A neat little surprise of sorts in Avengers: Endgame, though not totally unexpected, was the appearance of Rescue. Rescue is the name of Pepper Potts, when she dons her own Iron Man style armor. She sort of does this briefly in Iron Man 3, though not voluntarily, since Tony was protecting her from the collapsing Stark mansion. At the end of that film, thanks to the Extremis formula, she also gets a bit of a taste for being the hero. Plus, Rescue is a “thing from the comics”.
Basically, it’s not a huge surprise or stretch that Pepper Potts would eventually wear her own suit, especially after the extreme events of Infinity War. We got a comic version of Rescue a few years ago as an exclusive for Marvel’s comic subscription service, but this MCU iteration doesn’t share any of the same components. The design follow the design shown in Endgame pretty well, the whole suit is very sleak, which also fits in with the evolution in design philosophies we saw Tony go through over the course of the films. Unlike Tony’s armor colors of red and gold, Rescue is blue and gold.
For accessories, she is a little light on parts. She has no alternative repulsor hands, which is a bummer. Even more of a bummer is that she lacks and unmasked head. They even have a Gwyneth Paltrow head available from the recently release Iron Man 3 boxed set. Maybe they are saving it for a future line or boxed set, maybe it just didn’t seem important enough, but it kind of sucks that it’s not there. I don’t have the boxed set myself to test if the head fits on this body. What she does have is a swap out backpack part, to give her her little jet pack wings. This was also a look that Tony gained during the recent movies. I suppose from an armor evolution standpoint, it’s useful to be able to control your flight without relying on the hands and feet.
Also notable, the label on the back lists Rescue as 0049, so does that make it Iron Man armor 49? Or Rescue version 49?
So, on a basic level, there isn’t a lot wrong with this figure aside from the anemic extra parts. It’s somewhat to be expected since they probably won’t get a ton of reuse out of the mold, though if they ever bring iron Heart into the MCU, there could definitely be potential. I have to say despite that I really like Iron Man and his various armor, I actually find this figure really really kind of dull. She is plenty pose able, she even has double elbows and knees. I think it’s mostly just all the weird blue color or something. Plus the fists only kind of limits some of her posing since fists aren’t always appropriate for some action posts.
I’m assuming it’s War Machine Mark 6 here since he has a bit 006 emblazoned on his chest and the previous releases have different numbers. Anyway, moving on from some of the stuff that’s less interesting in this wave, the first of several MCU characters from this wave is War Machine.
I have to admit, for some reason I kept thinking Rhodes didn’t survive the Infinity War snap. I guess it felt redundant to have Iron Man and War Machine survive. But he did, and he ended up with some new armor for Endgame. Over the course of the films, War Machine has basically just been getting more and more bulky. It kind of fits with his more military motivations, versus Iron Man just trying to be a hero. It’s also not clear exactly how much input Tony Stark has on his newer designs either, I know for a while HAMMER was working on his suit as well. I imagine the USAF has some in put also.
It’s definitely a nice design though. It’s also nice that his suits aren’t just repaints of Iron Man figures, since they could have easily just gone that route. This iteration is quite a bit taller and definitely bulkier than previous Iron Man armors. It kind of makes me think of a small style Hulkbuster armor actually, though it’s still quite a bit smaller than the Hulkbuster Armor.
War Machine includes 3 accessories, one shoulder canon and two under arm gun… things. The shoulder gun is fine, but I am honestly not sure what the under arm weapons are supposed to be. They don’t really look like gun, they have these funky handle looking things, but not triggers and they can’t really be held like a shotgun or anything. I am sure they are accurate to something from the movies, but it’s also just kind of a crappy design. They don’t attach particularly well either and they don’t flow with the design of the armor at all and just look out of place.
There isn’t an alternate head, which kind of sucks but the open helmet from the previous release sort of fits on the armor, though it’s noticeably undersized.
