BELSER MOVIE REVIEWS: “CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER” . Yes I have seen it already and I absolutely LOVED it!! DOPE!! BEYOND DOPE!! It should be known that, of the present Marvel superheroes, Captain America is my favorite. Maybe it’s the whole military connection. Maybe it’s because there is a black version of Captain America that I just happen to resemble ( Isaiah Bradley…..GOOGLE HIM). Either way, Cap is my dude and, outside of THE AVENGERS, the first movie (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER) is my favorite Marvel movie. Until I saw THIS ONE. Here’s the story: Two years after the events of The Avengers, Steve Rogers is living a somewhat simple life in Washington, D.C. He’s still struggling to adapt to modern society but he’s making a list of stuff to catch up on using the Internet( Of the items he listed, I spotted “Star Wars”, “Rocky” and Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” soundtrack. All good choices) . He’s basically ‘mild-mannered citizen by day. S.H.I.E.L.D. super-agent by night’. After Rogers is called to help save a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship from Algerian pirates, he spots his partner The Black Widow extracting data from the ships computers. All the clean-up missions he’s been sent on lately make him question whether he should trust Nick Fury or S.H.I.E.L.D in general. Especially since Nick Fury shows Cap a new S.H.I.E.L.D. plan involving new Helicarriers linked to spy satellites that will eliminate threats BEFORE they even commit a crime. Add in a mysterious assassin called the Winter Soldier and a new friend Sam Wilson and you folks are in for a ride that will shake S.H.I.E.L.D and the world to its very core. ACTING: Just like Hugh Jackman got the part of Wolverine, I was equally as skeptic about Chris Evans as Cap, especially when I saw he turned it down like 3 times. But, like Jackman, Chris Evans IS Captain America. He just needed a little time to get comfortable in the role. He does a great job, he has the right physicality for it and he actually has some of his best acting scenes in this movie. Scarlett Johansson returns as Black Widow and Sam Jackson returns as Nick Fury and, just like in Avengers, they continue to do some shady shit in the name of humanity. It’s nice that all these actors have grown into these roles but the real standouts in this movie are the NEW roles. First off is Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson aka The Falcon. This movie shows him an Iraq war veteran and PTSD counsellor at the VA. Mackie does a great job, provides a lot of the comic relief for the movie and, just like in the comics, he is Cap’s ‘ride or die’ friend/sidekick( SIDE NOTE: Here’s a nice lil’ Black History Fact: The Falcon is the first AFRICAN AMERICAN superhero but not the first BLACK superhero. That would be the Black Panther, another movie that Marvel is developing). Next is the legendary Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, head of the World Security Council and, for all intents and purposes, Nick Fury’s boss. Redford provides this movie with a lot of credibility, mainly because he was cast as a tribute to his spy/political scandal movies from the 70’s (Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men are two of my favorites). But the real standout is The Winter Soldier himself. Now I’m not gonna reveal who he is but I will say he was in the first movie. Either way, he is so badass in this movie. WRITING: The story and dialogue is this movie are spot on from the comics. This storyline is based on Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America, which is very espionage based. The relationship between Cap and The Winter Soldier is very complex. In Layman’s terms, I’m gonna give you a familiar team ( Batman and Robin) as an example. Now imagine if Robin was killed, brought back to life by one of Batman’s enemies and turned into a mix between Jason Bourne and The Terminator. Just a human looking machine that kills with no mercy. That, in a nutshell, is the Winter Soldier. They really play up the theme of Cap’s past coming back to haunt him. PRODUCTION: All the fight scenes are top notch. The production design was incredible. But the one thing that I really enjoyed is that they do not play this as a ‘superhero’ movie. They go with “The Dark Knight” approach and used very little CGI. This is a really great spy movie, on par with the Jason Bourne movies or the Daniel Craig James Bond films. This is a really great movie that happens to have superheroes in it. The most ‘real world’ movie Marvel has come out with yet and , in my opinion, their best movie since The Avengers( Sorry. This one shits all over IRON MAN 3 and THOR: THE DARK WORLD). It’s so worth the money, I’m gonna see it again this weekend. This movie not only gets The Belser Seal of Approval but I’m give it my best award, THE ALL-STAR( named after my favorite Snork). I’ve only given this to the very best movies. ( Past winners have included THE AVENGERS, DREDD and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES).
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 09:27:14 +0000
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