Piece of the Puzzle: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 E2 - Heavy Is the Head

In which I review the latest episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

After last week's pyrrhic victory against Hydra, a broken S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to track down "Crusher" Creel, who successfully stole the Obelisk - a mysterious artifact capable of transforming organic tissue into stone.  But with agents Hartley and Idaho dead and the questionably-loyal Agent Hunter captured by Brigadier General Talbot, S.H.I.E.L.D. is running out of options.  When Coulson is contacted by Reina - the former head of Project Centipede - he sees a chance to neutralize Creel and secure the Obelisk from enemy control.

Heavy Is the Head concludes the events of Shadows so completely that the two should have been merged into a two-hour season premiere.  Combined, they compose a far more complete view into Coulson's new S.H.I.E.L.D. and its component members than either alone can provide.  Coulson is not simply bearing the burdens of his responsibilities as Director, but has been regularly slipping into the same fugue state that we saw him in at the end of Season 1 - carving the same circuit-like symbols into the walls that John Garrett was after taking the drug GH-325.  Its apparently increasing frequency raises the question of whether or not Coulson is beginning to succumb to Garret's psychosis, while its impossible cohesion with Garret's designs suggest that it is something altogether more profound.

It appears as if Agent Fitz is not as completely oblivious to his delusions of Agent Simmons as Shadows seemed to suggest.  When fellow technician Alfonso Mackenzie failed to acknowledge the hallucinated Simmons' presence, Fitz deflected his ignorance rather than confronted it.  When asked about how he felt about her leaving, he looked directly at his hallucination while answering Mack's question.  He is not ignorant of his hallucinations, but chooses to believe in them rather than facing the truth of Simmons' absence.  And after the end-of-episode preview for Making Friends and Influencing People, I can only imagine what confronting the real Simmons - and the circumstances surrounding her defection - will do to the increasingly unstable Fitz.

Perhaps the most interesting development of the episode occurs once Reina acquires the Obelisk.  Despite knowing what it has done to every single person who has ever touched it - including the seemingly immune Creel - she grasps it with her bare hands.  Rather than petrifying her, it turned on, calling to mind her question to the "enlightened" Garrett: "what will I become?"  And, given her now suspect physiology as well as her association with Skye's allegedly monstrous parents, I can't help but ask "what will Skye become?"

Like its preceding episode, Heavy Is the Head promise second season that's far superior the show's first.  It continues to broaden the scope of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s missions, plumb the depths of its mysteries and expand the conflicts of its growing cast of characters.  Overall, I give this episode an 8/10 and eagerly look forward to next week's installment.

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From the Vault: In the Mood for Love

In which I review a randomly-selected film from my collection.

As you might recall from last week's Date Night, I've gotten into a really bad habit of blind-buying movies and then simply never watching them.  Although I was recently able to cross off Zodiac, the list was never-the-less extensive: the Three Colors trilogy, Reservoir Dogs, Dr. Strangelove, Infernal Affairs, Lawrence of Arabia and In the Mood for Love.  In light of this, I opted to bend the rules of this series and randomly-selected one of those eight films to review.  And because of a slight mix-up concerning when tonight's episode of Gotham aired, I found myself with a little bit of extra time on my hands to hammer something out.

When Secretary Su Li-zhen and her husband move into the same building as Journalist Chow Mo-wan and his wife in 1960's Hong Kong, it seemed like a brave new chapter in both couples' lives.  But with Su's husband always away on business and Chow's wife always working late, their happiness soon deteriorates into isolation and longing.  Drawn to each other's company, Su and Chow begin to suspect that their spouses are having an affair with one another.  But despite their partners' infidelities and their growing romance, they know that they can never act on their mutual feelings for one another without repeating their spouses' cycles of lies an betrayal.

Having been exposed to director Wong Kar-wai through Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love was not the follow-up that I expected.  Whereas Chungking Express was erratically paced and edited - lurching eagerly from shot to shot with no consideration for how it would get there - In the Mood for Love is slowly paced, methodically strung-together and constrictively shot.  Abandoning an aesthetic of enthusiasm over experience, the film expresses an insightful maturity towards its subjects that its predecessor would have lost in its youthful exuberance.

Chungking Express: a constant blur of action and movement. 