The articulation on this guy is pretty good given his bulk. I mentioned this briefly when I talked about Beta Ray Bill. The shoulder pads have plenty of give on them flipping up that allows for the arms to bend upwards some. The legs don’t get in the way of themselves at all really either. A neck joint with more range of motion would have been nice so he could look up would have been nice, given that the suit is capable of flying. He also could really use a peg hole for a display stand as well, once again, because he is often seen flying.
Of this whole wave, I have to say War Machine is probably the stand out winner. He has very few real problems and the design is great. He’s bulky and looks bad ass, he is articulated a lot better than expected. He’s just a great all around figure.
Infinity War and
Endgame are, not surprisingly, coming out very close to each other. At least when compared to the previous
Avengers outings they are close to each other.
This is kind of understandable given how disruptive the end of Infinity
War was. Even Agents of SHIELD
essentially took a prolonged break to wait for things to be fixed. A couple of films have squeezed in between,
both featuring things that will likely show up prominently in Avengers End
Game. The first was Ant-Man and the
Wasp, which according to the post credits scene, effectively happens simultaneously
along side Avengers Infinity War.
Captain Marvel gets
around this problem by taking place in the past. Only the credits scene happens during
“present day”. This is kind of
a first for Marvel films which have always taken place “Present
day”. Captain America: The First
Avenger got around this by having it’s current day scene happen at the end of
the film after Steve wakes up from his long cold sleep.
The core of the film
is an origin story for Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, aka Vers (pronounced
Veers). The majority of the film takes
place in the mid 90s with some flashbacks to Carol’s past life 6 years previous. It sort of mixes up the standard
“origin” concept this way since it doesn’t just start with “here
is how she got her powers” then “here is how she learns to be a
hero”, which is nice. Her original
also ties heavily into the plot itself.
The real show
stealers of this film are Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a CGIed younger version
of himself as Nick Fury, and Carol’s cat Goose.
Ben Mendelsohn also does a pretty good job as the Skrull leader Talos
throughout the film. There are some good
funny bits, mostly involving one or more of these three characters though it’s
not a constant joke like Guardians of the Galaxy.
So how is the
movie? It’s… alright. There has been some controversy with the film
getting brigaded with negative reviews on review sites. It’s not the best Marvel film by any stretch,
but it’s certainly not god awful like some of these “ratings”
suggest. It’s like a pretty solid 7/10
or so probably.
Synopsis and Spoilers
The film opens with
Carol, at this point known as Vers (Veers), living on the Kree home world and
training with Yon-Rogg to join an elite Kree Commando force known as the
Starforce. We get a brief look at how
she has no memory of her past but has dreams of it occasionally through a brief
dream sequence where she is injured on the ground along side Annette Benning’s
character and being attacked by a Skrull.
The Starforce and Kree are at war with the Skrulls. The Kree should be fairly familiar to anyone
following the MCU, they have showed up in a few movies and the Agents of SHIELD
show quite a bit. The Skrulls are new to
the MCU though. Basically, they are
tricky aliens who can shapeshift. It’s
not a plot element in the movie but Super Skrulls can also replicate the abilities
of super heroes.
Anyway, Vers gets
summoned to meet with the Supreme Intelligence, leader of the Kree, who takes
the form of “something important to each individual”. In the case of Vers, it takes the form of
Annette Benning. Vers is recruited into
Starforce and the little party of fighters head off on a mission to rescue
someone on a Skrull planet. They arrive,
we get to see the Starforce in action a bit when they are ambushed by Skrulls,
and Vers heads into a base alone to look for the hostage. It turns out it’s a trap and the hostage is a
Skrull, and Vers is taken captive.
We get a few flashes
of her past again, as the Skrulls scan her memory for information. They find a memory of Vers and Annette
Benning together on an airfield on Earth, after reviewing the memory several
times they discern the location of the airfield. Around this time Vers manages to break free
of the system and starts fighting her way out of the Skrull ship. She escapes as the ship explodes and crash
lands in a Blockbuster video on Earth.
