Ten years ago—a happier and maybe simpler time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe hadn’t collapsed so spectacularly into a series of poorly-made CGI behemoths without a shred of an artistic soul—the world’s favorite superheroes were in the middle of their Phase 2.
And sure, the movies that had heralded the beginning of that phase—Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World—weren’t exactly masterpieces, but everything was still working in the MCU’s favor: the incredible popularity of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, the steel grip that Tom Hiddleston and Loki Laufeyson had on the transformative fandom side of things, the very high wave of the success of the first Avengers movie, which really was a pop culture-defining moment, no matter how you look at it.
But then, on April 4, 2014, came the middle point of Phase 2 with the (North American) release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This was the second solo movie for Chris Evans’s Steve Rogers and boy oh boy did that movie hit the fandom like a supersoldier serum-powered punch.
Honestly, everything in The Winter Soldier is just great
While I think we can all agree that the MCU isn’t where one goes to look for high-end cinematic art, every single element in The Winter Soldier works—and very well at that.
The plot is solid and sets up very high stakes—albeit still on the more realistic side of things rather than blasting them wide open with multiverses and incredibly powerful beings—for the entire cinematic universe. Those stakes affect the story going forward, of course, but they also make us re-evaluate everything that has happened up until that moment in the light of all that is discovered about Hydra and its infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Marvel movies work best when they know what genre they are (beyond that of a “simple” superhero movie) and operate within the beats of that genre. That’s why Thor works, for example, with its fantasy-like elements, and especially why Infinity War also flows very well, since that is a tragedy down to the end being inevitable no matter what the heroes try to do to stop it from happening. The Winter Soldier is a spy-esque thriller movie that never strays from its genre and delivers a very satisfying Marvel version of it.
And the characters are also great, for the most part. Steve is given time to really delve into the jarring experience that is thinking you sacrificed yourself for the greater good in the 1940s and waking up decades later and also being immediately thrown into a fight with an otherworldly army of monsters—he has some truly beautiful character beats that truly expand on his “man out of time” conflict.
Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha continues her growth beyond the silent, lethal assassin persona that began in Avengers. She and Steve are genuine friends and she cares about his wellbeing, even though she never for one second loses sight of her objective or her badassery—at a great personal cost too, since the dumping of S.H.I.E.L.D. files on the internet in the final act of the movie means that all her secrets and her blood-filled past will be exposed for everyone to see.
Then there’s Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon, who is introduced in a truly brilliant opening scene that immediately gives you a sense of who he is as a person, what his relationship with Steve will be like, and an iconic line for everyone to repeat over and over again.
On a side note, I remember I looked up all the different versions of Steve’s notebook of things he needs to catch up on, specific to every area of the world the movie was distributed to—and loved that the Italian one had our victories in the World Cup, Ferrari’s winning streak in the F1 Grand Prix, and Roberto Benigni. Honestly, national treasures.
Finally, there are the action scenes, engaging and enjoyable, which is definitely something that Marvel movies should have down to an art—and they did, before they decided to just CGI everything rather than indulge in the beauty of practical sets. That whole bridge sequence is incredible, arguably even more so than the final action piece of the movie as the Hydra helicarriers are falling down into the Potomac River.
And then, of course … there’s them
I know you didn’t think I’d forget about the other fundamental character of this movie—so important that he even appears in the title. But Sebastian Stan’s James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, a.k.a. the lethal mind-controlled assassin the Winter Soldier, deserves his own paragraph and so here we are.
The impact that Bucky had on the fandom can’t be overstated—not only his being alive but also a supersoldier like Steve, as well as having been in the hands of Hydra and a victim of endless years of torture both physical and mental. He’s such a complex character with the kind of tragic history that makes him incredibly compelling, and that would have probably been enough on its own to make everyone in any transformative space on the internet lose their marbles.
But then, of course, he’s also Steve’s best friend. And their feelings for each other and their memories with each other are so strong that meeting him once is enough to crack the shell of Bucky’s conditioning—while also completely shutting down Steve’s logical thinking. He meets Bucky again on that bridge after believing he’s been dead for the past seventy years and his head clearly empties of all thoughts that aren’t saving him and bringing him back.
When Sam suggests that maybe Bucky can’t be saved, Steve argues that he can’t let him go because “even when he had nothing he had Bucky.” That is a real sentence he says. Ships have been shipped for much less. And Stucky sure had everyone in a metaphorical chokehold that spring and summer—some of the most beautiful fanfiction that I’ve ever read have come out of the Stucky fandom, half-World War II drama and half-modern day romance and all filled with incredibly-written longing and depth of feeling. If you’ve ever been on the Internet and caught sight of that little poem that goes “I think we deserve a soft epilogue, my love. We are good people and we’ve suffered enough,” just know that it originally came from a Stucky poemfic.
Shipping aside, though, the relationship between Steve and Bucky is undoubtedly the emotional core of the movie, traveling parallel to the central conflict of the plot. It bleeds out into Captain America: Civil War as well and even further beyond, which is also why it’s so sad to read that Bucky will not be a character in the upcoming Captain America movie Brave New World.
The Winter Soldier really was one of the best movies to ever come out of Marvel Studios—it’s an objectively solid film that also had its moment before superhero fatigue hit pop culture. Then again, superhero fatigue didn’t appear out of thin air but was caused by Marvel itself overflowing the market with increasingly mediocre stories rather than focusing on fewer but better-developed releases.
Still, I don’t think we’re likely to see anything like The Winter Soldier anytime soon—but we will always have the good old Marvel days to fall back on.
(featured image: Marvel Studios)
