Marvel

Review – MCU – Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America – The Winter Soldier (2014)

Chris Evans
Samuel L Jackson
Scarlett Johansson
Robert Redford
Sebastian Stan
Anthony Mackie
Cobie Smoulders
Frank Grillo

Spoiler Free thoughts and Notes

The second entry in the Captain America series comes in right on the heels of The Avengers, or “Phase 2” of the Marvel Cinematic universe. I want to take a moment here to comment on how the continuity of these movies have been handled up to this point, since this is the first “post crossover” movie. This applies to pretty much all of the Phase 2 movies, though it seems to be disregarded some starting in Phase 3 (Post Age of Ultron). For the most part, the major movie franchises that have been brought together for the Avengers, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man, work with or without the crossover film.

What I mean is, if you wanted to watch “Captain America” you could watch Cap 1 and Cap 2, and skip the avengers, and not really miss anything major in Captain America’s story. This applies to the two Thor movies as well and, for the most part, to the two Iron Man movies, though there is some reference to Tony Stark’s PTSD from his actions in The Avengers during Iron Man 3. It’s a plot point that could be written off as being related to other events however, if you were just coming in and watching the three Iron Man movies. It’s a pretty clever story telling trick that I really liked in Phase 2 as a whole that seems to have been disregarded in a post Age of Ultron world. Civil War is a direct product of the events in AoE, and it sounds like Thor 3 will have some relation to both AoE and Dr Strange.

It’s just a little side note I wanted to throw in, and something I kind of miss about the older MCU movies. On to Captain America 2: The Winter Solder.

The Winter Soldier is considered by many to be, the best movie so far in the MCU. As a whole, the Captain America movies tend to be the better films of the individual franchises, and The Winter Soldier is definitely the best of the three Cap movies. I feel like what makes Captain America work so well is that he’s a super hero, but he’s not really a SUPER hero. What I mean is, he doesn’t fly, he’s not invulnerable and gets worn out frequently. He isn’t using some mystical magic or lasers and missiles. His villains tend to be a bit more grounded and “real world”, he fights Nazis in the first movie and Hydra in the second movie. That isn’t to say that the other heroes don’t work, Cap is just a lot more relatable as a whole. Kind of a follow up to my remarks above, it’s something that felt lost a bit in his Phase 3 movie.

Synopsis and Spoiler Filled Thoughts

The movie opens with Steve Rodgers, Captain America infiltrating a hijacked ship and battling off a small group of hijackers. It’s a really great cold open event for the film, it gives Captain America a chance to show off how he operates in combat and his various skills at infiltration. We get reintroduced a bit to Natasha Romanoff, aka, Black Widow as well, who was previously introduced in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. The whole sequence feels very throw away at first as well, though becomes relevant to the plot later on as things evolve. Basically, it works pretty well as a sort of showcase of “A day in the life of a SHIELD agent, something we haven to gotten to see a lot of out of these two since most of their action involved fighting Chitari aliens in The Avengers.

On a side note, at the time of this movie’s release, there has been plenty of opportunity to see regular SHIELD operations in the series Agents of SHIELD, which was early in it’s first season. Agents of SHIELD suffered a bit initially with a slow start as the first 7 or 8 episodes were basically filler waiting for the events of The Winter Soldier film to happen. After this movie, the show really picks up speed since the fall of SHIELD would certainly have heavy repercussions in a TV show entirely about SHIELD.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

During the mission Cap finds Widow doing some questionable secondary operations with the ships computer. Eventually Cap faces off against the leader of the Hijackers, a mercenary named Batroc. Another element of the MCU that really is fun is seeing these sort of 3rd tier characters show up and how they get “reimagined” to be more realistic. Batroc in the comics wears a suit that makes him look a lot like a Purple Wolverine, in the movie, he’s just a skilled soldier. Sure, it’s more boring, but grounding things more in reality like this is one of the more interesting aspects of the MCU in my opinion.

Cap questions the actions of Agent Romanoff to Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD and how he doesn’t care for the extra operations going on behind his back. We get some other scenes of Steve doing various activities around Washington DC where we get introduced to Sam Wilson, a retired soldier who becomes a friend to Steve.