This brings up my
first kind of problem here, we later find out she was out for a few hours, but
it’s not really explained when the Skrulls traveled to Earth from wherever they
were. I mean, obviously it happened, but
the way it was presented felt a little random and convenient.
After using the
Earth’s phone system and some Kree technology, Vers manages to contact Yon-Rogg
and sets out to find out why the Skrulls were looking for Annette Benning. Not before being confronted by SHIELD and Nick
Fury, with Agent Coulson in tow as a rookie agent. Fury doesn’t seem to quite believe Vers’
story about aliens and Skrulls and Kree.
They are interrupted by an attack by a Skrull whom Vers chases down on
foot with Fury and Coulson pursuing in a car.
Vers fights with the Skrull a bit on an elevated train as the SHIELD
agents follow on along behind. Fury gets
a call on the radio of his car from Coulson, who wonders where everyone went
from the Blockbuster, which alerts Fury that Coulson in the car isn’t who he
thinks it is. After a brief fight he
wrecks his car, killing the Skrull who reverts back to his normal form. Vers loses the Skrull she was following in a
crowd.
After changing to
some normal clothes from her fancy Kree suit, Carol takes to searching the
internet for clues about Annette Benning’s whereabouts. Coulson gets some information on the Skrull
body at the SHIELD base before, in classic Fury fashion, showing up randomly to
talk to Vers. Since he now believes her
story, they agree to team up to figure out what’s going on and head to a secret
base where Annette Benning was working.
In the base they find that the person they are looking for has been dead
for years. They also find a cat that
appeared previously in Vers’ memories and some information on the Light Speed
drive that had been worked on there.
Vers also discovers that she is in a photo of the test experimental test
plane.
Meanwhile, Fury has
contacted SHIELD to let them know where he was, only it turns out that his boss
has been replaced by a Kree. In a bit of
a clever bit, he discovers this when his boss calls him “Nick” instead
of “Fury”. He previously made
a huge point to Vers that no one calls him anything but Fury. No one.
He tricks the Skrull into splitting up by commenting “Just like in
Haiti”, which I only mention as it comes up again later.
Anyway, Fury
reunited with Vers, who is not happy at all about him alerting SHIELD to their
location. There is a brief battle before
they escape in a Quadjet, which looks a lot like a bulkier and older model
Quinjet. They discover that the cat
managed to stow away with them on board the jet. They set off to visit Maria Rambeau, who was
listed as the last person to see Vers alive in her past life.
It turns out Maria
was best friend to Vers in her past life.
They bond, we learn that Vers is from Earth (which we all kind of
expected given the flashbacks). We learn
that her name isn’t Vers, it’s Carol Danvers.
There is a half a dog tag that reads “Carol Dan” on it. Carol had a jacket that apparently Maria’s
daughter wears sometimes. Maria is a
little town since she is happy her friend is alive and a little irritated that
she was off on another planet.
This is all
interrupted by the arrival of Talos, the Skrull commander, now in his normal
Skrull form. He wants a truce, and to
talk, and to reveal… the plot twist. It
turns out that Annette Benning wasn’t human, but was a Kree scientist known as
Mar-Vell. He plays back a recording of
the crash Carol was involved in, the one that’s he had been dreaming about. Mar-Vell and Carol are piloting the
experimental craft and get shot down by some alien craft. Only instead of being attacked by Skrulls, it
turns out she had been attacked by Yon-Rogg.
The Kree were the ones after the Light Speed Drive all along, not the
Skrulls. During the confrontation,
Mar-Vell had revealed her secret to Carol.
Carol then fires a Kree weapon at the Light Speed drive, causing it to
explode. Somehow the energy is absorbed
into Carol’s body. Seeing this power,
Yon-Rogg abducts her, her memory is wiped, and she is recruited to
Starforce. We also see him pick up the
other half of the dog tag which reads only “vers”, which was the
missing half of “Carol Danvers” on the complete dog tag, and the
reason she is called “Vers” early on.
Carol is a little
pissed that she has been lied to of course.
