Movie: Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014)

All the spoilers all the time.  You have been warned!

My Thoughts While Watching:

Is his suit water resistant?

He has no love for Nick Fury. I get that. I think Fury is shady AF. Always has been, always will be. There are those who do the work and there are those who coordinate it. He is a manager of assets, not a true asset. IMHO

Carter: The world has changed and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best and sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.

Gary Shandling is ALWAYS a great choice for a douchebag role.

Why did she not IMMEDIATELY shoot Robert Redford?

Has anyone put together a collective of data regarding the collateral damage inflicted by super heroes in the MCU?  Interesting article from 2016 here: https://movieweb.com/avengers-captain-america-civilian-deaths-damages-costs/

An odd thing, when I first watched this movie I HATED it. Thinking back on it until this rewatch, I hated it. After the rewatch – I truly dig it.  I wonder if that is because of the other movies which came after it and the building of the overall universal arc?

Rankings through this movie:

• Iron Man
• The Avengers
• Captain America: First Avenger
• Captain America: Winter Soldier
• Iron Man 3
• Thor: The Dark World
• Thor 1
• Iron Man 2
• Hulk

Some Interviews and Extra Video:

IMDB Synopsis: As Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world, he teams up with a fellow Avenger and S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Black Widow, to battle a new threat from history: an assassin known as the Winter Soldier.

Starring:

	Chris Evans	…	Steve Rogers / Captain America
	Samuel L. Jackson	…	Nick Fury
	Scarlett Johansson	…	Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
	Robert Redford	…	Alexander Pierce
	Sebastian Stan	…	Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
	Anthony Mackie	…	Sam Wilson / Falcon
	Cobie Smulders	…	Maria Hill
	Frank Grillo	…	Brock Rumlow
	Maximiliano Hernández	…	Jasper Sitwell (as Maximiliano Hernandez)
	Emily VanCamp	…	Kate / Agent 13
	Hayley Atwell	…	Peggy Carter
	Toby Jones	…	Dr. Arnim Zola
	Stan Lee	…	Smithsonian Guard
	Callan Mulvey	…	Jack Rollins
	Jenny Agutter	…	Councilwoman Hawley
	Bernard White	…	Councilman Singh
	Alan Dale	…	Councilman Rockwell
	Chin Han	…	Councilman Yen
	Garry Shandling	…	Senator Stern
	Georges St-Pierre	…	Georges Batroc

Directors: 

Anthony Russo
Joe Russo

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My ranking scores –

0-19 Levels of: Ugh

20-39 Levels of: Meh (aka I cannot reach the remote)

40-59 Levels of: I don’t hate it?

60-85 Levels of: That was solid.

86-100 Levels of: I Loved It!

I rank this movie a 85.44!

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Trailer:

Additional Movie Info:

It received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 90% Fresh.  It received a Rotten Tomato audience rating of 82% liking it.  Average Rating: 4.33/5 with a number of User Ratings: 281,368.

Movie Reviews:

• Roger Ebert
• NY Times

Specs:  Release date: 4 April 2014 (USA) / Runtime: 136 minutes / Budget: $170M

IMDB Trivia:

