seem to surprise anyone, maybe because were all so used to the formula for these movies. It seems that Marvel has some checklist sitting in their scriptwriters offices and before a script can be considered finished, they have to check all the boxes. So while it doesnt necessarily make for a bad script, it makes for a predictable one that doesnt leave much room for creativity and trying new things. I remember when Chris Evans was just beginning his film career and he and Scarlett Johanssen co-starred in The Perfect Score. That movie was one of my favorites when I was younger (probably because I was a less-than-stellar student and stealing the SAT scores was a rather appealing concept for me). A short while later, I watched Evans again in Cellular with Kim Basinger and Jason Statham. After that, I didnt see him in anything for a long time and I actually forgot about him. When he returned to the spotlight in Captain America, I was curious as to how this kid would perform. In this film, he proved to me that he can definitely hold his own on a major budget sci-fi film. The other standout in this film was the gorgeous Scarlett Johanssen. She brings something to a character that not many actresses could, and while I dont think her character needs its own franchise as one other reviewer suggested (although a Black Widow movie has indeed been announced), I certainly want to see her in more starring roles in the action genre. It looks like Ill be getting my wish when she stars in the upcoming film Lucy, which is in previews before The Winter Soldier. Visually, this film maintains the standards set by all the other films in the major budget sci-fi genre, but doesnt manage to break any new ground. Theres no question about whats digital and what isnt, and the CGI team didnt go out of their way to do anything special for it. In conclusion, I do recommend seeing this movie if youre either a) a fan of the genre or characters, or b) bored one day and want to take in a movie and youve already seen Divergent. If one or both of those applies to you, youll probably enjoy Captain America: The Winter Soldier. OVERALL RATING: 3.5/5
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 02:58:23 +0000
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