This recording also
leads to the secret coordinates that aren’t on the Earth, but are actually in
orbit around Earth. The Skrulls modify
the Quadjet for spaceflight and they all (Carol, Fury, Talos, Maria, the Cat) head
into space. Once there they discover
Mar-Vell’s secret cloaked space station, which, surprise, contains a bunch of
Skrull refugees. Specifically, Talos’
family, who had been working with Mar-Vell.
It also contains the source of power that the Kree are after in the
Tesseract Cube. Carol gives the
Tesseract to Fury for safe keeping, or specifically, Goose the Cat eats is with
a bunch of tentacles that spew out of it’s mouth, because it’s not a cat it’s a
Flurgen.
The Starforce squad
shows up and use an implant in Carol’s head to force her to power down. Carol is then, once again, confronted by the
Supreme Intelligence. The Skrulls and Fury
and Maria are locked up. Carol confronts
the Supreme intelligence who kind of taunts her about how weak she is. This pretty much causes her to overcome the
implant and unleash her full power. She
wipes the floor with the Starforce Squad.
Meanwhile, Talos has disguised himself as a Starforce grunt, and alerts
Fury with a comment about Haiti, which is once again, kind of clever. They overpower their captors and escape with
the Skrulls to the Quadjet. Along the
way we get to see more of Goose’s true power as the Cat eats several of the
guard whole.
Carol and Yon-Rogg
blast out of the station in a shuttle, but not before Ronan arrives to cleanse
the Earth of it’s Skrull infestation.
His starships launch several missiles at the planet. Carol uses her newfound Super Saiyan powers
to fly into space, destroying the missiles along the way and easily dispatching
one of Ronan’s ship. Ronan turns tail
and exits the area to go off and get killed by the Guardians of the Galaxy
later.
Carol returns to the
surface to confront Yon-Rogg. Realizing
he is no match for her, he goads her into proving she can fight him with no
powers, but she blasts him anyway. Because
she is “the hero” she tosses him into the escape pod, programs it to
head back to the Kree home world and tells him to let the Kree know she is
coming for them.
She says her
goodbyes to Fury and Maria, leaving the Goose and the Tesseract with
SHIELD. She makes it her mission to help
the Skrulls find a new home world and to combat the Kree, and she leaves with
the Skrulls to parts unknown. Before
leaving she leaves Fury with the modified pager he can use to summon her in
case of emergency.
There are two end
credits scenes. One with the Avengers in
Avengers HQ, lamenting their loss at the hands of Thanos and pondering the
meaning of the Pager, which was activated by Fury at the end of Infinity War. The pager has mysteriously stopped sending a
signal and they don’t know why.
Suddenly, they turn and a very angry looking Carol is there, and asks
‘Where’s Fury”.
The second scene
shows Fury’s desk, Goose jumps up on the desk.
Anyone who has owned a cat can probably predict what happens next in the
context of the film, I know I did. I mean
cats like to eat things they shouldn’t like plants, or Tesseracts, but these
things don’t really flow through the digestive tract. Goose starts hacking and coughing before
ejecting the tesseract out onto the desk.
It’s pretty funny.
How it’s Connected
So, there’s a fair
amount of connected here, but the biggest and most obvious is the Tesseract
which first appeared in Captain America: TFA and later in the first Avengers
film. It also made a brief appearance in
Thor: Ragnarok, since after Avengers it was stored in Asgard, where it was
saved from Ragnaros by Loki. Then again
in the opening for Avengers: infinity War where it was taken by Thanos and
inserted into the Infinity Gauntlet as the Space Stone.
The Tesseract is
shown to be the source of power for the Light Speed drive that was being
developed by Mar-Velle which exploded and infused Carol with her super
powers. It makes sense that this would
be able to power a super powered space engine since it’s the Space Stone, which
has the ability to let the user travel across space.