• Anthony Mackie’s appearance in this film fulfills his dream of playing a Marvel comic book character. He wrote a series of e-mail pleas to Marvel, wanting to play any comic character that would appear on film. Though the studio repeatedly replied to him that they will respond in due time, Mackie’s emails caught the attention of producer Kevin Feige, who subsequently offered him the role of Sam Wilson a.k.a. Falcon.
• (At around fifteen minutes) Nick Fury relates a story of his grandfather being an elevator operator. In real-life, Samuel L. Jackson’s grandfather was an elevator operator.
• Unlike other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this movie minimized the use of visual effects as much as possible. Anthony Mackie elaborated: “The Russos, what they did that was so great was, they wanted to stay with live-action, which is a dying art form. If they could build it, they built it. If we could do it, we did it. They wanted to do as little CGI as possible. That’s why the movie looks so great.”
• To prepare for the role of the Winter Soldier, Sebastian Stan went through five months of physical training and historical research: “I dove into the whole Cold War history: I looked at the KGB. I looked at all kinds of spy movies, and all kinds of documentaries about that time, and what it was about. I grabbed anything from that time period, and anything about brainwashing.”
• When asked why Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, or any of the other Avengers weren’t called to help Captain America or Black Widow in the film, the screenwriters explained that the movie only takes place in about three days, therefore the characters didn’t have a chance to contact them.
• (At around one hour and three minutes) Black Widow mentions “Operation Paperclip”, which was a real-world reference to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program, in which over one thousand five hundred German scientists, technicians, and engineers from Nazi Germany, and other foreign countries, were brought to the United States for employment in the aftermath of World War II.
• (At around five minutes) The scene where Captain America jumps out of a plane, without bothering to use a parachute, is an homage to a similar scene from the first issue of “The Ultimates” comic.
• While writing the script, there was a big possibility of Hawkeye being in the film. However, the writers felt that there were too many characters introduced, and they didn’t want Hawkeye to be there without any depth. They instead decided to write a small scene in which Hawkeye and his whereabouts are mentioned, which was shot, but ultimately wasn’t included in the film.
• The mall/shopping center in which Black Widow and Captain America visit, in order to find the origin of the encrypted USB stick, is called the Tower City Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The front of the building, and its concourse, were used in The Avengers (2012) as the opera hall in which Loki confronts German opera patrons.
• The filmmakers described the Winter Soldier as a “negative image of Captain America.”
• The mask of Winter Soldier is exactly opposite to the mask of Captain America, just like Cap’s image. Winter Soldier’s mask covers his lower face and reveals his eyes, where Cap’s cover his eyes and reveals his lower face.
• In his first comic incarnation, Falcon had the superpower to communicate with birds telepathically. The film version, much like the Marvel Ultimate comics version, does not give Falcon any superpowers.
• Although Captain America never holds or uses a gun in this film, he is still sometimes seen wearing a holstered pistol on his belt.
• When Nick Fury is racing through the busy streets, after his SUV has been attacked, there are two clips where he drives by the street (E 9th) and intersection (E 9th and Euclid) where the street battle scenes from The Avengers (2012) were shot. There is also a very short clip of him driving down the street where those scenes were shot. Several of the buildings from The Avengers (2012) can be seen. Also, the rotunda-styled bank, where Bucky goes for his treatments, is the same building from The Avengers (2012), of which Captain America was blown out, when the alien grenade went off.
• In the commentary, the filmmakers say the mask used by Natasha Romanov is based on the mask used by the Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), thus showing another link between H.Y.D.R.A. and S.H.I.E.L.D.
• In the opening sequence on the Lumerian Star, Captain America’s shield has pale colors of red and blue. The next time you see Captain America with his shield after the mission on the ship, he has his shield with the original solid red and blue colors. There is no explanation of what happened to the first shield, as it is never seen again after the mission on the ship. It is assumed that it was simply painted muted colors for a camouflage effect, and then repainted to its original colors after the night mission.
• (At around thirty-four minutes) When Steve sneaks into his apartment through the window, the book Night Stalkers by Mike Durant can be seen at the bottom of the horizontal stack of books. Durant served in the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer 4, and was taken prison in Somalia during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. He was released after spending eleven days in captivity. Black Hawk Down (2001) portrayed the events of the battle, and Durant’s capture.
• Characters accuse (or rightfully call out) each other of lying no fewer than eight times in this film. Steve accuses Nick after learning that Natasha had her own mission; Natasha accuses Steve when he conceals information about Nick; Pierce accuses Steve for the same reason. Steve tells Natasha to stop lying when trying to find out where the flash drive is. Members of the World Security system accuse Nick of lying about his agenda with the opening raid; Natasha laments having told lies for both the KGB and Hydra; and later tells the Senate subcommittee that Hydra was selling them lies; they in turn point out that she has had a large role in telling them.
• Gary Sinise: (At around eighteen minutes) The info voice narrating the history of the Howling Commandos in the museum.
• Stan Lee: (At around one hour and thirty minutes) As a security guard at the Smithsonian Institution, who notices the original Captain America costume is missing and says “I am so fired”.