Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

Ask anyone who their favorite Marvel character from the Avengers universe is and 9 times out 10, you’re going to hear them answering Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Witty, charming, and eminently quotable, Stark is the main focus of 2012’s mega hit The Avengers, gets the big heroic moment and has the most significant chunk of the screentime. But after the dud that was Iron Man 3 and the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, all that biased favoritism could be about to change: neglected amidst all this Stark love and with an arc that has been subtly and carefully charted throughout the Marvel films, Steve Rogers aka Captain America might just become the new crowd favorite.  

While Iron Man proved to be an immediate slam dunk, risks abounded aplenty with Marvel’s equally ambitious plans for releasing standalone films featuring Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk. And aside from the unenviably difficult task of creating a mainstream blockbuster revolving around the ever so slightly enigmatic and difficult to relate to character of Thor, there was no riskier venture than the task of doing the same for stars and stripes wearing super soldier Captain America, a dated superhero to say the least. Now considered by many to be the weakest of the Marvel films, the approach with 2011’s Captain America was light and campy in a script full of juvenile hokiness and cheesiness. Intentionally designed for younger audiences, there’s no denying that the filmmakers succeeded in making the film they wanted to make but what remains debatable is whether or not their strange and occasionally perplexing approach made for a good movie. Which takes us to what might just be the best film of the whole bunch: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

Taking place after the events of The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens with Steve Rogers (Evans) working for SHIELD and still coping with the shock of waking up 70 years into the future into a murky world full of intrigue and deception that he struggles to find a place for himself in. Sidelined during The Avengers in favor of other characters and plot lines, the key plot point of Rogers's strong dislike for SHIELD’s methods and tactics returns here. Continuing to team up with Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) under Nick Fury (Jackson), Rogers remains uncomfortable with his role with SHIELD and holds a shaky trust in both of them. This trust is put to the ultimate test when Fury begrudgingly reveals to Rogers SHIELD’s new plan for the future: the launching of three new and improved permanently orbiting Helicarriers armed with state of the art satellite guided missiles and guns capable of targeting and eliminating millions of targets in a matter of minutes. The purpose: the ability to pre-emptively dispose of all of SHIELD’s enemies in one fell swoop if necessary. Rogers predictably baulks at these plans and finds himself in a dilemma when Fury, who has long suspected foul play within SHIELD, turns to Rogers for help after an assassination attempt on his life happens days before the planned launch. Scrambling for answers and people to trust, friends quickly turn into enemies as Rogers finds himself at odds with a number of familiar foes coming back to haunt him from his past. 

The most surprising thing about this Captain America movie is how much it attempts to do and how much of it works so well. The action and effects are sublime and top-notch, the dialogue is sharp and witty and the script finds a great balance between humor and a more serious gravitas. There are a number of great and supremely entertaining set pieces here, all of which are well-executed, and the film also comes with a suitably threatening and daunting adversary. The Winter Soldier makes for a great and mysterious villain, a villain who may have more of a connection with Captain America than one would initially suspect. 

Clearly, after failing to find a proper tone in the previous attempt, the filmmakers have finally found the perfect avenue for Captain America to shine. With this latest Captain America film, what were the unavoidable flaws and weaknesses of the 1940s comic book hero suddenly become his strengths. Charming in his own way as a refreshingly simple and straight up character, Rogers isn’t the morally ambivalent anti-hero that you find everywhere nowadays: he has his principles and sticks to them, no questions asked and no hesitation; his compass always points north. Rogers thus becomes our looking glass into our world, a world where things aren’t always what they seem and where everything comes in varying shades of grey. And while Rogers’s struggle with reconciling his principles with the compromises necessary in war is covered in the first movie, this struggle comes to full fruition in the sequel. Evans does a great job of channeling all of this while still also finding the integrity and earnestness that is at his character's core and Scarlett Johansson is also utilized equally well here. Introduced as perfunctory eye candy in the Iron Man 2 with no real important part to play in proceedings, she finally gets her chance to shine two Marvel appearances in. Unlike Rogers, Romanoff is a character who thrives in the dark shadows of this world, where you’re not sure who your friends and who your enemies truly are, a closed world where you can hide from your past and change your identity, where things are never fully out in the open.

