After a tour of duty in the dark world it’s time to come back home with Steve Rogers. After New York Steve has had plenty of time to make new friends like Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie) as well as pull an Austin Powers and catch up on all that he’s missed. Stuff like the cure for polio, Star Wars (oh irony) and the Internet. ( I really do not want to see his search history.) Side note Steve, you’re not still sore at Japan are you? If not then two things for your catch up list, sushi and Anime, trust me you’re gonna love it.
Ok maybe not all of it but you’ll come around. On the less positive things to catch up on is the fact that Peggy Carter is on death’s door and has Alzheimers. Oh and also that politics has gotten far more murky and grey after JFK. (Oh another for the list, Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.) When on a mission with Black Widow and S.T.R.I.K.E. agents lead by Rumlow (played by Frank Grillo) to rescue some other S.H.I.E.L.D agents from mercenaries Steve sees Widow prioritizing retrieving classified S.H.I.E.L.D data over saving the hostages on Fury’s secret orders.
Back at the Triskelion Fury shows Steve what the data was needed for, Project Insight which according to Fury would allow S.H.I.E.L.D to eliminate potential threats to the world with three Helicarriers linked to spy satellites. Steve doesn't exactly take this well, though Fury seems to take his words to heart as when looks over the data he notices that for some reason he can't access all of the files despite his clearance level. So Fury calls in a favor from Alexander Pierce (played by Robert Redford) to delay Project Insight until he has all the facts. But on his way to meet up with Maria Hill; Fury is attacked by assassins, one of whom is a man with long black hair, a black face mask and a cybernetic arm with a red star on the shoulder. Fury manages to make it to Steve's apartment and gives him the flash-drive and tells him to trust no-one before this assailant shoots him.
Fury is declared dead at the hospital and Pierce wants to know why he went to Steve, though he doesn't tell. So Pierce declares Steve a traitor and sends Rumlow and his men to take him out, though that went as well as you'd expect. So Cap is on the run and finds Widow who tells Steve about the assassin, the Winter Soldier who was a top KGB assassin, a ghost story. She later manages to decrypt the data on the flash drive leading them to Cap's old boot camp in New Jersey where the two find an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D bunker, and underneath they find Arnim Zola who's basically become the bastard lovechild of GW from MGS4 and SHODAN. Zola reveals that Hydra never went away; after Red Skull's death, when S.H.I.E.L.D was formed Zola was recruited into its ranks and from there he instilled and grew the new Hydra (cut off one head, two more take its place) with a new goal.
For decades Hydra has been manipulating global crises to create a world where people would willingly surrender their freedom for security. After the bunker was blown to pieces by a missile Steve and Natasha put together that the Hydra leader within S.H.I.E.L.D is Pierce. So Cap and Natasha go to Sam for help, he agrees after they retrieve his wingpack codenamed "Falcon". The three find Hydra's mole who tells them their master plan. The master stroke is Project Insight, by using his own data-mining algorithm Zola has determined potential threats to Hydra which will use this to kill all of these people once the three Helicarriers are in the air.
Cap and his group then race to the Triskelion but the mole is killed by the Winter Soldier who Cap engages while Falcon and Widow deal with his goons. During the fight Steve manages to knock off the Soldier's mask, revealing his old friend Bucky Barnes, who doesn't even recognize Steve which devastates him. It's later revealed that Bucky survived the fall in 1943 but was captured by Russian solders who were working for Zola that brainwashed Bucky and froze him, freeing him occasionally to kill certain people to move Hydras agenda along, such as Howard Stark. The three are captured by Rumlow's team but are rescued by Maria Hill who brings them to a still a live Nick Fury who lays out his plan to stop Hydra by infiltrating the Helicarriers and replacing their controller chips. One trip to the Smithsonian later Cap, Widow and Falcon launch their attack on Hydra. (Insert Attack on Titan joke here.)
After fighting though Hydra's forces and Bucky the Helicarriers are destroyed, all Hydra agents are either dead, in custody or have gone underground. Bucky saves Steve before heading off to the Smithsonian to try and piece his old identity back together and Sam and Steve likewise go after him. While Fury heads to Eastern Europe to flush out the rest of Hydra's cells. One of whom is lead by Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker (played by Thomas Kretschmann) who has Loki's Scepter and is experimenting on granting powers to human test subjects. The only two survivors are a pair of twins named Wanda and Pietro Maximov (played by Elizabeth Olson and Arron Taylor Johnson respectively)
Honestly speaking Captain America The Winter Soldier is built like a Swiss watch as reflected by how much of the movie is covered in this review in comparison to the previous ones. There's very little fat to trim, the writing is solid and there's very little to critique. Hell even my biggest complaint about the MCU isn't an issue here, the Winter Soldier is a very good villian. Even though he doesn't get a whole lot of scenes (despite being the title of the movie) what little scenes we have with The Soldier are all intense, interesting and sell this guy as a legitimate threat. Especially once its revealed it's Bucky, we can see the shock and anguish on Steve's face knowing that his best friend has become the terminator.
On top of most of his ideology and his views of right and wrong being challenged Steve now has to deal with his brainwashed best friend who's been turned into an unfrozen caveman killing machine? The universe really likes to dump on this guy doesn't it? We can see that Steve knows what needs to be done but is still trying desperately to free his friend from inside this monster that Hydra made him into, as opposed to Loki who just went crazy. I mean in hindsight we know that happens but just the look on Steve's face when he hears "who the hell is Bucky?" All we needed was just a little more confrontation and I'd have been content. (Though at least they didn't try to make the Winter Soldier some snarky quippy type of villain, that never would have worked with his set up and background.)
The return of Hydra is both good and bad, not just in universe but from a writing perspective it seems a bit shaky. I mean did old S.H.I.E.L.D not consider the possibility of Hydra reforming, especially when you recruited the Red Skull's right hand man into your brand spanking new organization? Aside from that little logical issue Hydra is still out there in the MCU. Just because their American branch is mostly exposed it's still around the world as demonstrated with Strucker and who knows how many other Hydra cells are around the world and if they even found all the cells in America? Like their motto "cut off one head two more take its place" these guys may not ever completely go away, on top of all the other threats to the world this is just another to add on to the pile.
All in all The Winter Soldier is a very solid and action packed movie. It expands the character of Steve Rodgers and the questions it raises are definitely compelling and thought provoking. But you know what? I believe that with all of this stuff going on and mostly focused on Earth we need a bit of a change of scenery. So grab your favorite mix tape and join me next time as we hitch a ride with the Starlord on the March to Infinity.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Captain America The Winter Soldier is owned by Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company. Based on the character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.
Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers is owned by Marvel Entertainment and Toei Animation.
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