“Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?”
The Winter Soldier is the moment I fully got on board the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Everything up to this point was okay with good to great moments and after here came some of Marvel’s more creative and experimental projects, but this is where I finally saw the potential of a superhero film to show a depth of story, with ideas that could be transferred to the real world. It’s where the humor finally clicked with me as one of Marvel’s strongest assets and this is the moment in cinematic time when I could no longer tell with absolute certainty between reality and digital effects.
I’m guessing we all have that movie moment when you realize effects have finally reached the point of photorealism. Sure, Mark Ruffalo looked fake in his Iron Man suit, but the jungle of Wakanda doesn’t remind me of a forest in Atlanta, where Infinity War staged its finale. Now when I watch a behind the scenes video of a blockbuster the number and placement of green screens and digital screens doesn’t even compute. In The Winter Soldier, it happens when Cap faces down a jet, jumping on board and taking down its engines with his shield. None of the shots appear to be restricted by technical concerns and while this may not be a big deal to some, this was the completion of two decades of ‘spot the special effect.’
Though the camera is sometimes too close and the action scenes are slightly over-edited, the stuntwork here is superb, easily Marvel’s best and up there with Fury Road and Mission: Impossible’s top scenes. It cost a lot of money to make this, but for once it looks like the lion’s share didn’t go to the digital effects department. The urban warfare scenes took a page from Mission: Impossible and added scale. Big without spilling into overblown. Such a step up from the first Captain America which has the worst action of the Marvel franchise. Also, the first reveal of The Winter Soldier is a great shot.
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