Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I love this version of the poster

I never expected to enjoy Captain America. He's one of those superheroes, like Superman, who is just so uptight that he's not a lot of fun, and besides, every other film version has sucked mightily.

The First Avenger blew me away. It might not have been ground-breaking as a movie, but it blasted through what I thought I knew about Captain America. It played the origin almost identically to the 1990 Albert Pyun version - that's right, Bad Movie lovers; Albert Pyun made a Captain America movie - but with just enough changes to make the difference. Weakling Steve Rogers wasn't a wannabe hero anymore, he was a hero constrained by his physique, and once he became a super soldier he was shown to be heroic, but also human, with flaws and humour just like anyone else. The Avengers built on this characterisation, and brought us up to the point of The Winter Soldier.

Spoiler free to start with: The Winter Soldier is an action movie, but it is also a post-Cold War Cold War conspiracy thriller. It's watchwords are 'trust no-one', although its moral is actually to trust in people, and its calling card is betrayal. The casting of Robert Redford, erstwhile poster boy for the fight against corrupt governments (All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor) as a slick politician is a clear nod to its origins.

Other new faces in the film are Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), very nicely pitched as a scarred veteran soldier who happens to be black, Agent 13/Sharon (Emily VanCamp), and Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo), while Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Cobie Smulders return as SHIELD agents Nick Fury, Natasha Romanoff and Maria Hill. Toby Jones and Jenny Agutter also reappear in smaller roles as Emil Zola and the unnamed British World Security Council representative. This is a pretty sizable ensemble, and yet everyone gets their moment.

The spoilery stuff will start after two more paragraphs.

The plot of the movie follows Steve Rogers as he uncovers a conspiracy woven throughout SHIELD, and plot which threatens to bring about total world domination. It falters a little on the occasions when you wonder why in the name of Stan Lee this isn't worth assembling some form of team for the purposes of, perhaps, a little avenging, but that's a minor quibble and can actually be taken care of through fridge logic: Tony Stark has (publicly at least) blown up all of his suits and had his chest reactor removed; Bruce Banner is presumably in seclusion; and Thor is being as subtle as he can be. We can only presume that Hawkeye is sufficiently undercover that even he doesn't know where he is.

We bounce from set piece to set piece with just enough quiet time to get caught up and see what's happening, just as an action thriller ought to be. There is also some musing on identity and loss, which is brief, but surprisingly poignant.

And now, the spoilery stuff.

Much of the film actually approaches cinematic perfection. In particular the quieter moments transcend what could be trite material to be quite touching, especially when Natasha is questioning her own identity after years of assumed roles. I also applaud moving the character out of the fanservice zone, putting her in formal suits and casuals away from the trademark catsuit.

Speaking of costume, I loved the switch back to the original fighting uniform to signal Cap's commitment to an ideal instead of a pragmatic cause, and Falcon's flight suit was a thing of beauty. The Winter Soldier was chillingly realised by the somewhat baby-faced Sebastian Stan, even if he could have had his own Image Comics title in the nineties with that look.

If I were more of a comics geek than I am, I would probably have suffered some sort of terminal nerdgasm. I'm not sure, but I suspect that pretty much every named character was either reappearing from an earlier film, or has a long and venerable history in the comics, down to the naming of Stephen Strange as on of Insight's prime targets. I strongly suspect that you would find the same if you were able to read every target name that flashed up on screen (I was watching in 3D and barely caught 'Anthony Stark').

On the downside, The Winter Soldier does something that The First Avenger impressively avoided, and many of the larger ensemble succumb to second hero syndrome in the finale, wherein the loyalist SHIELD agents basically exist to confirm the extent of the HYDRA infiltration and the Winter Soldier's reversion to mission by getting slaughtered in droves. I think my only other criticism is that I really wanted it to be 13, not Falcon, who put Rumlow on his arse, because anyone that macho just has to be taken out by a tiny blonde.

Oh, and that the climax of the movie would have been rather more tense if we hadn't seen the Insight helicarriers crashing in flames all over the trailers.

The film has a dramatic effect on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, signalling as it does the end of SHIELD; it will be interesting to see what it does with that. I am particularly looking forward to next week's episode of Marvel's: Some Guys on a Plane.

Muppets Most Wanted

So, I love the Muppets, always have done. I have always loved The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppet Movie grew on me as I got older. Muppets Treasure Island and Muppets Christmas Carol are amazing, although Muppets from Space was a bit of a let down for me.

And then there was The Muppets, a bold gamble relaunching the franchise for a new generation. Some didn't like it, most did; I loved it, as did Hannah. And now our daughter loves the Muppets as well - the memory of sitting on the sofa, watching Elton John being savaged by crocodiles as Arya fell asleep in my arms is one I will always treasure - so naturally we went to see the advance screening of Muppets Most Wanted on Sunday.

I had a great time. The movie has all the usual Muppet energy and fun, loads of great bad jokes and songs and dances. I do have to say that, for my money, it's not as good as The Muppets, but that's not that much of a caveat.

The film begins with the Muppets left alone at the end of the last movie - and, just FYI, you may find the revelation that that heartwarming crowd scene where the Muppets were welcomed by their devoted fans is now, in-universe, written off as peopled entirely by hired extras to be utterly devastating - and segues into the first musical number, the self-deprecating 'We're Doing a Sequel'. We then meet our antagonists, 'tour manager' Dominic and Constantine, the world's most dangerous frog, and the film swiftly carries us into a story of the Muppets' comeback world tour being used as cover for a series of audacious crimes, while Kermit is replaced by Constantine and thrown in a Siberian gulag.

The plot is mostly used to string together a series of set-pieces. It's more substantial than the 'getting the band back together' riff of The Muppets, but there are two things slightly lacking. Jason Siegel's script absolutely crackled with love for the Muppets, and the new film isn't quite willing to go all in in the same way. Also, in the unpredictable manner of musicals, this time Bret Mackenzie hasn't thrown up anything to match The Muppets. 'We're Doing a Sequel' is fun, but pales beside 'Life's a Happy Song' (or 'The Rainbow Connection', 'Hey a Movie', 'Shiver My Timbers' or 'Scrooge', making it perhaps the weakest Muppet opening number of all), and the big show number, 'Something So Right', is no 'Man or Muppet', Celine Dion or no Celine Dion.

That being said, on its own lights there's a lot to like. 'I'm Number One' is a fun villain song, the gulag chorus singing 'The Big House' is both enjoyable and a nice call back to Caper, and the 'Interrogation Song' is much better than it has a right to be, thanks to the energetic byplay between Ty Burrell and Eric Jacobsen as Sam. 'I Can Get You What You Want (Cockatoo in Malibu)' is an oddity, being the most Conchordesque of the songs in the film, and sticking out in much the same way 'I'm Not Crying' did in The Pirates.

There is also the usual parade of cameos, and just as I was too young to get a lot of the cameos in The Muppet Movie the first time around, I think I'm too old to get a lot of them this time. Still, there are plenty of faces I did recognise in between the twelve year olds, and contrary to my fears from the trailers, not everyone in Europe ends up being an American doing an accent.

So, overall, Muppets Most Wanted wasn't the Muppet sequel I wanted, but it was the one that I got and I'm okay with that.