Captain America
Credit where credit’s due: Captain America: The Winter Soldier is, in theory, an admirably eccentric film, an appealingly vulgar gumbo of 1970s political conspiracy films and operatic comic book madness.
This is a movie that tries to pin drone warfare, modern terrorism and the decay of American idealism on the least competent A.I. in the history of cinema and a group of politicians fond of whispering “Heil Hydra” to one another. On paper, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has the makings of one of the more interesting Marvel adaptations, but, in execution, the movie is more or less a wash.
Past work from directors Anthony and Joe Russo (You, Me and Dupree — shudder) is often inelegant and lacks polish. The opening action set piece on a cargo ship is the worst offender: Jittery and jerky camerawork is cut illogically into a confusing blur of blue and red barely held together by the satisfying TWANG of Captain America’s shield.
The action scenes improve in coherence and creativity as the movie progresses, but the film, as a whole, noticeably lacks finesse. Jokes often last too long, and many scenes need trimming — when they’re not already cut too erratically.
These are major issues with the movie, but they’re not the biggest problem. Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s most crippling flaw is right in the title. The cinematic interpretation of Captain America is, as ever, frustratingly boring, a generic peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-milquetoast slice of Americana.
He’s Superman without the cosmic intrigue, Spider-Man without the youthful abandon and recklessness. Basically, he’s not a particularly interesting fellow to watch for two hours and change.
It’s both a writing and acting problem. The script never gives Captain America much to do, preferring to use him as a flat personification of American goodness to square off against Robert Redford’s (All is Lost) sneering right-winger.
Chris Evans’ (Snowpiercer) performance is equally problematic. He’s simply a bland presence on the screen, incapable of displaying much more than a broad sense of good to counter all the evil crap with Nazis and high-tech, civilization-ending superweapons.
All of the film’s attempts to hang dramatic elements onto Captain America — mostly through an excessive number of flashbacks to long-forgotten scenes from Captain America: The First Avenger — fail. And because Captain America: The Winter Soldier is missing a compelling center, too much of the film feels listless and uninvolving.
For all the Sturm und Drang on screen, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an impressively boring blockbuster. It’s not funny, touching or thrilling to any great degree. It’s just a mostly competent slog.
[ READ MORE: This week’s new movies: Captain America, the Khmer Rouge and the best action movie of the year ]