In the Mood for Love is a perfect case-study of cinematic cohesion.  From conception to execution, every facet of the film - writing, acting, shot composition, score - fits together like pieces of a puzzle, forming a greater picture than its components parts could ever manage on their own.  Every fragment of dialog, lingering silence and subtle motion builds upon its central themes of social confinement and impossible desire.  You don't watch In the Mood for Love, you experience it.  Wong Kar-wai's singular, driving aesthetic inserts his audience into the narrative so subtly and so completely that it is impossible to leave without living through the heartbreak and dejection of its protagonists.

More than anything else, the film shows off Wong Kar-wai's flair for cinematography and shot composition.  Scenes involving the supporting cast are crowded and uncomfortably closed-in.  Shots are framed by windows, doorways, stairwells and curtains: closing off the natural scope of the camera to a mere fraction of what audiences - especially Western audiences - have come to expect from a contemporary film,  Character's bodies are often segmented into mere bits of anatomy - feet, hands, shoulders, back, head - or speak from off-camera entirely, reinforcing the impression that there is not enough room for them in the world in which they find themselves.

Su and Chow pass each other in a confined alley.

When either Su or Chow are shown in isolation from the rest of the cast, however, the cinematography changes.  They are shown in more familiar medium close-ups, from far greater distances and free from the obstructions that clutter the more claustrophobic group shots.  The spaces that they find themselves in alone at night are broad and expansive, emphasizing their isolation in a vast, lonely world that seems to be populated exclusively by themselves.

What is most striking however, is the manner in which the audience views the protagonists.  While supporting characters are often shown directly, Su and Chow are rarely scene front-on.  They are viewed through their mirrored reflections and kaleidoscopic refractions.  Even when not shown through an intermediary, they are often either shown from behind or with their faces otherwise obscured.  It is as if their true selves - their longing for meaningful relationships and personal connections - are so isolated from the world, that they refuse to show them even in solitude, with only the camera to bear witness to it.

In the Mood for Love is the kind of film that stalks the recesses of your conciousness long after the credits stop rolling and the screen fades to black.  If I would have been asked even a day ago what I felt about it, my opinion would be far different from what it was the day before and even what it is today.  Its a romance veiled in smoke: twisting tendrils parting to reveal new meaning even as it shifts to obscure others.  I am confident that it is a film that will only grow more signifigant and appreciated with time.  Overall, I would give it an 8/10.

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Piece of the Puzzle: Family Guy S13 E1 - The Simpsons Guy

In which I review the Family Guy / Simpsons crossover episode.

I'll admit it.  I was sucked into the hype going into the episode.  I grew up on The Simpsons and grew into a Family Guy fan while at college.  The thought of throwing the shows, each with its own wildly different brand of comedy, together for a one-hour cross-over was far too perfect for me to pass up.  I knew going into it that it could never live up to the innumerable possibilities that fans have dreamt of over the decades, but I didn't care.  This episode was happening and I was going to be a part of it.

After Peter's popular new comic strip angers the women of Quahog, the Griffins need to leave town for a while.  After their car is stolen outside of Springfield, the Simpsons offer to take them in.  While Homer and Peter hunt down the car thief, Stewie begins idolizing Bart, Lisa helps Meg find something that she's good at, Chris and Brian lose Santa's Little Helper at Krusty Burger and Lois and Marge - who draw the short straws for crossover subplots - go see a movie.  But the families' new friendship is threatened when Homer discovers that Pawtucket Patriot Ale is nothing but a cheap rip-off of Duff.

If The Avengers taught us anything, it's that character-driven crossovers only work when the characters are the focus.  We don't care why the Griffins are in Springfield so long as we can see Homer and Peter swing a few back at Moe's before having a Giant Chicken-styled fight across Springfield.  And, in this regard, the episode was a rampant success.  Despite an overly-long introduction - which is nearly a quarter of the episode's overall length - and a disappointing conclusion, the families' interactions are pure gold.  Homer and Peter's failed attempts at catching the Griffin's car thief, Bart showing Stewie the ropes of being a modern-day delinquent, Lisa joining in Meg's quest for self-worth, Brian's inability to find acceptance as an intelligent member of the family and even Louis' disdain for Marge's concern that the penguins in Surfs Up 2 might drown are all pitch-perfect representations of characters that we've watched develop for upwards of twenty-six years.