And this brings us to the core theme of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Armed with what might be the best script of the Marvel movies (including The Avengers), one would probably not expect to find topical real life parallels and themes here but this film is chock full of them. From NSA scandals to cyber warfare and underground terrorism, we live in a world where the stuff of cloaks and daggers reigns supreme and where the real enemies don’t wear uniforms out there for everyone to see anymore. And through the character of Captain America, a character who proudly dons his colors and his principles on his sleeve, we get a poignant look at the problems we face in real life. With technology rapidly advancing the world ending potential destructive capabilities of those in power, interesting and pivotal questions arise. If someone had the technology available to SHIELD in this film, should they have the authority to use it? Should anyone? Who decides who has that authority? In a world full of secrets, how do we hold anyone accountable? All interesting and difficult questions to answer indeed but this film supplies those answers, utilizing Captain America as its moral center. The past shouldn’t be something to hide from or distort but should be out there in the open so that nothing can fester in the present. Multiple characters, both good and bad, have dark and ugly pasts, but the film seeks to uncover and reveal those ugly pasts to allow these characters to find their redemption. Ultimately, embedded within all those action scenes and explosions, this film asks for openness in a world that is paradoxically closing up the more globalization and technology gives us the capacity to come closer together.  

Verdict: Satisfying on multiple levels, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the full package: topical and unexpectedly nuanced themes are deftly interwoven with tons of action-packed thrills and excitement. Long story short, Marvel simply gets Captain America right the second time around.

B+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime:136 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Screenplay: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely

Cinematography: Trent Opaloch

Nymphomaniac (Volumes I & II) Review

MAJOR SPOILERS:

Nymphomania. A woman’s sex addiction was always going to be a movie subject bound to attract some curiosity, especially if you found out that the director involved helmed the notorious ‘Antichrist’, a  film that revealed Willem Dafoe’s O-face to unsuspecting audiences worldwide. And just purely on the curiosity front, Von Trier definitely doesn’t disappoint with Nymphomaniac. As a substantive and consistent work on the other hand, Von Trier misses the mark slightly. A 5 hour magnum opus that debuted in its full and uncut form in Von Trier’s native Denmark, the film was edited into two approximately 2 hour-long volumes without the director’s involvement, and one can speculate that this was done for financial reasons of commercial viability (this might be a long shot, but a 5 hour-long marathon of gratuitous nudity, violence, and graphic sex may be too much of an ask for most audiences). For all intents and purposes though, dividing this film serves absolutely no artistic or creative function; Nymphomaniac is one single film and will be reviewed as such. 

With a set up reminiscent of something you would see in a theatrical production, the majority of the film is narrated in retrospect by our protagonist, Joe (Gainsbourg). She recounts her tale through a sophisticated film-long conversation with Seligman (Skarsgard), a gentle and good-natured man who discovers the beaten and bloodied Joe in a derelict alley and takes her to his home to recover. And it is in Seligman’s dreary bedroom that we find out how exactly she got to that point in her life: what unfolds is a fantastical and lurid story that has to be seen to be believed, and one that even Seligman himself begins to question at times. While much of the dialogue, especially between Joe and Seligman, feels stilted and artificial, this comes with the territory in a Von Trier film. His films aren’t interested in reality per se, more an artistic interpretation/embellishment of reality that seeks to reveal truth that exists in the world. 

Although they are both lone wolfs, our two main characters are, for the purposes of this film, complete polar opposites. A completely de-sexualized metaphorical eunuch, the bookish and timid Seligman listens to her story with an avid fascination, but as Joe notes early on, he doesn’t particularly find the sexual parts titillating; his interests are more cerebral and scholarly in nature. But even while Seligman is as non-threatening as they come, there is something worrisome and off-putting about him; he is a man who has clearly spent too much time time imprisoned in isolation with only his books to keep him company. Joe is another person in solitary confinement; the makings of her prison, however, are of a completely different nature. The Joe we meet is a bruised and broken wreck of a woman, both emotionally and physically. Driven by an immense self-loathing, Joe’s journey is one to find salvation for herself as she explores with Seligman the various avenues her sexual addiction has taken her. Nymphomaniac isn’t just about naughty sex scenes and BDSM à la 50 Shades of Grey; it’s about a woman’s struggle to reconcile her unquenchable and overwhelming sexuality with her identity as a human being and her desire to have some semblance of a happy, normal and validated life. Powerful stuff indeed.

