Frend’s on Film: Disney Gets Political with ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

by Peter Frend on April 1, 2014

in Print Reviews,Reviews

We live in an era where privacy is a myth and horrible things are routinely done in the name of national security. It’s a world that we were warned about for years, and now it seems the world depicted in 1984 — the infamous Apple commercial — has come true.

But in times like these any source that chooses to bring awareness to this issue, whether it be a whistleblower like Edward Snowden or a multi-million-dollar blockbuster should be rewarded.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one such movie that, given the beneficial hindsight of 20 or 30 years, will be seen as a turning point for a generation.

A subversive treatise on the threat of big government and privatized security disguised as a tentpole Marvel movie, I suspect this film will inspire a whole generation of little Snowdens who went in expecting a summer popcorn movie and came out questioning their government and authority at large.

There is plenty of allegorical fodder in the film for someone eager to look for it: Former allies have become enemies (China), technology that is meant to be trusted implicitly ends up betraying its supposed masters (drone warfare) and a guy flies around with mechanical falcon wings (Area 51).

In short, it’s hard to unsee the political thread that runs through the film, and Disney should be commended for their willingness to go this extreme. They’re one global corporation from which we could all learn a thing or two.

Chris Evans charms as a stand-in for the American public, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed everyman with a washboard stomach and model good looks that we can all relate too, and it’s no accident that Robert Redford plays a character on the other side of the coin from the Bob Woodward character he played in All The President’s Men, another expert metaphor that shows even our most trusted sources can be corrupted and changed over time.

And that we all need to be vigilant watchmen, not just of our today, but our tomorrow as well.

Also Scarlett Johansson‘s tits look amazing.

Rating: 4 Star Spangles out of 5

Peter Frend

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