Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Fans of this blog or my friends and family or the manager of my local comic shop or strangers passing by me can tell you that I'm a pretty big Captain America fan. Many of that same number can probably also tell you I'm a big ol' Winter Soldier fan. The WINTER SOLDIER storyline in Brubaker's CAPTAIN AMERICA run isn't just my favorite Cap storyline ever, it's one of my favorite storylines in comics, period. So I'm particularly excited about this movie and hearing people like Ed Brubaker himself saying that Captain America: Winter Soldier is the "best movie that Marvel has ever made"only furthers that excitement (I KNOW, Brubaker's not exactly an unbiased opinion but he's also a pretty outspoken comics creator who no longer has any contractual obligation to Marvel and, while I'm sure there are certain benefits to the movie doing well for him, I truly believe that he wouldn't be heaping praise on it if he didn't mean that praise). It doesn't hurt that they put out a trailer like this one to get people ready:
GUYS. This trailer is seriously so good! We get a tiny bit (but not too much to give it all away) about Winter Soldier's origin, we get a bunch of the corrupt and dangerous SHIELD they've been teasing (which I'd ALSO say, purely fanning the fire, uses lines that don't stray too far from the current way AIM is being handled in Hickman's AVENGERS titles right now - Hickman also helmed the well-liked SHIELD book out a few years ago), we get a few looks at Black Widow and, particularly, Falcon in action, we get Steve in his super soldier gear (in which he's featured on the movie poster as well) as well as in plainclothes and in his Captain America suit, we get drama, intrigue, a bit of wry humor, just about everything I want out of this movie we can see a snippet of in this trailer. After seeing the teaser for this extended trailer, I legitimately wondered if they would reveal Winter Soldier's true identity in the trailer (people involved in the movie have already said that it's not a secret they're going to kill themselves to hide; the reveal, while probably going to catch some moviegoers off-guard, is meant for Steve, not the audience necessarily) but they're still keeping that a little close to the chest, though we see plenty of the Winter Soldier's face (albeit in facepaint) in the trailer. And BOY, does he look cool or what? From the awesome steering-wheel grab (I've never seen that in an action movie but MAN is it a great idea) to yanking Falcon out of the air to the shield catch-and-throw, it all just looks so good. I should probably find flaws with this trailer but SPOILER, I won't. I'm just really excited for this movie and I'm very interested in the idea that, despite what could be maybe an overabundance of villains (Winter Soldier, Robert Redford, Crossbones, allegedly Batroc), these villains may be tied to one another in a pretty big plot (more on that kind of thought in this post's next trailer). Though it's not new to this trailer over the first trailer, I also really like the idea of a corrupt and conniving SHIELD. The comics constantly focus on problems borne from SHIELD in some capacity or another and it's nice to see the movies addressing it, from Avengers' lack of trust in SHIELD to this movie. Let's move on to Amazing Spider-Man 2 before talking about the bigger business implications.
Amazing Spider-Man 2
NOW THIS ONE is an interesting one. Amazing Spider-Man, the reboot of the much loved and then INSTANTLY (and deservedly) turned upon original Spider-Man trilogy, was met with mixed reactions. Plenty of people wrote it off or, in the very least, complained about the reboot coming so quickly after the first trilogy and the tonal shift from that first trilogy certainly turned some fans off. Personally I liked the movie a great deal and, while a different take from anything that had come before it, I thought it did a nice job to modernize Peter Parker and to build a nice little world for itself. I'm not sure I liked it as much as Sony seemed to, immediately granting the relaunch four movies based on the series, including Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 3 and two movies that will attempt to build the universe focusing on Venom and the Sinister Six. Interesting move to be sure (and one that I fear will keep Spidey contractually obligated to keep starring in new movies even if this superhero bubble does burst) and now we're seeing the first full-size trailer for the first of those sequels, Amazing Spider-Man 2.
