Trailer Trashin’: The Sentinel of Liberty is Back in Captain America: The Winter Soldier
First off dear readers, I have to apologize to you for not bringing you my promised Super Bowl movie spot roundup last week. Unfortunately, the first part of last week ended up being crazy busy for me, and it got away from me. But I can tell you that the spot for Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier was by far my favorite. In the meantime, we got a new trailer for the upcoming superhero sequel, so that’s the subject of this week’s Trailer Trashin’ column.
Premise: Two years after the events of The Avengers, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) resides peacefully in Washington, D.C., struggling to adapt to life in contemporary society. But after a S.H.I.E.L.D. compatriot is attacked, Rogers becomes entangled in a mystery that may endanger the globe. Together with Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Captain America attempts to uncover the growing machinations while fending off hired guns. When the entire scheme is discovered, Cap and Black Widow must recruit the aid of Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and soon encounter an unexpected and powerful adversary – the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).
My take: As I’ve spoken about many times before, I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I’ve seen every film in the MCU and I’m looking forward to all those yet to come. Next up will be this April’s release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and everything we’ve seen so far indicates it should be a worthy follow-up to Cap’s first solo film. This is the second trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and it really underscores why I’m so excited for this movie.
All the MCU films have had great casts, and that’s very much the case here. Chris Evans has already given us two great performances as Captain America, and I look forward to seeing him take the character to new places. It also looks like Scarlett Johansson is getting a lot to do as Black Widow, which should hopefully satisfy those who were upset with her smaller role in The Avengers (2012). We still haven’t seen a lot of Anthony Mackie as Falcon, and I hope he has an important role to play in the final film. Samuel L. Jackson is his usual awesome self as Nick Fury, and it looks like he gets put through the ringer in this movie. As the Winter Soldier himself, Sebastian Stan looks really cool, and I can absolutely buy him as a worthy adversary for Cap. And I still think it’s awesome that the legendary Robert Redford is here as S.H.I.E.L.D. leader Alexander Pierce.
As I said in my column about the first trailer, I really like the storyline that’s been set up here. This trailer starts off by clearly identifying the Winter Soldier and the threat he poses, which had been my biggest criticism of the first trailer. That said, I still suspect that the real villain of the story will end up being Alexander Pierce, and his more hardline stance against threats will lead to Cap breaking ties with S.H.I.E.L.D. and ultimately fighting against them. And there’s the brief shot of Cap and Black Widow standing beside what appears to be a dead body under a sheet, which has fueled speculation that Nick Fury might not make it out of the film alive. I personally hope that’s not the case, but I guess we’ll see.
Chris Evans in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”
Photo by Zade Rosenthal – © 2013 – Marvel. All Rights Reserved.
The action on display here also looks really cool, and has really helped address my concerns about Anthony and Joe Russo’s inexperience with directing action. Both trailers have done a great job selling the Winter Soldier as a credible threat, and he gets to kick a whole lot of ass here. I particularly liked the moment where the Winter Soldier uses some kind of cable gun to snag one of Falcon’s wings and pull him out of the air. And I’m not sure why, but I still love that shot where he catches Cap’s thrown shield with one hand. I still can’t wait to see the full scene of Cap fighting all the guys in the elevator. And the moment where Cap is on the motorcycle and uses his shield to take out the hovering plane is just awesome.
I really don’t have any complains about what I see here. We’ve got a great cast of characters, both new and returning, some awesome action, and a story which presents a lot of intriguing possibilities. After the new Godzilla coming out in May, this is my most anticipated movie of summer 2014. You can be sure that I’ll be checking out Captain America: The Winter Soldier on opening weekend.
Starring: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, and Georges St-Pierre
Director: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, based on Captain America by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
P.S. Unfortunately, Super Bowl Sunday also brought us the tragic news of the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman at age 46. The front-page obituary in the New York Times called Hoffman “perhaps the most ambitious and widely admired American actor of his generation,” and I absolutely agree with that. Hoffman won his Best Actor Oscar for his role in Capote (2005), and he received Best Supporting Actor nominations for Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), Doubt (2008), and The Master (2012). And he did great and memorable work in many other films, including Boogie Nights (1997), Almost Famous (2000), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), Synedoche, New York (2008), Moneyball (2011), The Ides of March (2011), and most recently The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013). My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Hoffman’s family and friends.
Timothy Monforton