Meanwhile Nick Fury gets attacked on the streets of DC by several men masquerading as police officers. This starts our second big action sequence of the film. We get a lot of cool action and car chasing in Fury’s tricked out SHIELD SUV before he ends up ambushed and wrecked by a mysterious masked mercenary, the one known as The Winter Soldier.

Fury escapes and ends up at Captain America’s apartment where he tells Steve that SHIELD is compromised before being shot by a sniper. Steve gives chase and discovered it’s the same mysterious soldier who has returned to finish the job of assassinating Nick Fury. The Winter Soldier escape and Cap meets up with Romanoff and Agent Hill (Fury’s 2nd for all real purposes of the MCU) at the hospital where Fury dies.

Steve confronts Alexander Pierce, a government figure who worked with fury at the top of SHIELD. Piece explains how the operation earlier in the movie involving the Hijackers on the ship had been orchestrated by Fury in order to steal SHIELD secrets. Cap is of course suspicious of everything going on around him after Fury’s warning, with good reason. Eventually on his way out of the building Cap is attacked in an elevator by a dozen or so SHIELD soldiers including Brock Rumlow, aka Crossbones, a reoccurring foil of this film.

It’s a pretty spectacular fight and escape sequence and really exemplifies why this film is so loved. The fight and action scenes are all very well done. Like I mentioned before, it helps that Captain America is a more down to Earth hero, he doesn’t come off as someone who is just going to “win” every time, and often barely makes it out of the situations he lands in.

Cap escapes and meets up with Romanoff again, they decode the data swiped earlier in the film which leads them to an underground bunker in Steve’s old army camp from WW2. They are greeted by Arman Zola, henchman to the Red Scull, who has managed to live on as a computer AI. He gives a plot dump of how Hydra has been part of SHIELD since the start and controls everything inside and how Hydra plans to launch some Heli-carriers soon to wipe out anyone believed to be a threat. The pair escapes a missile attack on the base and head back to the city to deal with the Hydra threat. Along the way they recruit Sam Wilson and his winged jetpack as The Falcon.

During their drive they get ambushed again by The Winter Soldier and some grunts. Once again, we get another pretty great street level fight between our three heroes and the villains. Eventually Cap ends up unmasking the mysterious Winter Soldier to discover that he is in fact Bucky, Steve’s old friend from back in the World War 2 days. The Winter Soldier escapes again and the heroes all end up taken into custody by Crossbones and is crew.

This brings up my one real complaint with this entire movie. Bucky’s deal is sort of explained… but not really. This is notable to some extent because it comes up again in the 3rd Captain America film but it’s never quite really explained super clearly. Basically, after Bucky “died” during WW2, Hydra collected him up, gave him a metal arm, trained him, probably super soldier syrum-ed him like Cap, and made him an agent of Hydra. His longevity and Winter Soldier name, comes because he gets his mind wiped and put in Cryo-stasis between operations.

So getting out of stasis on this review, Cap and crew get rescued by Maria Hill who takes them to a secret bunker where it’s revealed that Nick Fury is still alive and had faked his death. He’s still pretty beat up and down for the count but he’s alive. They regroup and make their final assault on SHIELD headquarters. The elaborate plan is to insert these hard drives into each of the three Heli-carriers, reprogramming them to fire at each other. Because you know, that’s how elaborate computer systems work. All of this amazing technology at SHIELD’s disposal and swapping a few drives out in a massive flying aircraft carrier is enough to confuse the targeting systems? Seems like it would be easier to recruit Iron Man and drop some C4 into each of the giant external engines but what do I know. I mean sure they are pressed for time but Tony is pretty fast.

Anyway, we get another massive action sequence against various Hydra soldiers, Cap faces off against Bucky and Falcon against Crossbones. Fury and Widow confront and deal with Alexander Pierce. In the end the Heli-carriers are destroyed and SHIELD with it. Bucky ends up turning good a bit, but not completely and runs off on his own after rescuing Cap.