HMMM. As a trailer, I find this one a little...strange. I think it sells the movie pretty well and does a lot that actually makes me more confident in the movie than I had been previously. The thing I find weird about the trailer is that it seems to give Electro's entire origin right there, in the first two or so minutes of a trailer for a movie out in three months. Granted, when you have upwards of three villains in this movie (on top of Electro, Goblin, and Rhino, all featured in the trailer to some extent or other, there are hints at the Sinister Six and, specifically, Dr. Octopus and Vulture, not to mention the very recent news of BJ Novak's casting as Alistair Smythe, he of Spider-Slayer fame), you can maybe dedicate a trailer to giving us the origin of one of them. But it still strikes me as odd that they're willing to go so far as to show you a considerable chunk of plot in a three and a half minute trailer. That aside, I think portraying Electro as a nobody, an electrician at Oscorp with delusions that are, perhaps, severe but generally well-meaning, is an interesting choice. We'll, of course, have to wait for the movie to see if it will play the way they want it to but it's a bold choice and it connects Jamie Foxx's Electro to Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man in a way that Electro and Spider-Man of the comics universe aren't (their relationship is driven mostly by the fact that they've run into each other so often and so aggressively). Garfield's Spider-Man and Garfield's Peter Parker get a good amount of screentime in this rather long trailer too and I'm in favor of both of them. I love that he's entered into the "I love being Spider-Man" phase of being Spider-Man (before he realizes the full cost of it, of course) and I love the way that Peter lamely tries to cover his exploits as Spider-Man with his Aunt May in a way befitting a true teenager. Garfield's Spider-Man, too, is a bit of a departure from the old and he seems to have the majority of the populace (though I'm sure not all of the populace) on his side as the movie begins. The idea that he ingratiates himself with his fellow New Yorkers with one-on-one conversations (even if they're a bit flippant, like a teenager with superpowers and the ego of a superhero would be) and by giving them the role of his eyes and ears of the city, addressing them by name when he can, is a great touch that comes through nicely in the trailer. In that way, I'm relieved to see that the dark plot this movie will inevitably swing into will be leveled by the brightness of Peter, at least at the outset of the movie. Touches like these and the awkwardness and charm of Garfield in the first movie give Peter a real personality more than the staring and forced quips of Tobey Maguire (who I still liked in the role but who played a very different Spidey in a very different time for superhero movies) in previous Spider-Man movies. As far as the look of the movie goes, this one looks every bit as dynamic and colorful as a comic book and the design of Electro worries me a bit less now that we're actually seeing him in motion and as a force. While Captain America: Winter Soldier is probably the first Marvel movie I have a really good feeling about and really high expectations for (that will probably come back to bite me, I know), Amazing Spider-Man 2 is giving me the pleasant and uplifting "geez, this could actually work" feeling that, say, the trailer for Avengers gave me.
On a purely business standpoint, I'm also really impressed with Marvel Studios' planning for Captain America: Winter Soldier. The placement of this movie, with Captain America leading off 2014 even after, I believe, its predecessor was the weakest showing of Phase One (the weakest showing, of course, was still more than enough to guarantee a sequel and, frankly, I think it still stands as my favorite movie from Phase One), feels like a genius move to me. Of course, you can't ever BANK on the idea that one movie is going to stand out from all the others but I think the storyline of this one is easily the most popular within the comics of all the Phase Two movies (with the possible exception of Ultron in Avengers 2) and, if advertised well (it is), there's no reason to believe this one won't do phenomenally well and be very well-regarded. So it's placement, between probably the two most suspect movies in Phase Two, is absolutely genius to me (though, again, that's coming from a diehard Cap fan). Thor did well its first time out as what was certainly the biggest risk of the first set of movies (asking viewers to step into a more fantasy world than the more realistic world they'd come to see in other superhero movies) but its predecessor would still have to be seen as relatively risky compared to Iron Man 3, which is money in the bank, and Captain America: Winter Soldier, which had the potential to thrive as a more standard action movie with a grade-A plot and built-in meaningful character moments. Still, Thor wasn't a big risk, necessarily, but he was a bigger risk than the movies of his other Avengers teammates. The next Marvel Studios movie after Captain America: Winter Soldier is Guardians of the Galaxy, which is hands-down the biggest risk Marvel has taken since dominating the cinematic world. A relatively unknown property (even in a lot of comic fandom) starring relatively unknown actors (it headlines with the very likable and recently-everywhere Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, and the voices of Bradley Cooper in a talking raccoon and Vin Diesel in a talking tree) that will ask Marvel and movie fans alike to journey into space. To top it off, it's directed by a director known more in indie circles than by a mainstream audience. Granted, big mainstream directors haven't exactly been Marvel's go-to but Marvel is still asking James Gunn to go from low-budget indie films (mostly comedies) to a huge-budget space saga. Big risk. That risk, of course, is LARGELY negated by the fact it's followed up by Avengers 2 which, unless the superhero bubble is burst far earlier than expected thanks to the sheer volume of superhero movies out in the coming couple years, is a lock for big turnout.
