Though recently defrosted from his days as a WWII super-soldier and supposed to be readjusting to the ways of the modern world, Chris Evans’ star-spangled man with a plan has found himself slap-bang in the middle of a ‘70s paranoia thriller — featuring Robert Redford, no less. In Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” there are some shady goings-on over at S.H.I.E.L.D. — shadier than usual, anyway. The super-spy organisation at the centre of Marvel’s ever-expanding cinematic universe is not to be trusted, if you’d believe such a thing: in an underground bunker, they’re building helicarriers worryingly capable of wiping out suspected threats before they’ve actually done anything; a covert mission to stop the hijacking of a ship turns out to be a cover for extracting top-secret data; hunted by mysterious foes, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury breaks into Cap’s apartment and advises him to “trust no one;” and Redford’s high-up official Alexander Pierce, along with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., is starting to look awfully sinister. If Joe Johnston’s 2011 predecessor “The First Avenger” was in the pulpy vein of the Indiana Jones adventures, the Russo Brothers’ sequel has the paranoid political charge of old conspiracy movies like “All the President’s Men,” “Three Days of the Condor” or “Marathon Man” — albeit with a little more computer-generated leaping and flying and kicking and punching, mind you.
What ultimately makes “The Winter Soldier” work is that not only does it strike a good balance between its CG action and political intrigue — for every time Cap bashes a badguy in the face with his big metal shield, there’s a cutting dig at government surveillance or the fine line between freedom and fear — it actually blends them together in a way that’s very effective. A scene in an elevator between Cap and some curiously nervous-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives builds up suspense through suspicious glances and dripping beads of sweat, and then pays it off with a thrilling, electrically charged punch-up; similarly, a tense attack on Fury’s car by supposed police officers in the middle of a Washington street explodes with some high-tech weaponry. And the plot itself, following Cap as he and Scarlett Johansson’s agile and sharp-minded super-spy Black Widow go on the run from the organisation they once trusted, is straight out of an old-school Sydney Pollack thriller, just with a mechanically winged paratrooper and a super-powered, metal-armed assassin added in for fun. The result is a gripping and exciting mishmash of resonant political paranoia and special effects blockbusting, even if the scales tip a little too much in favour of the latter towards the (nevertheless enjoyable) explosive finale. Phase Two of Marvel’s master-plan continues to impress: Cap worked well on the WWII battlefront; he works even better on the ‘70s conspiracy scene.
Rating: 8/10
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