It’s All Connected

The obvious connections here are to the first Captain America movie with Bucky and Captain America himself. There aren’t a whole ton of references to Thor or Iron Man going on, or even The Avengers movie that immediately precedes it. I didn’t mention Agent 13 at all. She is never referenced in this movie by name but she is Agent Carter’s niece, the same Agent Carter who was Captain America’s girlfriend in the first movie who shows up briefly in this movie as a now old woman.

What’s Next

The movie leaves off with a set up for Steve hunting down Bucky and redeeming him. SHIELD is “gone”, though that doesn’t seem to stick very well considering the continuing Agents of SHEILD show and the fact that Fury and SHIELD still show up in Age of Ultron and the later Civil War movie. There isn’t a whole lot here to set up any of the larger MCU. There isn’t any Infinity Stone or anything major for future plots or anything. It’s actually a fairly contained experience, which is another good plus for the movie, as much as I like the connected aspects of it all.

The Final Verdict

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a well deserved reputation as one of if not the best movie in the MCU. It’s definitely a solid entry, though Doctor Strange and Ant-Man may give it a run for the money for best.

Review – Marvel Legends – Giant Man Wave – Black Panther (Civil War)

Jul 24th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Review – Marvel Legends – Absorbing Man Wave – Spider Gwen

Jul 17th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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In an alternate universe on another Earth, instead of Peter Parker, Spider-man, being bitten by that radioactive spider granting him super human spider powers, Peter’s classmate and sometimes girlfriend Gwen Stacy instead took the hit. In that world was born, Spider Gwen. It’s kind of a plot born from a What-If? idea, expanded into it’s own full comic series. It’s a pretty good comic series too, and an interesting take on the Spider-man concept. As a popular character, it was inevitable that there would be a Spider Gwen figure released for Marvel Legends.

The basic execution here is decent. The look and design of the character is captured well here, the swapable head and hood bits are nice. She’s a decent alright Basic Spider Gwen. The sculpt and paint are good, including on the Gwen Stacy head.

Most of problems I have with this figure stem from my more common complains with the Marvel Legends line as a whole. I’ve seen this body used on several other spider girls and figures, the legs always feel off on it no matter how they are positioned and the lack of double jointed elbows hurts. I also hate the lack of hand options. She has a fist and a thwip hand, that’s it, some relaxed hands, two fists, you know, all of the things the regular Spider-man mold gets these days, would be great. In the comic Gwen Stacy is part of a rock band, but it’s not like she is constantly throwing out the horns. Also, a cellphone accessory would be great. Spider Gwen is always using her cell phone, and having it as an accessory would be a lot of fun.

She does match the style of other Marvel Legends at least, she is just limited in a lot of funky ways by this mediocre base figure that she’s using, which is a shame. If you just want a cheap Spider Gwen to go in a Spidery display, she serves that purpose, but personally, I’m considering replacing her with the recently released Revoltech, which is considerably more dynamic of a figure (at a higher price tag).

Review – Marvel Legends – Dormammu Wave – Doctor Strange (Movie)

Mar 20th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

The Doctor Strange wave of Marvel Legends, the one with the Dormammu Build a Figure, is the perfect example of how awful and mismanaged Marvel Legends waves can get. For starters, there was recently a boxed set for SDCC centered around Doctor Strange that included a Brother Voodoo, Astral Doctor Strange (Comic not movie, granted), and a Dormammu, non Build a Figure version. So, ok, the SDCC sets are not the easiest to get, but there also aren’t a ton of Strange fans I imagine clamoring for these characters, so doubling up like this instead of making less overlap seems like it would have been a better route. To add some additional insult, this wave also included a comic Doctor Strange that is essentially identical to the one included in the very recent Hulkbuster wave. Then there’s the extremely mediocre Astral Movie Strange, which is a clear version of the normal version reviewed here, minus the accessories. The Astral form strange, honestly, would probably have been better done with clear colored plastic matching his normal form, though I imagine the cost there would have been too much vs the basic transparent that we got. More annoying is that we don’t get figure of Wong or The Ancient One, both characters who could have really used figures, based on how cool they were in the movie.

