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Wednesday 14 May 2014

Captain America: 2 Awesome

Thought that with all the serious stuff I've been posting on lately, that it was time for something more light-hearted. So movie review!

Now, before you go any further, *alert* *alert* There will probably (read: definitely) be spoilers.

So. I'm a Marvel fan. And as such, slightly biased. Yes, I did go and watch it a second time just so I could see it in 3D. I absolutely loved it. But you're here to hear about what it's all about....so listen in.... (If you want to skip the overly long description of the storyline, go ahead.)

We start off with Cap adjusting to life in the modern world - everyone he knew is dead, and there's not really anyone around for him any more. He starts up a quick conversation with fellow jogger Sam, and we can see that he's going to be back. But wait for it, because Romanoff calls him up for a mission before he can get too into it.
The mission is basically a chance to remind us of all that Cap is - both the great fighter, as well as the good man. You get some great action scenes here (particularly his fight with the main guy, Batroc), but you also get to see him putting the people first - he rails against Natasha for endangering the mission, as she grabs some evidence off a computer. We'll come back to that, that's important. But the mission, of course, goes off pretty much without a hitch.
Cap goes and gets annoyed at Fury for not telling him about Natasha's mission. Fury says that he doesn't trust many people. But he takes him up in the elevator, where we have an interesting scene of Fury talking about his dad, which shows a bit more to him than we're used to. Which is good, because we'll need that for later as well. They then come to their destination; and Cap sees what Fury has been working on - some mega-aircraft-carrier-air/gunship-things. Essentially, Fury says, they mean that they can neutralise threats before they happen. Cap isn't particularly happy, because it doesn't sound very fair and free and all.
So he goes and has a look at his own spot in the museum (as you do), and then heads on over to his old girlfriend's place (in both senses of the word 'old', hardy har har) for a motivational talk. Nice emotional moment, particularly as she isn't doing so well, and we can see how that hurts Steve. 
Fury goes to decrypt the information that Natasha gave him. But he can't. Because apparently, it has been locked - by him. Fury gets one of those 'bad feeling' moments, so heads up to his friend, who is high up in SHIELD brass. Asks him to delay the helicarriers (that's what they were called!), Pierce says he'll try.
What's the next thing we see? Well, Fury gets ambushed by assassins. Of course, he's planned for this, and so he manages to get away, though pretty bruised - to come up against this one guy, who shoots some device that blows up and flips his car. He's still planned for this, and whips out a doohickey that can cut through the road and get him a quick escape. Cap then goes back to his apartment to find Fury there, pretty beat up. Fury tells him that SHIELD has been breached, that he got attacked - but then he suddenly gets shot twice, and in (what seem to be) his last words, he tells Cap not to trust anyone. And gives him the USB with the info.
Next-door neighbour then rushes in, saying she's a SHIELD agent, and Cap implicitly trusts her and rushes off after the shooter. Turns out he's some weird guy with a metal arm. Neighbour turns out to be OK, but Fury dies in surgery. Cap's pretty angry, Nat tells him the dude is called the Winter Soldier. Soviet guy or some such. Cap gets called up to meet Pierce, so he leaves the USB in a vending machine. As you do.
He essentially tells Pierce that he can't tell him anything, because Fury said not to trust anyone. Next scene, Cap gets ambushed in an elevator. We seeing any sort of pattern here? No? OK then.
Cap and Nat use the USB to find a spot that Cap got trained at, and find a secret bunker that looks like where SHIELD started. They then find a secret secret bunker that houses a megacomputer, housing the intelligence of the Swiss scientist Zola, who tells them that SHIELD is Hydra, Hydra is SHIELD, woohoo! (Well, not quite.) And the helicarriers are going to kill all of the threats to Hydra pretty much instantaneously once they're deployed. He then admits that he was stalling for time, and they find a couple of missiles heading for them. Of course, they make it out OK.
They then backtrack to Sam, who happens to be a pilot of an awesome wingsuit called a Falcon. They then interrogate random guy to find out how the targeting system works, and find out that it is pretty darn bad. But then, they're ambushed by the Winter Soldier and friends; cue epic fight scene again, plus Cap finding out that the Winter Soldier is Bucky. They get captured, but then rescued by Maria Hill, SHIELD goodie. She takes them to a secret base, and (Surprise!) Fury is actually OK! Well. Cracked/broken everything, but alive. And he has a plan for taking out the Helicarriers. You just need to replace the targeting chips! Too easy! And, of course it's not.
Cue rallying cry speech from Steve, epic battle sequence from Sam and Cap while Nat goes for the Council to dethrone Pierce. It all goes kinda OK/not really, but particularly the latter once the Winter Soldier steps in. Fight gets pretty heated, but of course, Cap manages to save the day, Bucky doesn't quite know what he is but isn't all that bad any more, and SHIELD is history.

There's so much in this movie for fans. From the extra bits after the credits (two of them, make sure you watch all the way to the end!) to the Stephen Strange reference, there's plenty in there for Marvel buffs. But there's lots in there for movie buffs as well; whether you're there for the action, the story, or even just the emotion, this movie has it. It's got some great Wow! moments (loved the Falcon), and a lot of bits that will stay with you for a while. The twists are fantastic, and it's going to be really interesting to see what that means for the future of the Marvel Universe.

An extra note: I've also been watching Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD, and what was really interesting to see is that they had this tie in to the TV show. Which was awesome! They planned it around the release date, so you could go out and watch the movie when it came out, get the Hydra twist, and then the Agents of SHIELD episode that week had that same twist. It was pretty cool. And, of course, that has then continued on for the following episodes - SHIELD is pretty much not around any more, so it changes the whole dynamic.

All in all, an awesome movie. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it. Definitely.

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