More than anything, The Simpsons Guy highlights the inherent incongruity of the two shows.  I don't mean that the comedy stylings themselves are too different to make work together.  In fact, watching Homer's failed attempt at a Family Guy-style cutaway gag was one of the highlights of the episode.   I mean that while Bart and Stewie might seem like the quintessential bad boys of TV, Family Guy has always employed a harder edge for its characters.  While Bart is essentially a twenty-first century continuation of Dennis the Menace - limiting himself to crank calls and petty vandalism - Stewie is downright psychopathic: guilty of assault, battery, predatory lending and murder.  While Bart suffers through his bullies' abuses, Stewie drugs, abducts and tortures them, resulting in Bart's ultimate rejection of their budding friendship.  While Lisa commemorates her newfound connection with Meg by giving her her most valued possession (her saxophone), Meg does so through carving Lisa's name into her arm.  Lois and Brian both reject their counterparts for their insufferable timidity and stupidity respectively, while Homer and Peter's friendship devolves into an all-out brawl.

The episode ultimately falters, however, by placing a greater emphasis on plot over character.  The last quarter of the episode is devoted to a court case between the Pawtucket and Duff Breweries for intellectual property theft: a microcosm of the pissing contest between each show's pettiest fans.  Pairing up similar characters just to cry foul about it and swapping catchphrases back and forth like sloppy seconds - in short, placing greater importance on the mere existence of a crossover than on the situations that organically develop from it - kept the episode from being equal to, let alone greater than, the sum of its parts.

Either unwilling or incapable of rising above their petty rivalry, The Simpsons Guy is a sadly average-quality episode for both of its component shows.  Funny, but never hilarious - clever, but never insightful - it never truly rose to the occasion.  Although still a must-see for fans of either show, I ultimately give the episode a 7.5/10.

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Unreality Companion: Over-Baturation

In which I develop on the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

This week at unreality, I reviewed the series premiere of Fox's Gotham.  However, in looking back at all of the Batman outings that we've had over the years, I found myself agreeing with Moviebob that "maybe, just maybe, we've finally reached the point where there's enough Batman for a while."

Just think about it for a minute: how much Batman we've gotten over the years compared to other, equally-deserving heroes.  This is the day and age where any superhero is fair game for a movie.  Marvel's been churning out new superheroes one after another since 2008: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow.  Guardians of the Galaxy has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has earned over $600 million worldwide, and that's a team that couldn't be any more obscure if it actively tried to be.  Meanwhile, DC capped off its Batman quadrilogy with Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and now the sequel to Man of Steel pits him against - you guessed it - Batman.  Oh, and I guess they also ruined Green Lantern while they were at it.

The weird thing is though, after saturating the market with Batman for going on 75 years now, I think that even DC is starting to get it.  I recently reviewed Batman: Assault on Arkham. an adaptation of DC's Suicide Squad that, despite its deceptive title, barely makes use of the Dark Knight at all.  His presence is more of a cameo - something to provide context to an anti-hero heist flick - that could have been dropped entirely and been none the worse for it.  Gotham takes this idea of a Batman-less Batman adaptation even further: setting the series prior to his transformation into a masked vigilante and including the newly orphaned Bruce Wayne as little more than an Easter Egg.  Despite appearing in the upcoming Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, there are currently no scheduled solo Batman movies.  Seriously.  They've schedule six other superhero movies between 2016 and 2018 - Shazam, Sandman, Wonder Woman, Man of Steel 2, a teamup betwee Flash and Green Lantern and a Justice League crossover - with nary a bat in sight.

Gal Gadot makes two.

As far as I'm concerned, that's awesome.  Don't get me wrong: I love Batman.  I think that The Dark Knight is better than The Avengers (barely) and will slavishly watch anything that they throw him into.  The thing is, though, that we don't need a Batman movie right now.  They don't need to release Batman: The Broodening before Dawn of Justice because we've all already seen Batman Begins.  No matter how much Affleck's Batman might differ from Bale's Batman, he's still Batman.  We don't need to see the Waynes' murder, Bruce's training and his eventual debut as a crime-fighter because Christopher Nolan already made that movie in 2005.

I love the fact that they're going to make a Shazam movie, whoss protagonist has the most perfect secret identity ever conceived.  It's great that we're finally going to get a Wonder Woman movie - or any solo superheroine movie, for that matter.  Green Lantern deserves better than that Martin Campbell abomination and I've always loved how his character plays off of the Flash.  I'm not saying that the DCCU should neglect making Batman movies entirely, just that we don't need to see one until after Man of Steel 2.

Piece of the Puzzle: South Park S18 E1 - Go Fund Yourself

In which I review the latest episode of South Park.

