"This isn't freedom. This is fear,"

Hello :-)

Blockbuster season seems to be starting earlier and earlier doesn’t it?
Previously confined to the summer months, Blockbuster season has been creeping forward for the last few years riding on the wave created by the Marvel cinematic universe. This year it’s the turn of Captain America to kick things off.

In ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ (or Captain America 2, whatever you want to call it) takes place in Washington DC two years after the events of ‘Avengers Assemble’ here our Star Spangled Man (Chris Evans) is up against a more sinister threat; the enemy within.

Events are set in motion when the Cap and his team are given a hostage rescue mission aboard a hijacked ship. Everything goes according to plan but Steve is uneasy and his suspicions are confirmed when he discovers that Natasha Romanov/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) has been assigned a special mission of her own.

Captain America begins to pull on the thread that leads him to question whether he can trust Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and S.H.I.E.L.D boss Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford). As events take a turn for the worse the Captain and Black Widow find themselves on the run and in the sights of the elusive Winter Soldier.

Straight off the bat I found ‘Captain America 2’ hugely enjoyable, more so than ‘Thor 2’. When the biggest problem you have with a film is “why did they bother putting real chairs in a room full of council members that appear via hologram?” you know things aren’t so bad.

This is very much a Superhero movie for today. In a world of phone tapping, e-mail hacking and constant CCTV surveillance, ‘Captain America 2’ has more than a whiff of the Edward Snowden about it. It’s a masterstroke, it makes perfect sense. Anthony and Joe Russo (who I’m familiar with from their work on the wonderful ‘Community’) have done a nice job making ‘Captain America 2’ more grown up, it’s still funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously but there’s a reality about it that keeps things grounded.

Another thing that struck me was the updated action sequences. Whilst the action in ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ was very old fashioned (which fit perfectly with that film) everything in this movie is sleeker, more fluid, even the Captain’s fighting style has been updated. It’s a less obvious improvement but I really liked it.

I have and always will argue that what’s so wonderful about Cap is his inherent goodness. Here, Cap is still his sweet, self-deprecating, wholesome self but notably less naive which is reinforced by how Evans has grown into the role. Cap’s USP is that he’s a man out of time which is nodded to quite nicely with a glimpse into his notebook of things to catch up with (“Star Wars Trek”) and a surprise visit to and old friend. For me these touches added the right level of reverence for what has gone before.

In a way that I never expected, Black Widow and Captain America make quite the team. His patriotism coupled with her cynicism make for a weirdly cohesive pairing. I love Scarlett Johansson and I especially love her as Black Widow. She’s given a lot more to do here than in previous films and she has a nice character arc to do with her own sense of identity and all the red in her infamous ledger. I love her and have everything crossed that she’ll get her own movie.

If I was going to get picky I’d say the obviousness of some of the reveals is a problem. You don’t have to work very hard to see who the bad guy is and the identity of the titular Winter Soldier is one I worked out from the very first posters. To make matters worse, when the film does look like it’s going in an unexpected direction it does a 180 degree turn an hour later, undoing all it’s good work.

Sadly for Marvel’s most subversive film to date it falls so easily into the same routine as the previous films. The wonderful Den of Geek has spoken about this before but for the time being it looks like every Superhero movie is going to end in a big fight. I can live with that as long as you try and differentiate your smashy crashy ending from all the other smashy crashy endings that have come before. Unfortunately ‘Captain America 2’ doesn’t mark itself out from all the other banging clanging finales but there are some repercussions to come out of ‘Captain America 2’ that will effect on the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not to mention ‘Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’ which I think is a really brave move.

At some point during the third act it does feel as though ‘Captain America 2’ stops being its own film and starts being another cog in the machine of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but that doesn’t undo all the good work of the previous hour and 45 minutes. More ‘Mission Impossible’ than any of the previous Marvel films, ‘Captain America The Winter Soldier’ stands on it’s own as a political thriller in the age of the Superhero movie.

So, let’s have a look at some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1. The red band trailer for ’22 Jump Street’ is out and it is hilarious. I joined the ’21 Jump Street’ bandwagon really late, it was the first film I watched on Netflix and I LOVED it :-) Phil Lord and Chris Miller's ’22 Jump Street’ is coming straight off the back of ‘The Lego Movie’ and it looks brilliant!

2. The trailer for ‘In The Flesh’ series 2 is here! I really loved the first series, only three episodes but I’m a massive zombie  fan and I thought ‘In The Flesh’ did something new and interesting with the genre. Series 2 is due to air in May and I’m really looking forward to it.

That’s all I’ve got for you today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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