Issue #9: Alex's Reflections on Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

This movie is excellent…for one hour and thirty minutes. The Russo Brothers’ first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a crazy action movie with well-choreographed one-on-one fight sequences, a seamless car chase sequence, and suspenseful storytelling that truly has repercussions for the remainder of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s run…for one hour and thirty minutes.

The ending sequence sees Captain America fighting The Winter Soldier who used to be his best friend, Bucky Barnes, who Captain America thought was long dead. Throughout the film, Steve Rogers battles with the moral dilemma of having to confront his former friend and ultimately decides to not harm him. All of that makes for great storytelling and creates investment on the part of the viewer; as a consumer, I care what happens to the characters in this film. What complicates my viewing is the chaos surrounding the third act, and this will become a theme with the Marvel films as we move through the series. 
 
It is not enough that Captain America and Bucky Barnes are fighting to the death. It is not enough that Hydra has completely infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. It is not enough that the Secretary of Internal Security for S.H.I.E.L.D. (Alexander Pierce, played by Robert Redford) was the ultimate mastermind behind all of the insanity. No, that’s not enough chaos and intrigue. There also needs to be three (THREE!) helicarriers falling from the sky into the Potomac. Captain America needs to be fighting the Winter Soldier on one of those helicarriers, and those hellicarriers need to be firing at each other incessantly for 20 minutes. This is putting a hat on a hat.
 
I know from past viewings of all these films that this is only the first of many overindulgent ending sequences in Marvel Movies that do not need them. I’ll make a confession right here, right now. During the entire ending sequence in this film, I was on my phone looking up sports news. I would occasionally look up and see Captain America hanging sideways from a perilously bent metal beam, but it was too much. The film would have been better served having Captain America fight the Winter Soldier in a more intimate setting. The movie did not need all this bull#$% to entertain the audience. All of the stories the movie built up over the first hour and a half were enough.

And Marvel is not the only series guilty of overindulgence. An egregious example of this is the recent Wonder Woman movie. That film was nearly one of the best superhero films ever made, but they had to have Wonder Woman fight Ares (who looked like Shao Khan from Mortal Kombat) in a videogame cut-sequence. Why filmmakers feel they have to put these insane CGI finales in superhero movies is beyond me. They are appropriate at points, and when we review Avengers: Endgame, I realize it is a final battle that was built up over nearly one decade. The rationale and necessity for that level of CGI is clear. But Captain America: The Winter Soldier did not need it.