As for Sony, I talked a little about the implications of setting up so many movies based on a franchise that I personally think is good and has the ability to grow but that I think is a bit more suspect than, say, the Avengers movies after the release of Avengers. Don't forget, obviously, that Marvel Studios has plans for movies for years and years to come but the nebulous way they talk about their movies, waiting for San Diego Comic-Con to really bust out their next couple years and even then talking about them in veiled terms until their just about ready to go into pre-production or production, seems to save them some possible grief if they had to bail on a movie or a franchise a couple years away. Here Sony has seemingly locked themselves into a five movie deal (including the first one) with this new Spider-Man and everyone will be there for every production move ahead of time. I'd assign the same worry to that as I'm assigning to DC's Batman vs. Superman, which has already been pushed back a year and has therefore subjected itself to plenty of new scrutiny, including the idea that perhaps the film is getting off to a bad start or the idea that DC isn't confident enough to put their hopefully headline movie (after "meh" reviews for Man of Steel and Dark Knight Rises) in a year so packed with huge fandom releases like Avengers 2 and the first of a new trilogy of Star Wars films. Now any sort of delay or setback or anything else inherent to movie-making that these films may suffer (not to even mention, for a third time, my fear that the superhero bubble will burst with the market so saturated by them) will be scrutinized and over-analyzed and could very much hurt the movie itself, let alone the production of that movie. On a more "this movie specifically" note, I'm curious to see the execution of Amazing Spider-Man 2 given the amount of villains in this one. It's an especially bold move considering one of the criticisms of Spider-Man 3 was that it, perhaps, had too many villains in it, asking the audience to care about Venom, Sandman, and Green Goblin on top of dealing with Peter Parker. As I intimated in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 section, I'm not totally sure it's valid to compare decisions from the original trilogy days to decisions now as we live in a world where superhero movies are the norm and fans are willing to go along with these movies more than they were even ten years ago (or seven years ago, which was when Spider-Man 3 came out, thereby ruining a lot of people's 2007). Also, that movie was garbage for a lot of reasons and, while I don't think the three villains helped in any way, that decision by itself certainly cannot be blamed for a terrible script, bad acting decisions, and overall awfulness. Moreover, it seems that Amazing Spider-Man 2 is going to tie all of these villains together, linking them to a single backer: Oscorp. This gives a very different feel than the Spider-Man of the past fighting against three different threats on three different fronts and us not enjoying ANY of them. Instead, Spider-Man may battle on different fronts at times but they'll eventually lead him to the same place, which could be a very interesting twist (even if it turns out Captain America: Winter Soldier does something similar a month earlier).
I remember a time when I wasn't going to write too, too much on this post, particularly where it's being released on a Wednesday instead of a Monday or Tuesday, days I more typically reserve for non-review related business. That was clearly, though, a time before I wrote this post. If you read it all, I hope you liked it (as is the motto of this blog or, you know, the internet as a whole. Or anything. Just...the written word. God, I'm tired). Let me know your thoughts here or on Twitter @starboy23 (I promote the blog from my Twitter relentlessly but I never mention my Twitter on my blog. Weird, right? I just...I need to go to sleep, you guys) and, as ever, thank you for checking in.
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