Fury gets his eye
scratched out by the cat Goose, which is supposed to explain why he has an eye
patch in the future. It’s kind of cute
since it’s bad ass Nick Fury and you expect it to have happened by something more
than a cat. In this same line, it’s a
little lame, because you expected it to be more than a cat. Ok, technically Goose is a Flurgen or
whatever.
Near the end of the
film, the Kree general Ronan makes a brief appearance. His small fleet of ships shows up to destroy
Earth but are stopped by Captain Marvel when she goes Super Saiyan. Ronin, you may recall was the primary
antagonist of the first Guardians of the Galaxy. He isn’t the only character to show up in
Captain Marvel from GotG, Korath (“Star-Lord Man”; “Who?”)
shows up as well as a member of the Kree Star Force squad that Carol is a part
of.
Then of course there
is Agent Coulson, whom Fury refers to as “Rookie”. His roll isn’t very big but it’s nice to see
him show up again in the films and not just Agents of SHIELD.
There is also a
slightly cheesy brief bit at the end that implies Fury got the name for The
Avengers from Carol’s pilot nickname of “Avenger”.
Then of course the
credits scene, where Carol answers the call of her pager sent out by Fury at
the end of Infinity War, and shows up looking rather pissed.
One other note that
may or may not become relevant later, Carol’s friend has a daughter named
Monica Rambeau. She is like 10 maybe in
the film. She carried the Captain Marvel
mantle in the comics briefly, and even lead the Avengers briefly. I doubt she elevates to that level in the
MCU, but she may show up again “present day” as an adult. She is also a member of the slightly niche
with a cult following group Nextwave. I
would be pretty happy if they opted to make a Nextwave film.
Thoughts on what’s next
Captain Marvel will
show up again alongside the Avengers in the next film, Avengers: Endgame. Her massive power level will definitely be a
strong addition to whatever fight happens in that film. I look forward to seeing her go toe to toe
with Thanos. I also wonder how well she
will play with the rest of the characters.
In her own movie here, she comes off as pretty single track on her
goals. I can see her showing up,
discovering what has happened to Fury and everyone else, and jetting off to
beat the shit out of Thanos as soon as she discovers his location, despite
protests from anyone else (Steve Rodgers).
I can also see her
getting along with Thor in interesting ways.
Thor already outclasses all of the other Avengers in power level, which
became supremely clear in infinity War, but I feel like Carol may actually be stronger
than he is in a straight fight.
Final Notes
There isn’t a lot of
the larger picture that is advanced here, but it does introduce us to a new
hero which will add a new dynamic to things going forward. The film does a fairly decent job of sort of
explaining where Carol has been since her time in the 90s and the present day
time. So far, nothing has happened that
would have given Fury cause to summon her before either. The invasion of New York was handled by the
Avengers and Ultron was a problem, but not one that he really knew about until
last minute, and once again, the Avengers managed to keep it under
control. Ultimately, it’s a nice introduction,
but it’s kind of unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
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.
The Incredible Hulk seems to be a really hard hero to get right for movies. He’s had a few of them and even a live action TV series in the 80s. The Incredible Hulk is sort of the redheaded stepchild of the MCU. It came out just after Iron Man. It’s technically sort of part of the MCU, but no one really remembers or cares that it’s part of the MCU. Part of this confusion is the change in actors from the movie and his next appearance in The Avengers. They traded out Edward Norton for Mark Ruffalo. This particular movie also exists in a weird space since it’s technically a sequel to the 2003 Ang Lee film simply called Hulk. The rumors and stories I’ve read are that Norton was kind of a bear to work with on the whole thing and had a hand in altering a lot of the script until it was much less of a sequel and more of a reboot. It doesn’t really directly contradict Ang Lee’s Hulk, but it doesn’t reference it either. This is also part of why they dropped Norton for Ruffalo.
A lot of the problem with Hulk is that the exciting part, IE the big green monster, is boring and hard from a story perspective. He’s not really a hero, he doesn’t really go around saving people really, he just gets mad and rages, and hopefully he’s raging against someone more evil than he is. The part that works for the story, Bruce Banner, is kind of boring from a movie perspective. It’s not super easy to depict “inner turmoil” on screen, which is part of what makes the Hulk and Banner who they are.