In South Park's Season 18 premiere, Stan, Kyle, Eric, Kenny and Butters start a company on Kickstarter.com with the expressed goal of being paid for doing absolutely nothing.  Realizing that the Washington Redskins' trademark has lapsed, they take the name for their new company, despite  the actual Redskins' owner's protests.  As their company gains unprecedented success, however, internal resentment over the name choice and increasingly radical action by a disenfranchised NFL team threaten to destroy everything that the boys have built.

The new face of the Washington Redskins.

It is truly amazing that series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have continued to maintain the show's high quality of writing for going on eighteen years.  While small episode counts per season and keeping the episodes as topical as possible have helped, the credit rests solely on the duo's ability to transform the mundanity of trademark registration law and crowd sourcing into engaging and hilarious launching points for their characters.  Avoiding the problems of similar animated sitcoms - where the second half of the episode has, at best, a tenuous connection with the first half - they seamlessly blend the two topics into a singular comedic experience.

Only South Park could make the Washington Redskins - an organization that has been subject to constant media scrutiny and public ire - into a tragic, defeated people that only want to preserve their dignity on the public stage.  While lesser writers would have made them the butt of a few jokes and called it a day, Parker and Stone parade the team through the episode in the same, insensitive manner that the team has done to Native Americans for decades.  They aren't named after a specific tribe or region - they aren't the Blackhawks or the Illini - but a skin pigmentation.  There is shockingly little difference between naming a team the "Redskins" and naming them the "Negroes" or the "Caucasoids."  Like a patient kindergarten teacher waiting for an ignorant student to learn his lesson, South Park holds the team's hand as it walks them a mile in another's shoes.

The show additionally calls out the unassuming Kickstarker - an crowd-sourcing in general  - for making money off of what is essentially doing nothing: sitting back and raking in profits off of the hard work and fundraising efforts of their membership.  The criticism is, in of itself, lacking.  Unlike their criticisms of the Washington Redskins, Kickstarter is ultimately harmless.  They are the medium between companies (or products) and their micro-investors: a common meeting point where people know to go for entrepreneurial enterprises.   It's like complaining that eBay (or any brick-and-mortar auction house) makes a profit off of the merchandise that their clients bring in to sell to interested parties.  That being said, however, they make excellent use of the website as a launching point for the boys' interactions with the NFL, so any issue with the weight of the satire can be excused for what they manage to do with it.

The show looks to be off to another phenomenal season.  As long as Parker and Stone continue to capitalize on their proven formula for the show, South Park will continue to be among the funniest and most insightful comedies on television.  Ultimately, I would give the episode an 9/10.

Piece of the Puzzle: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 E1 - Shadows

A preface - This segment is not devoted completely to each week's new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode. This is a general series that will actually appear a few times most weeks.  In it, I will review the latest episode of any series that I am following.  Right now it's just goin to be Gotham (starting with this week's Unreality article) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  In October, Arrow, Flash and Constantine will be added to the roster.  January will add Agent Carter, and so on and so on as new shows and seasons roll out.  Needless to say, this should keep me out of trouble for a while.

Despite its four-month hiatus, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. began its second season with the same frenetic energy that its last season ended with.  Labelled a terrorist organization, driven underground by the U.S. government, forced to rely on mercenaries of questionable loyalties and ultimately unsure of who to trust, S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the verge of collapse.  Director Coulson can't even rely on Fitz anymore, who suffered brain damage after Ward jettisoned him and Simmons into the ocean.  When Hydra resurfaces to steal a devastating weapon from military custody, Coulson's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have no choice but to stop them.

"Shadows" proves that season 2 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is just as interested in exploring the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the aftermath of Captain America: The Winter Soldier as season 1 was.  Now fugatives from the government, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents - untrusted by Coulson and desperate to survive - have turned to selling classified intelligence to the highest bidder.  After Garret's death and Skye's rejection, Ward has become suicidal an desperate to redeem himself: refusing to be interrogated by anybody except for Skye.  His intelligence reveals a thriving Hydra network spanning the entire globe: saving their strength as the world instead goes after S.H.I.E.L.D.

Coming into the new season, my biggest concern was what direction they were going to take with Agent Fitz.  We knew that he had suffered a prolonged period without oxygen and had suffered at least some degree of brain damage because of it.  Until now, we had know knowledge of what state his body and mind were in.  Whether he was in a coma or walking around as good as ever (or somewhere inbetween), there was no indication.