I’m not here to rant about this poorly done wave of figures though. I have not, nor do I plan to pick up any more figures from it than I already have (3 total, one because it was on clearance). Instead, I want to talk a bit about the Movie Doctor Strange figure. This figure kind of feels like the end result of the price paid for that pretty lame Astral Doctor Strange. Where Astral strange has no accessories and is all translucent plastic (and, incidentally, the same mold as this one), this figure has many accessories and a pretty well done paint job and sculpt.

The core figure is effectively Cumberbatch’s Dcotor Strange as he appears in his “final form”. He’s in his complete robes, he’s wearing his cape, he’s got the Eye of Agamotto. He comes with an extra set of hands for some more varied looks as well as a shield like magic effect. The cape is removable, and even stands up on it’s own (if you’ve seen the movie you will know the cape kind of has a mind of it’s own. The Eye of Agamotto is also removable. Removing the came and Eye, give you kind of an early learner Doctor Strange. The removable Eye of Agamotto is also useful given the nature of what the Eye is for, possible future options of posing and interaction with other toys. Without going into too much detail.

A poseable cloth goods cape could would have been cool but that’s not really Marvel Legends’ way of doing things so it’s pretty forgivable. At least the cape is designed to stand on it’s own well. Where he could really use a bit of cloth goods is in his lower tunic bits, since the plastic limits the articulation he has in his legs, Doctor Strange isn’t really a martial artist but he is pretty dynamic, and he does come from a monastery of martial artist monks.

The extra hands are nice, and while he doesn’t have a sling ring accessory, they work for making the sort of gesture shown to operate the sling ring. Having one with the slink ring molded on would have been nice but that’s ML for you. There are some problems, at least on mine with mold flashing. I’m actually kind of ok with this problem, in this case, because it makes his hands look a bit dodgy and well, part of Doctor Strange’s origin was having his hands crushed in a car accident. Spoilers I suppose but it’s a very early and moderately trivial event in the whole scheme of things.

The movie version of Doctor Strange is one of the better Marvel Legends we’ve gotten recently, and definitely is the winner of the wave as far as quality and parts.

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Wolverine

Mar 6th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Wolverine is arguably the most popular Marvel comics character. Spider-man is pretty up there and Deadpool seems to be doing pretty well, but Wolverine is, or at least was at one point, pretty up there. It’s a shame he doesn’t’ get more Marvel Legends figures really. I mean I know I complain about all of the dozens of Captain Americas, but Wolverine is way more popular then Cap. Maybe we just already hit Wolverine Saturation years ago and don’t need more Wolverines? Who knows.

While wolverine has had a few looks over the years, and some slight redesigns, mostly in how big his head fins are or how large his shoulder pauldrons get, he has had two basic looks, there is the classic Blue and Yellow design, which appeared in the previous X-men themed wave of Marvel Legends, and there is this Brown and Dirty Yellow design.

I’m kind of mixed on this figure. It’s a good figure. It’s got a good sculpt and paint. He is appropriately short as Wolverine should be. He even has swappable hands for claws in and claws out. I really wish Marvel Legends would do swappable hands more often. I’ve been spoiled lately by import figures.

What he really needs though is a swappable head. Wolverine can make some nice poses, but his head is just so…. Boring. A raging grimacing or open mouthed head would be a welcome addition to make him seem more dynamic. I like having the neutral head, I just wish eh also had an angry head. Wolverine is pretty known for being a raging animal after all.

The claws are also interesting. They aren’t the often used rubbery plastic that deforms and looks ugly. They are nice and crisp and solid. They tend to wobble a bit in their pegs though, making them hard to keep in alignment. I also worry about breaking them off a bit, since this sort of hard plastic tends to snap more than give under pressure.

Aside from the bland facial expression, this is a really nice Wolverine figure. Here’s hoping that the new Logan film will give us some slightly more action oriented Wolverine designs but given the track record of the X-men films getting ignored for toys, I doubt it will happen.