Anthony Mackie – Action Hero Movies

This movie has a deadly biohazard theme from the start, just in time for what allegedly happened in the real world just a few years later. Pre-programming much? Fortunately this theme quickly disappears and doesn’t spoil the rest of the movie.

Chris Evans stars as Captain America – the main character in this movie; although there are a few other major characters from The Avengers also playing roles here, including Wanda Maximoff aka The Scarlet Witch, played by Elizabeth Olsen with vibes of Hillary Clinton. And Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson – the camerawork during her fight scenes is particularly shaky, presumably to hide the fact that a stunt double is doing all the work for her, and this makes for rather unpleasant viewing during action scenes. There’s also plenty of action from the start by Anthony Mackie who plays Cap’s flying negro sidekick called Sam Wilson.

Later on we also see Tony Stark aka Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr, and Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Marvel’s equivalent of Green Arrow) played by Jeremy Renner. Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) even get involved, as does T’Chala aka Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), and Iron Man’s sidekick War Machine aka Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle) and even Bruce Banner aka The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – they all have roles in this movie as if it’s just another big Avengers get-together, but I guess it’s fine, because let’s be honest, it would be quite boring if it were all Captain America unless they had an interesting & creative storyline as good as the original from 2011.

There’s some good action in this movie – it may even be Chadwick Boseman’s best outing as the Black Panther – better than his work in the first dedicated Black Panther movie which came a couple of years later. But there’s also some unpleasant arguing in this movie, followed by a divide between the order-following Avengers and the ones who think they know better (including Cap). The script is a bit messy too. It’s a real mixed bag of a movie, and for this reason, I’ll rate it Bang Average just like both previous Captain America movies and both prior Avengers movies too.

No amount of loud music during simplistic high kicking, or non-martial gymnastic tumbling by stuntmen, is going to make Captain America any less dead dry in character or any more cool in superpowers. But they seemed to think it might, with all that kind of noise in the first 15 minutes. Then again later on.

Sure, there’s some decent action bits here, and I mean fractions of bits, from time to time, but that’s literally the limit of this movie’s coolness. Having said that, it’s still mostly easy viewing, while they try to work through an attention-worthy script. So I can’t give it less than a Bang Average rating, but I can’t rate it any higher either. It’s about equal to Chris Pratt’s Guardians Of The Galaxy as well as Chris Pine’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit – both also from 2014. It’s also about equal to the original Captain America: The First Avenger from 2011.

Chris Evans stars in this movie, as Captain America himself, and while he’s a bit of a boring superhero, he seems like a pleasant guy which makes for easy viewing that’s neither very awesome nor very distressing.

Further cast members include Scarlett Johansson who plays Agent Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow). She’s not bad, but she looks like a Ghost in the Shell of her former self (pardon the pun). At first I really thought she were someone else brought in to be a poundshop or dollarstore version of Scarlett Johansson, then I realised it’s actually her. Maybe it’s the hair style, or the outfits, or she gained weight, or all of the above, but something’s definitely off. She seems drained of energy here. A Stark contrast to when she appeared in Iron Man 2 (pardon the pun). It’s like she aged heavily in those four years.

There’s also Anthony Mackie playing Sam Wilson – he’s probably been casted mainly to represent the ethnic audience and to replicate the chemistry Robert Downey Jr had with Don Cheadle in Iron Man. With vibes of Jamie Fox crossed with Snoop Dogg, he does a fair job.

Frank Grillo also adds value to this movie, as one of the swat-type guys in the SHIELD strike team. He’s got a bit of character to him, and holds down the role of a tactical team member quite well. He’s a familiar face since he’s worked his way into a lot of cheap action hero movies in recent years.

Samuel L Jackson, as Director of SHIELD, does a decent job in raising the standard of the slower scenes from what would probably otherwise be quite boring, into something that’s ultimately quite watchable. He also does a great job of adding value to the occasional high-octane action scene he’s involved in, such as the car chase that results in him being kidnapped. Very rarely does a car chase scene so long drawn out as that one manage to sustain attention so well as that one did.

Shortly after 30 minutes in, after the car chase, this movie becomes increasingly interesting as Samuel L Jackson’s character is waiting in Cap’s apartment, hiding out, telling him silently that SHIELD is compromised, then gets shot by a sniper who Cap pursues only to discover he’s just as physically gifted as himself. That sniper is the main antagonist for much of the movie, played adequately by Sebastian Stan mostly from behind a mask.

By contrast, the last half hour is pretty weak. It’s a fairly non descript one-dimensional long-winded drama-oriented dull-action-based ending, so while at times this movie gets exciting, overall I can’t rank it any better than Bang Average, as mentioned earlier – on a par with the original Captain America: The First Avenger.

Further sequels

If you’re following the Marvel movies in order, next up is Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) which has an original set of characters, followed by Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) where Captain America returns alongside Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk and Black Widow just like in the last Avengers movie. Then we get Ant-Man to round off MCU Phase 2, then Phase 3 kick-starts in 2016 with a third movie dedicated to Captain America, called Captain America: Civil War. Several Marvel movies later, towards the end of Phase 5, we get the fourth Captain America movie called Captain America: Brave New World (2025) no longer starring Chris Evans who says he is happily retired from the role already.