The truth is more heartbreaking and tragic than anything that I could have imagined.  Although back, he is obviously damaged.  He is no longer the animated youn agent that was desperate to show Simmons what he really felt for her.  He's no longer the genius that he used to be.  He can't remember everything that he used to, nor explain his line of reasoning.  He can no longer remember the words for things that he used to be able to rattle off like the Doctor speaking techno-babble.  Feeling useless and unwanted, he has grown quiet, brooding and erratic: only able to take solace with Simmons.

The truth is, however, that Simmons is gone.  Fearing that her presence was holding back his recovery, she felt that the best thing for him was to leave.  Incapable of coming to terms with her departure, and coupled with his extensive brain damage, he began manifesting her as a comforting hallucination: something that the rest of the team knows nothing about.

If "Shadows" is any indication to the rest of the season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has finally found its footing as a series.  Under Agent May's direction, the new Skye is now a full-fledged badass: ranked somewhere between Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley.  Antoine Triplett, with his easy smiles and off-the-cuff charisma, easily fills the hole on the team that was left by Agent Ward's defection.  Coulson's new position as Director suits him well, allowing to run his agency through his sole discretion, removing the awkward "this is okay for now, but you can't break the rules forever" framework that defined his previous attempts to do what he felt was right.  The stilted, episodic pacing of the first season has been replaced by a much more organic one, where narrative arcs are staggered so that nothing ever begins or resolves at the same time.

This is the best episode Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to date.  Everything about it - from its twists to its newly-expanded cast - is absolutely perfect.  Marvel had the courage to take Fitz's injuries to their logical extreme and the finesse to make it the best new development of the series.  "Crusher" Creel (aka, Absorbing Man) is an awesome on-the-ground villain whose used imaginatively and well throughout the entire episode.  Anybody who gave up on the show last season should seriously reconsider giving it a second chance in this one.  Overall, I give the episode a 10/10.

Date Night: Zodiac

In which I review a randomly-selected movie from Netflix.

I honestly have no idea why I waited so long to watch Zodiac.  I've wanted to see it since it hit theaters in 2007 as the next big film from the director of Fight Club and Se7en.  I didn't watch it in 2008 after Robert Downey Jr. returned to the A-list in Iron Man.  I didn't watch it after blind-buying it in 2009, nor after Mark Ruffalo became a household name in the wake of The Avengers' unprecedented success.  I waited until it was streamable on Netflix, and even then I waited over a year before I sat down to watch it.

Zodiac, based on Robert Graysmith's 1986 novel, opens during the Zodiac Killer's murder spree across 1960's California.  While San Fransisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery's coverage of the murders puts him at odds with homicide detectives Dave Toschi and William Armstrong, anti-social cartoonist Robert Graysmith becomes just as fascinated with the killer's reign of terror as he is horrified by it.  When victims stop piling up in the early 1970's, however, the public loses interest; Paul Avery is fired from the Chronicle, detective Armstrong transfers out of homicide and Detective Toschi moves on to other cases.  Despite the incredulity of the police and the concern of his wife, Robert Graysmith launches his own private investigation into the murders to uncover the identity of the Zodiac.

Rightly praised for its accurate recreation of the investigation surrounding the murders, Zodiac plays out more like a History Channel dramatization than a thriller built around a real-life Hannibal Lecter.  The characters are used less for their dramatic interactions as they are for their reactions to what the unseen antagonist does.  Greysmith's son seems to only be included because of the killer writing to the newspaper that "school children make nice targets.  I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning.  Just shoot out the front tire [and] then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."  Avery has a wife that briefly speaks from the other end of a telephone and is only mentioned again after she kicks him out of the house (presumably because of Avery's increasingly antagonistic and erratic behavior towards the police investigation).  Toschi's wife exists purely to be annoyed when Graysmith wakes her and her husband up in the middle of the night with another Zodiac theory while Graysmith's wife only seems to exist to steal their kids away to her mother's as Graysmith becomes more and more obsessed with the identity of the Zodiac killer.

