Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
If Jason Bourne’s creator, Robert Ludlum, were to create a superhero, I imagine any adaptation of the work would inevitably end up looking like Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The Cold War aesthetics, the impending overtake of the world through force, and the fear of enemies within, all mixed together in a nice takedown of the idea of the military-industrial complex. There’s a reason this is considered by many to be one of the best Marvel movies - it works as a “real” movie, too.
After the events of Avengers, Captain America finds himself as part of black operations on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. While he’s trying to make it work, he’s slowly becoming disillusioned with the state of modern war, with no clear delineation between sides, only a war of ideals and concepts. With this weighing on his mind, he further loses his faith in the country he loved when he learns that S.H.I.E.L.D. is planning a system called Project Insight, in which three helicarriers (the giant flying aircraft carriers first shown off in Avengers) will encircle the globe, linking with spy satellites and eliminating threats extrajudicially, before they even have time to commit whatever act they were about to enact.
While this looms in Steve Roger’s mind, a mysterious figure begins to show up in the military sphere, a figure they call the Winter Soldier. He, unlike Rogers, has no qualms with taking the black ops route, and is known to be exceptionally effective at it, too. Not only that, but there are whispers that Hydra’s forces, while seemingly who Cap has been fighting this whole time, might have some connection to S.H.I.E.L.D. itself.
I’ve seen many people lament the MCU’s love for the military-industrial complex. Hell, I’ve seen people call them outright American propaganda. I think that this movie is worth pointing out as actively against such a concept. By the end of Winter Soldier, America doesn’t look good in the least. Instead, they were on the verge of greenlighting an unstoppable, world policing entity. This is not once framed as a good thing, with Cap vehemently against it right from the jump.
Not only that, but it also tackles such concepts as Operation Paperclip. For those who haven’t heard of this particularly grimy chapter of America’s history, Operation Paperclip was a program enacted by the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps, or the CIC. In it, as many as 1,600 German scientists were taken from Nazi Germany at the end of the war. While that’s fine when spun like that, it covers up the awful reality - some of these scientists were members or even leaders in the Nazi party.
America stacked its military science deck with Nazis. This isn’t a conspiracy theory or the plot of a movie; this is real history.
In Winter Soldier, the repercussions of such a choice are more visible than they may have been in real life. Hydra’s presence in America starts with Operation Paperclip, especially with the pardoning of Hydra scientist Armin Zola, the Red Skull’s personal science advisor. Zola’s implanting within the American system wasn’t done through cloak and dagger, but instead by our very own lust for power. This isn’t taken lightly, nor does Cap even begin to truck with such nonsense.
If anything, I see Winter Soldier as the exact opposite of a propaganda piece - it actively denounces the very concept. America is not the good guys, and in fact, house the villains in positions of power. One would be excused for thinking of our very real, very loud problems with such a concept, even in the release year of 2014. America is, in fact, a clueless, clumsy giant, wielding a stick it has no hope of handling properly. Before such a concept can even be launched, it’s already in the wrong hands.
This is refreshing, especially when one thinks of how sticky it would be to write about Captain America nowadays. Patriotism in itself is not the problem, but rather, blind patriotism. Many modern patriots are too much into “my country, right or wrong” territory. Cap, though, is the right kind of patriot, one who lives by the FULL quote”
“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Besides the deeper themes of Winter Soldier, there’s also a theme of trust and redemption, as the Winter Soldier’s past comes to the surface. While I won’t expound on it too much, in keeping with my spoilers policy, I will say that much of the movie is dedicated to asking the question “Is someone ever truly beyond redemption?”
This, mixed with a lot of slick action and set pieces, makes for a very good movie, one that I think one could enter without too much worry as to whether the greater scope plot threads will harm their enjoyment of it. The action in particular benefits from being pretty far removed from some of the more fantastical elements of the Marvel universe. No gamma radiation or gods here, only some cutting-edge tech and a worldwide threat.
In many ways, Winter Soldier would be the last time we get such a ground-level Marvel movie. I don’t mean that as a slight, as I like how grand in scope the universe would grow to be, but besides some blue collar criminals in Spider-Man Homecoming, the MCU goes on a steady uptick from here, at least until Infinity War brings it all to a crescendo, and Endgame, a crashing denouement.
Regardless, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a solid entry into not only the MCU, but action cinema as a whole, and I think it’s worth a watch, even for those not exactly invested in the universe it resides in.
