The Blu-ray for Thor: The Dark World includes a new Marvel One-Shot, All Hail the King, featuring Sir Ben Kingsley’s return. With the Blu-ray out this week, Marvel invited fans to the Arclight theater to see All Hail the King on the big screen. As a surprise, Kevin Feige showed the first 10 minutes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and CraveOnline was there to see it. I’ll keep the spoilers vague of course.
The best part of the opening is actually the non-action introduction to characters. We meet Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in the first scene, as Cap (Chris Evans) is using his Super Soldier powers to do something utterly mundane around the Washington, D.C. National Mall. That’s some of the most fun stuff about a superhero movie, when it’s just about how someone lives day to day with special abilities.
I really like Cap and Sam’s meet-cute, as it were. The location is great: grounded in the real world and patriotic. They share war stories, which is poignant from Sam’s perspective as a modern day soldier in a war with which we’re still dealing, and applying it to Cap’s unique but still relatable problem. The dialogue has some fun with Cap brushing up on his history, and an even better sight gag brings it home, yet never overplays the “I’ve been frozen” joke.
Then we get into our first big action scene. That dialogue that opens all the Winter Soldier trailers? That’s early in the film, so if you’re wondering what happens after Cap jumps out of a plane without a parachute, you won’t have to wait long to find out.
Marvel has been calling The Winter Soldier a political thriller. Perhaps all that means is shaky cam fight scenes like in the Bourne movies. The fight scenes in this opening sequence are pretty jittery and quick cut, which is a shame. I just don’t care for that style. Why make Cap look like everyone else? To be fair I didn’t have any trouble discerning who Cap was fighting or how he was besting them.
I was especially pleased to see what looked like very skilled doubles who can really fight. Don’t worry, it’s intercut nicely with shots of Evans and Scarlett Johansson doing their own moves too. I’m legitimately happy to see some highly trained performers getting some screen time, even if it’s in a wig or a mask with their backs turned. That’s how movies are made, and I only notice the differences because I study this. It’s seamless aesthetically.
Although I lament some of the shaky handheld fight stuff, the opening action sequence displays a beautiful long sweeping camera move. There are some elegant visual effects beats too, including some of Cap’s signature shield moves and some Super Soldier Parkour. There’s an interesting musical stinger for Natasha Romanov (Johansson). You’ll see, or rather you’ll hear.
Of course we’ll reserve judgement until we see the whole movie, but that ought to get you excited. There’s an extended look at The Winter Soldier on the Thor: The Dark World Blu-ray, plus the All Hail the King One-Shot for which we interviewed Sir Ben himself.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