Paul Avery (left) and Robert Graysmith (right)

Coming in at over two and one half hours, Zodiac's methodical pacing causes the film to drag where similar films seem to fly by.  The decision to cover the whole of the Zodiac's twisting investigation over three counties and two decades, though admirable, makes for a cumbersome and unwieldy film.  Given how superfluous Graysmith's inclusion is in the first half of the film and how equally superfluous Avery's inclusion is in the second half, the film as a whole would have strongly benefited from cutting one or the other character out entirely: focusing on a single one of their investigations alongside Toschi's.  This would have allowed the film to more thoroughly explore the unfolding drama of the lives of those effected by the murders in a more-efficient 2 hour run-time: more than enough time to explore the details of an unsolved serial killing.

Although well-written, well-acted and well-directed, Zodiac is a film that is far less than the sum of its parts.  Its sole concern with solving the mystery of the killer fails to allow it to delve into the lives of those that he affects: the surviving victims and terrified families worried that their children will be used for target practice on their way to school.  Although ambitious, it's ultimately average.  I give the film a solid 7, while Becky gives it a 6.

The banality of evil: the alleged Zodiac killer.

Unreality Companion: The Meta-Fictional Necessity for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the MCU

In which I develop on the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

In my Unreality this week, I addressed the most important reason for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - a show that seemed a popular lightning rod for ridicule and complaint last year - existing: it's good.  Not just good, but just short of the best series currently on television (just behind Game of Thrones and Attack on Titan).  Here, I will address the second most important reason: it's necessary.

Not too long ago, Moviebob asked whether Marvel was "big enough to go small," referring to the upcoming Netflix series as being proof that Marvel has the ability and desire to make use of their entire canon: that they are willing to do justice to unproven characters like Iron Fist or breath life into failed ventures like Daredevil when all they really need for a successful business model is to sit back and let Iron Man, Thor and the rest of The Avengers rake in money hand over fist.  And while I agree completely with his enthusiasm at the projects, he fails to address the obvious fact that Marvel has already done this with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Think about it: before The Avengers, how many people really, honestly cared about S.H.I.E.L.D. enough to tune in every Tuesday to see what superpowered shenanigans they're thwarting this week.  Now remove Nick Fury from the equation - whose post-credit cameos have been a marvel mainstay since Iron Man.  Instead of the badass, cylopic super spy that everybody loves behind a gun, replace him with a middle-aged, balding, bit-player from Phase 1 played by a forgettable, television actor who's largest non-Marvel success is a low-budget, black-and-white Shakespeare adaptation that nobody really cared enough about to see in theaters.  Need something to sweeten the deal further?  He died during The Avengers.  Sounds like an awesome show, right?

Despite never getting behind this method of thinking, I'd be an idiot to claim that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't a hard sell and didn't have an uphill battle for finding a proper audience.  It began as a gamble to see if Marvel's Cinematic Universe was indeed "big enough to go small" - if it could take characters and properties that lacked a hard-and-fast mainstream audience and make them a mainstream success.  Would the same audience that made The Avengers top-dog at the box office make Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. top dog with the ratings?

The answer is yes and no.  While it was far from the financial powerhouse for ABC that its predecessor was for Disney, it didn't wash out after one season.  Season 1 was a masterpiece of Whedon's executive oversight, a pitch-perfect cast and consistently high-quality writing, and Season 2 (which premieres on September 23rd) is looking to hold just as much promise.  While public sentiment seemed to be decidedly against it from the beginning, that largely seemed to turn following the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which brought S.H.I.E.L.D. - and, subsequently, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - out of the shadows and into the light (Hail Hydra).

Hail Hydra.

And if you think for a second that Disney would gamble good money on 4 series and a mini-series cross-over without Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. paving the way for it first - proving that it could not just be done, but done both well and profitably - then you're missing the point.  While Marvel's basically willing to gamble on anything - need I mention Guardians of the Galaxy - Disney's a bit stingier than that.  They wouldn't risk Mickey-earned profits on a failed film franchise like Daredevil, blaxploitation like Luke Cage, asiansploitation like Iron Fist and an Alias reboot like Jessica Jones if Marvel couldn't prove that there was a profitable audience for its lesser-known properties.

Beyond being the sole reason for Marvel's further expansion into television through Netflix, the show proves that it holds an even deeper necessity within the MCU.  It meaningfully ties into and expands upon the events of the MCU's film canon.  Through it, we see a more comprehensive view of the fallout from the Battle of New York than any Phase 2 film has been able to give us.  We see the clandestine demand for Chitauri technology: a mad scramble to get as much as you can before either S.H.I.E.L.D. or the competition beats you to it.  We see Chitauri viruses ravage unprepared human populations due to simple exposure in New York.  We see their technology fused with Extremis, gamma radiation and Erskine's SSR formula into a new breed of cybernetic super soldiers.