This film also is treated by the greater MCU the same way it treats it’s Ang Lee predecessor. It’s not really acknowledge, it’s not really rejected. It does seem to be kind of a goto reference for the TV MCU though. Ironic since the TV MCU is also ignored by the movies. Daredevil and Iron Fist make references to the final battle in Harlem, Agents of SHIELD makes references to Emil Blonsky a few times.
It’s an alright film, but I kind of prefer the Ang Lee vision of Hulk and frankly, I don’t really like Edward Norton as Banner.
Synopsis and Spoilers
The plot starts off with Banner working and hiding in Mexico, working at a soda bottling plant. He’s communicating with Samuel Sterns, a scientist in the states, anonymously working to find a cure for his Hulkness. During an accident, he accidentally cuts himself and some of his blood lands in one of the sodas which ends up giving Gamma Poisoning to poor Stan Lee. This leads the military to Banner’s location. They recruit special forces agent Emil Blonsky to head in and capture Banner. After some Fitbit advertisements where Banner’s heart rate keeps increasing during his escape from the military, he finally Hulks out and battles it out with the soldiers before making his escape.
Jealous of the Hulk’s power, Blonsky gets injected with some experimental super soldier serum to help beef himself up and help him go up against the unstoppable force that is The Hulk. Banner returns to the states to meet up with his old girlfriend Betty Ross, daughter of General Ross, who is leading the military charge against him. Bruce wants to recover the data from the original experiment that transformed him into The Hulk to better help Dr. Sterns find a cure. Unfortunately for Banner, the Military has been alerted to his presence. Hulk rears his raging face again and makes short work of the military forces, including Blonsky, despite his newfound strength. Hulk flees with Betty after The Hulk “kills” Blonsky.
Bruce and Betty finally meet up with Samuel Sterns, who was able to formulate a cure, but possibly a faulty cure. They administer the cure to Banner and afterwards General Ross, Blonsky and the military show up yet again and take Banner into custody. After Ross heads out with Banner, Blonsky forces Dr. Stern to inject him with Banner’s blood. The super soldier serum and the Hulk blood have a negative interaction and Blonsky is transformed into the classic Hulk nemesis, Abomination, who starts rampaging through Harlem. General Ross agrees to let Banner go because the Hulk is the only one who can stop The Abomination. After the two brutes trash out the city, prompting Wilson Fisk to leverage his power to rebuild things in his vision for control (no wait, wrong show), The Abomination is defeated and things come to a close.
Banner is later shown to be living in seclusion again and Tony Stark shows up to talk to General Ross in vague terms about the Avengers.
How it’s Connected
Aside from Robert Downy Jr’s cameo at the end, there’s not a whole lot else that comes up later. There aren’t any references to The Absorbing Man in the first movie, there aren’t any Infinity Stones or much SHIELD even. The events that take place in Harlem are mentioned in the Netflix Defenders shows some, primarily because those shows mostly take place in and around Harlem. Though I find it kind of odd that the major event everyone talks about is Hulk and not, you know, the literal alien invasion and Avengers. The Super Soldier serum theme is here, that of course relates to Captain America, Agent Carter, and a few bits in Agents of SHIELD.
Thoughts on What’s Next
There hasn’t been a straight followup for The Hulk, he shows up again in the later Avengers films and the upcoming Thor Ragnarok, but nothing new in terms of a solo film. There is/was clearly some plan though, during the scene when Samuel Sterns turns Blonsky into the Abomination, he too gets infected by the Hulk Blood and his head starts mutating. In the comics, Samuel Sterns is a smart dude with a big head villain named Leader. Someone was pushing for this angle, though at this point it’s clearly gone nowhere.
Final Notes
The Incredible Hulk is an ok though pretty forgettable part of the greater MCU. It’s not an awful movie, it just sort of, is. Hulk is just sort of a hard guy to really do justice in film.
