The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

 

Months have passed since Steve Rogers retired as Captain America and passed his shield on to Sam “The Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie), who declined to take up the mantle. A tip from Air Force officer Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) puts the wingsuit-wearing hero on the trail of the Flag Smashers, a group of serum-enhanced terrorists opposed to restoring the pre-Blip status quo. Sam teams up with the recently pardoned Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who is attempting to make amends for the murders he committed as the brainwashed assassin the Winter Soldier. Their pursuit of the Flag Smashers is crashed by John Walker (Wyatt Russell), a decorated soldier tapped by the government as the new Captain America whose brash style conflicts with Sam and Bucky’s approach. Desperate to thwart one terrorist, Sam and Bucky reluctantly turn to another: the imprisoned Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl), whose prior vendetta nearly tore The Avengers apart.

 

Following on the heels of WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier swaps magic and metanarrative for a much more grounded milieu that sees Bucky deny the existence of wizards and Sam fight lending discrimination to secure a bank loan to help his sister (Adepero Oduye) fix up their family’s fishing boat. For those seeking escapism, this may seem a discomfiting letdown, but for many more, the show’s exploration of relatable themes – confronting legacies and coping with traumas – is one of its strongest points.

 

In its own way, writer/creator Malcolm Spellman’s work here is as bold as anything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He discards the colorblind fantasy of Sam simply being able to pick up the shield and put on the costume in favor of exploring the trials and travails of being a Black man tasked with embodying American ideals, an issue further complicated by Sam’s discovery of Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a would-be Cap replacement who was secretly imprisoned and experimented on years ago. Spellman’s eye for complexity extends to the antagonists as well, allowing the Flag Smashers and their young leader Karli (Erin Kellyman) to tap into the “voice of the dispossessed” zeitgeist. Zemo isn’t exactly redeemed – if anything, revealing his closer-to-the-comics aristocratic roots would seem to make him a candidate for further villainy – but he too gets the “ruthlessness in service of a benevolent cause” treatment, questing to rid the world of super soldiers before they cause further damage. As worthwhile as these ideas are, a six-episode series seems at times too small a venue for them. While there is no shortage of powerful moments, the series can feel overstuffed and underdeveloped, with its pacing the most frequent victim of its ambition. The final episode in particular has an odd rhythm, compounded by Sam’s overly long and stagey rebuke to a senator whose life he just saved.

 

Unevenness aside, director Kari Skogland deserves credit for putting together a polished production amid the challenges of a global pandemic. The COVID outbreak during filming led to location changes and wreaked havoc with the schedule, yet the on-screen product doesn’t look like something put together on the fly. From immersive aerial sequences to tense, fluid fights, the action is cinema-smooth. The show also makes good use of local color whether it’s highlighting a Louisiana fishing community or the shimmering nightlife of the Southeastern Asian enclave Madripoor (astonishingly, shot in a well-disguised Atlanta neighborhood).

 

Beyond The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s technical merits, it’s also a much-deserved spotlight for Mackie’s talents. From The Hurt Locker to Night Catches Us to Pain and Gain, Mackie has proven adept at providing everything from panic to panache to pathos. His MCU debut, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, gave him a chance to do some character exploration, but the sheer size of the cast in recent Avengers outings has left him largely sidelined. Not anymore. Here, he gets to do everything from trade banter with Bucky to convincingly project having the weight of the world on his shoulders. Speaking of burdens, Russell too deserves plaudits for humanizing a walking jingoistic stereotype. Walker’s blunt embrace of violence, mirroring that of the Flag Smashers, is meant to be contemptible, but in both cases, we’re allowed to understand where the characters are coming from.

 

By its conclusion, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has left a number of threads for future movies to tackle, but it is more than a mere placeholder. Tense and timely if sometimes also rushed, it offers fun without frivolity.