Shot in Von Trier’s typical minimalist style that puts the focus on the characters above all else, Nymphomaniac’s frankness on a taboo subject is refreshing. While numerous scenes are explicit and risqué, they never feel exploitative or cheap; here is a director who has complete mastery of his vision for this project and a confidence and daring to see it through that is clearly visible on screen. Utilizing his muse Charlotte Gainsbourg to great effect once more, what’s surprising is that a sizable bulk of Joe’s part is actually played by actress Stacy Martin, a complete unknown who portrays Joe during her younger years. The interesting thing to notice here is that the actresses embody very different portrayals of the same woman, to the extent that it doesn’t feel like the same person. While the young Joe imbues more ethereal qualities and a vivacious sexuality, the older version radiates a world-wearied inner strength and a refined frustrated anger of sorts. But while the performances of Seligman and Joe are spot on, it is in the casting decisions of Nymphomaniac that we find the most glaring flaws. As Joe’s on-again off-again love interest Jerôme, Shia LaBeouf is an unmitigated disaster. Watching the American actor, who actually has a substantial role in this film, struggle with an inconsistent and woeful British accent is jarring and immediately takes you out of the experience. And although not quite as disastrous, the performance of former Hollywood A-lister Christian Slater as Joe’s father comes with an equally off-putting British accent. A note should be also made about the misguided choice to cast a different actor to portray Jerôme as an older man, a choice that will undoubtedly confuse audiences and take them out of the experience once more. 

While those are the most blatant mistakes, this only scratches the surface of what could have been done better in Nymphomaniac. The novelistic framing structure is interesting in that it's both a drawback and a plus in this movie. While it’s initially entertaining to watch Joe find sources of inspiration in Seligman's bedroom for the chapter headings of her story, it starts to feel perfunctory and unnecessary further on into the film, especially when it tends to be a cue for Seligman to get into some bizarre metaphysical ponderings and analogies. And as is often the case with films that traverse into 3 or 4 hour territory, some parts will be stronger than others and the flabby Nymphomaniac is no exception. While there is endless creativity to be found here, some chapters are more intriguing and effective, it’s as simple as that. Joe’s scenes with her dying father are ineffective and feel false, half-hearted even. While morbidly fascinating, the “Dangerous Men” chapter is overlong, perhaps needlessly graphic, and difficult to reconcile with the rest of the overall work. On the other hand, the segment involving Uma Thurman is inspired and equal parts hilarious and incredibly awkward (think an R-rated Ricky Gervais episode of The Office). 

And perhaps this could be attributed to an unreliable narrator, but Joe’s relationships with the main characters in her life feel frustratingly hollow and incomplete. Although Jerôme comes closest to being the love of her life, he is a beguiling and truly mystifying character who comes and goes through the story and we never truly understand him or his motivations; we only seem to see him through the foggy prism of Joe’s flawed retrospection. The same could be said about Joe’s relationship with her parents and especially with P., a seemingly pivotal character whose part feels rushed and not as well thought out as the rest of the film. It is at the point that we get introduced to P. that everything starts to get wobbly and slightly farcical. Joe adopts a rather far-fetched profession and begins a poorly developed relationship with P., and what these actions lead her to make for a rather underwhelming and unsatisfactory conclusion after all that we’d been through with this character. 

Is there identity outside of sexuality? Can one truly be a human being without any form of sexuality, suppressed or otherwise? The film seems to want to tell us that the answer to both questions is a resounding ‘No’. Seligman claims to be completely asexual, but as was the case with the suppressed paedophile Joe exposes towards the end of the film, her recounting of a sexually charged tale slowly and steadily opens the doors on a long stifled innate and irresistible sexual desire that Seligman inevitably must succumb to, for he is only human. Initially wary of him, as she must tend to be of all men, Joe eventually warms up to Seligman and begins to trust him, a fact that makes his betrayal in the end even more gut-wrenching, as predictable as basic human nature though it may be. This is where we get a oddly poetic complete role reversal from where the two principal characters started off: Joe resolves to become asexual, right when Seligman’s nascent sexuality finally begins to bloom. And in the end, with the powerful and viscerally representative image of Joe standing on a ledge across from a horribly twisted and contorted tree that continues to grow on the top of a rocky cliff against all the odds, the tragedy of Joe’s struggle becomes all the more obvious. Armed (literally) with a new determination to suppress her sexuality and salvage her life, the film closes on an ambiguous note. Will Joe succeed in her task?  Yet again, all signs in the film point to the answer of that pivotal question being a 'No'. 

Verdict: Equal parts frustrating and fascinating, Nymphomaniac is an unflinching and unglamorous chronicle of a woman’s sex addiction that comes packaged in the typical no holds barred Lars Von Trier approach. Themes of identity and its inextricable tie to sexuality are deftly touched upon, but the film’s impact is dented by a weak and misguided final third. 

B-

Trailer:

Movie info:

Volume I Runtime: 118 minutes

Volume II Runtime: 123 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf

Director: Lars von Trier

Screenplay: Lars von Trier

Cinematography: Manuel Alberto Claro