Like “The Avengers,” the first “Iron Man” and the second
“X-Men,” “Captain America: Winter Soldier” is a near-perfect superhero movie,
with Hitchcockian touches building to a Götterdämmerung battle that pits Steve
Rogers’ true-blue 1940s’ ideals against the 21st century surveillance state.
Hits on all cylinders — suspense, superhero battles,
well-paced humor and funhouse mirror reflections of society's real problems.
Oh, the preposterous moments are there, all right, as in all superhero films. For example, Cap and the Black Widow decide to hide out with Cap's casual pal, a guy who just happens to have a super suit tucked away somewhere nearby. Handy, eh? But directors Anthony and Joe Russo know to use the film's pace to sweep such objections aside, and give the movie many genuinely suspenseful moments — even, more remarkably, a theme.
The film presents the interesting idea that the meta-American spy agency SHIELD and the Nazi-born secret society HYDRA evolve into bureaucracies indistinguishable from each other — that when the will to control is combined with 21st century universal surveillance technology, it finally doesn’t matter who is flipping the switches. A single chilling, dark, monolithic shadow will fall across all the ordinary people of the world. The extraordinary person, Captain America, would stand against it in the name of liberty and the Bill of Rights, but we’re left with the unsettling sense that there may be nowhere left for him to stand.
Oh, the preposterous moments are there, all right, as in all superhero films. For example, Cap and the Black Widow decide to hide out with Cap's casual pal, a guy who just happens to have a super suit tucked away somewhere nearby. Handy, eh? But directors Anthony and Joe Russo know to use the film's pace to sweep such objections aside, and give the movie many genuinely suspenseful moments — even, more remarkably, a theme.
The film presents the interesting idea that the meta-American spy agency SHIELD and the Nazi-born secret society HYDRA evolve into bureaucracies indistinguishable from each other — that when the will to control is combined with 21st century universal surveillance technology, it finally doesn’t matter who is flipping the switches. A single chilling, dark, monolithic shadow will fall across all the ordinary people of the world. The extraordinary person, Captain America, would stand against it in the name of liberty and the Bill of Rights, but we’re left with the unsettling sense that there may be nowhere left for him to stand.
Now I'm even more psyched to see this! Hurry up Sunday!
ReplyDeleteGood analysis and as Jim Hampton write now I'm even more psyched. In 2007, Steve Rogers was assassinated (albeit temporarily) for standing up to the Surveillance State.
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait to see this.
ReplyDelete