MCU Sunday #9 Captain America: The Winter Soldier

 

 Preface: As promised last year, I plan to review every single currently available movie in what is known as the  Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) over the year 2024. These will appear in order of their release over that time period. This is the ninth installment. (Oh, and by the way, after I've exhausted all of the currently available MCU movies I will be rounding out the year with some of the other available movies made from the Marvel comics pantheon.)

Notes: In each of the MCU installments you will be seeing references to two recurring events that occur in nearly every MCU movie.

Where is Stan Lee?: Stan Lee was the driving genius behind Marvel Comics.  He usually shows up in a cameo.  Sometimes these are so quick you gotta be sure you don't blink. Occasionally he gets a line  of dialogue.

And the Credits Roll: You should always stay in the theater for the credits when watching a MCU movie, because during the credits and at the end there is a teaser (or two) that is worth the wait.  Often they were a teaser for the next installment of the films.

 

Captain America: the Winter Soldier  (2014):

Early in the movie we get to see Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) showing off to a fellow soldier Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie)  by racing him on a running track.

 

The Captain  gets called in because a terrorist group has hijacked a SHIELD ship.  25 terrorists led by a man named Georges Baltroc (Georges St-Pierre) has taken control of the ship and has a dozen or so hostages.  Captain America against 25 terrorists?  Can you at least make it difficult for him?

 

Well, it does take more than just Cap to defeat them, of course, but he seems to have it mostly under control.  However, he discovers that one of his crew has a mission that he was not privy to; Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is found downloading some files from the mainframe computer. It seems there was more to the mission than just liberating a few hostages.

When Cap goes to confront Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), he is told some of the details, including the fact that SHIELD has been developing a secret weapon designed to prevent potential future terrorist attacks.  Which doesn't exactly sit well with the worldview that Cap has.  He sees it as not protecting freedom, but more as a form of using fear to promote peace.  (Cap is from a different world remember, one that would say that the rights of people to be free should not be limited to promote safety.)

 

Based on the information that Fury gets from the files he got from Black Widow, Fury recommends that the project be delayed.  But the man in charge, Secretary Pierce (Robert Redford) is not entirely on board with the idea.

While out on the streets, Fury is attacked by what appears to be police.  It is, of course, not the official Police force. Fury manages to escape, but his escape is inhibited by a mysterious figure who manages to disable Fury's vehicle.

When Steve gets home from his outings, he finds Fury in his apartment. Fury informs him that SHIELD has been compromised and gives him a flash drive and tells him not to trust anyone.  But Fury is shot by the same mysterious assassin who disabled his vehicle earlier.  Fury is later declared dead, despite the efforts of hospital personnel to save him.  Cap tries to chase down the mysterious figure but is unsuccessful.

 

Because of the flash drive that Fury passed on to Cap, Cap suddenly becomes a person of interest and an attempt is made on him by a STRIKE force to capture (or kill) him.  Why? Because apparently Fury had hired the terrorists to capture the SHIELD ship in order to get some security information.  Fury went rogue?  Cap, for one doesn't believe it.

Cap teams up with Black Widow again to try to decrypt the flash drive and in the process Black Widow informs him about the identity of the mysterious assassin, a figure known as "The Winter Soldier" who has been doing some work for over 50 years. (Apparently he has some serious anti-aging drugs... or maybe something else.)

 

The information on the flash drive leads the pair to Camp Lehigh in New Jersey (the place where Steve had originally done his Army training back in the 40's). In the bunker, Cap and Black Widow discover a face from Cap's past, Dr. Zola, the brains behind the science of the Hydra organization.  It appears that Hydra has behind all the chaos that has happened over the past 70 years (including a few familiar events such as the 9-11 bombings).  The goal was to create a world where the people would willingly give up freedom in favor of security. The ultimate thing is, apparently Hydra is still alive and well, not having been completely eradicated back in Steve's earlier days.

OK, so it turns out that Hydra is still a going thing.  And guess who is behind it's ongoing survival.  Did I hear the Secretary? Well, sure.  You gotta have people in high places to get anything done if you are on the side of evil. So Cap is going to need a wee bit more help.  Enter Sam Wilson who can get their hands on some fancy tech.  And can also become a new superhero in his own right, The Falcon.

But in the meantime, The winter Soldier has his own goals to accomplish (courtesy of our evil Secretary, of course).  In the course of a battle between Cap and the Winter Soldier, the Soldier loses his mask and it is revealed that he is Steve's old friend from the 40's Bucky (who supposedly had died back in the 40's, but that is not apparently so). 

And then we come to a new revelation: Fury apparently did not die as we thought. And then the revelation as to how Bucky himself survived.  He was retrieved by Zola who transformed him to The Winter Soldier. And he has been used ever since as a force for Hydra's own initiative.  Steve has some reservations about fighting Bucky, thinking there MUST be some possibility of saving him.  But he needs his uniform.

Where is Stan Lee?  At the Smithsonian, Cap ends up stealing a version of his uniform.  Stan is a security guard who says "Oh, I am so fired." when he discovers the Smithsonian's uniform has been taken.

 

Th goal now is to stop Hydra and Secretary Pierce from their goal.  And the final battle will not be easy.  What with SHIELD having been compromised, some of the SHIELD operatives will not be accommodating to Cap's goals to save humanity from a life of being slaves to the Hydra initiative.

Cap ends up having to fight his friend despite his misgivings. But will he be able to defeat him (at least long enough to prevent Hydra from it's goals?) 

And the Credits Roll: 

Once again we get two post credits scenes. In the first, midaway through the3 credits, a couple of Hydra operatives discuss the seeming failure of Hydra's initiative, but as one says to another, they will soon unleash "the twins" (which turn out to be our introduction to two future characters: Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch). In the final sequence, Bucky shows up to see the Smithsonian's tribute display to him (so maybe he is redeemable after all?  We will see...)

The Winter Soldier, in my opinion, redeems the franchise from what was a downturn with the third Iron Man (and to some extent, Thor: The Dark World).  Action being the thing that makes Marvel movies interesting, the Captain America franchise always seems to deliver.