Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer – reaction

2013_part_3_caws posterCaptain America is one of the first generation of superheroes, dating back to March 1941, where he took a patriotic stance against the axis powers, and was in fact the first Marvel character to be adapted into the movies with a 1944 serial. Abandoning his role of Johnny Storm in two poorly received Fantastic Four films, Chris Evans pulled on the suit and picket up the shield in Joe Johnston’s 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger which grossed $370 million worldwide, with over half of that total beyond the shores of his homeland, indicating that despite his name, he is a hero of international appeal.

2013_part_3_caws cap1Largely set during the Second World War, where Steve Rogers volunteered for an experimental treatment to enhance his strength to allow him to assist the allied forces against the threat of fascism, the final scenes of that film moved him to a modern setting, allowing Evans to reprise the role under the direction of Joss Whedon in 2012 as Captain America became one of The Avengers. Now, in his second solo outing, the ninth of the extended Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, Captain America faces a threat from his past, the Winter Soldier, and the Geek Chocolate team have viewed the trailer.

Les Anderson – In a nutshell, the first Captain America film is my favourite of all the Marvel films and certainly the best-realised so am hoping for good things from this. However, unlike the first film with its period setting and gorgeous retro-futuristic style, this looks like a generic modern FX film. The similarity of some shots to Pacific Rim and Star Trek Into Darkness is very striking and a little dismaying. I hope the script and performances make up for that.

 

2013_part_3_caws cap3Michael Flett – I feel I should feel something, and I don’t. It looks technically impressive, dazzling even, but so what. Where is the story here?

As much as I like Chris Evans, and I like him a lot, the first Captain America was a very tedious film, taking far too long to get going. Even by origin tale standards, The First Avenger was sluggish, and by the time he was finally Captain America and off on a mission instead of entertaining the troops, the film finished with a contrived ending to get him into the present day for The Avengers.

It wasn’t a film that told a story, it was a film that served a purpose, and that purpose seems to have been spent, because if there is a story here, I can’t tell what it is.

2013_part_3_caws cap4I see running, I see jumping, I see falling off buildings, but it doesn’t look like a film, it looks like a Red Bull advert.

It’s unusual to see Robert Redford in a project like this, and he’ll be excellent, but already I can smell an oh-so-not-suprising twist when he turns out to be arch baddy behind it all. And I don’t see the point in introducing our super new aerial battleship in the trailer when we get to see it destroyed in the trailer, too. Is that the grand finale of the film, because you just spoiled it already.

The directors, Anthony and Joe Russo, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a single thing by, and the writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, are behind the three Chronicles of Narnia, of which I’ve only seen one, which was disappointing, and the first Captain America, though maybe we’ll be more engaged when their latest film, Thor: The Dark World comes out next week, but we also know that script was punched up by Joss Whedon.

2013_part_3_caws cap5Both the Fantastic Four films were utterly terrible, but Chris was the best thing in them because not only was he gorgeous to look at, he was fun, which is something he most definitely is not as Captain America.

Why cast someone as charismatic and joyful as Chris Evans and then make him play such a dour part? Of course, the flipside is, if it wasn’t him playing it the character would be even more dull.

Adam Dworak – I don’t do superheroes. The comic book universe has it’s own rules; take a comic hero and put him into the real world, and it doesn’t make sense, it loses its atmosphere, and it just feels like a mental patient wearing a cape.

2013_part_3_caws cap8The only director who successfully merged the two was Tim Burton because the whole world that his Batman existed in was a fantasy, whereas this is trying to be real and gritty and fantastical at the same time, and I’m not convinced. Burton found a balance, a fantasy world but without becoming kitsch like the plastic world Schumacher created.

The other film I liked which ostensibly dealt with superpowers in a realistic way was Chronicle, but that went the other way, making everything very real to the point where they couldn’t handle their powers.

Captain America was a child of American propaganda during the Second World War, and his relevance ended with that conflict; his three colour patriotism isn’t suited to more sophisticated and complicated times, although it does look from this film that they might actually play on that by putting him in an ambiguous situation where he doesn’t have clear answers of who are the bad guys and the good guys.

2013_part_3_caws cap7I never saw Captain America: The First Avenger, but I did see The Avengers and both he and Hawkeye were the most pathetic characters in it, although admittedly with Iron Man and Hulk on screen it was difficult to compete.

Steve Rogers is too human to be a superhero. He’s strong, he has fast reflexes, but that’s it, and I can’t imagine a whole movie revolving around that.

I don’t know if the purpose of this was to make a boring trailer so I’ll be surprised in the cinema how good the film actually is, because if this is the best they have to show me, it will be very poor. The thing it most put me in mind of was the trailer for GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra – lots of running and falling, and also a lot of going up and down in lifts.

2013_part_3_caws cap9Matthew Rutland – Finally, in a year filled with “Comic-Book” films where we have seen very little of actual cinematic interest outside visual impact, we have a trailer that shows an actual movie, not a live action cartoon.

And this looks like being the metaphorical “meat” of the Avengers second phase, with an actual story to tell instead of some pithy one-liners to link action sequences together or the occasional grainy brooding antihero shots in The Wolverine and Man of Steel‘s cases.

It’s too early to tell whether this will build up to Civil War like in the books, but it already looks like some character development and time is spent on this film setting up themes for Avengers 2, but not to the detriment of this film as a standalone.

2013_part_3_caws cap10It will be interesting if this finally sees Black Widow stand out enough for a solo movie.

Sam Read – Yeah, so… that looks amazing.

Stephen Sutherland – Looks good, and like its addressing meatier issues this time around. The first Captain America was Indiana Jones by way of superheroes, this movie looks more like Clear and Present Danger. I’m up for that.

And Captain America telling the US government to stop spying on people? I’m WELL up for that.

Best part of the trailer, easily the elevator. “Before we start, anyone want to get out?” Those poor henchmen.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is scheduled for release on April 4th 2014

Follow the link for our full review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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