Project Deathlock

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a staging ground to test and develop new ideas that can be potentially introduced to the films in Phase 3 and beyond.  We were introduced to Jasper Sitwell before his big screen introduction, watched him develop over several episodes as a high-ranking agent and key player within S.H.I.E.L.D. and then watched him depart for his duties aboard the Lemurian Star (the same ship that Cap' rescued him from in The Winter Soldier).  We were introduced to the Asgardian ex-patriot Elliot Randalph and the escaped Asgardian convict Lorelei in the wake of Malaketh's attack on Greenwich and assault on Asgard.  Scorch, Blizzard, Graviton, Deathlock - all villains introduced in the series that could potentially migrate to the big screen.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the connective tissue that binds the MCU together.  Through it, we see a much more complete timeline of the events of the films: the broader scope of Hydra's insurrection, Director Fury's immediate destination after his supposed death in The Winter Soldier, the aftermath of New York and Greenwich and the results of projects Deathlock and Centipede.  It ties up the loose ends leftover from the films in the exact same way that Marvel's One-Shots do - expanding and exploring the cinematic universe with increasing rapidity, fleshing it out in the ways that only "going small" allows.

Diamond in the Rough: Batman: Assault on Arkham

In which I review an obscure, must-see film.

You're probably going to see a lot of posts like this popping up in the future: new article series that will both debut and be developed as they're needed (basically whenever I happen to watch something that fits their criteria).  The main three (Date Night, From the Vault and Unreality Companion) will still be just that: my main, go-to article series.  Just expect to see more versatilely-themed and differently-focussed posts in the coming weeks.

                    

Sometimes I feel like a bad nerd.  If you would have asked me about Batman: Assault on Arkham a week ago, I would have guessed that it was a video game.  If you would have asked me who Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Black Spider, King Shark, Killer Frost  and KGBeast were, I would have guessed that they were carnies.  If you would have asked me who The Suicide Squad was, I would have guessed it was an off-shoot of Al Qaeda.

Batman: Assault on Arkham, an adaptation of DC's Suicide Squad comics, follows a government-run team of incarcerated C and D-list supervillains that are used as deniable assets in high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences.  While Batman tears Gotham apart looking for where the Joker hid a dirty bomb, government operative Amanda Waller recruits a new Suicide Squad roster with the mission of breaking into Arkham Asylum and recovering stolen, top secret data hidden inside of the Riddler's cane.  To ensure compliance, each member of the Squad  has a bomb surgically implanted into the base of his or her neck, which Waller can remotely detonate at her discretion.  Everything isn't as simple as it seems, however: as tempers flare on the team and Harley Quinn comes face-to-face with her old ex, Waller gives Killer Frost her own, tangental mission to assassinate the Riddler.

                     

Like Guardians of the Galaxy, Assault on Arkham seems to exist solely to prove that an obscure property composed of obscure characters (with only a few A-lister cameos) can be successful at a time when any comic book property is pretty much fair game.  And, in that respect, the film is a resounding success.  Despite a rocky start, a mere fleeting connection with the Batman franchise and Harley Quinn as the only Suicide Squad member that anybody comes in caring about (and probably have ever heard of before), Assault on Arkham's pitch-perfect execution proves why DC is pretty much the only name in animated comic book films these days (despite Marvel's best efforts to prove otherwise).

Assault on Arkham is ultimately successful for the exact same reason that The Avengers was: as an excuse for throwing together a rough-shod cast of flawed characters who have absolutely no reason to like nor trust one another on a mission and see what happens.  And, just like The Avengers, that actually turned out to be all that was needed for a great movie.  Harley Quinn is equal parts unsettling lunatic and hilarious comic-relief as she nostalgically strolls through her old stomping grounds. Killer Frost's and King Shark's nacent feelings for one another is surprisingly touching to watch develop and makes future team-ups between the two not just convincing, but compelling.  Deadshot and Captain Boomerang's rivalry for command of the Suicide Squad is as hotheaded as it is amusing to watch.  And Black Spider, an assassin of criminals, provides a chilling reminder of the even darker path that Bruce Wayne could have taken as Batman.

Harley Quinn, Black Spider, Deadshot, King Shark, Killer Frost and Captain
Boomerang: The Suicide Squad.

In what actually turns out to be the most pleasant surprise of the film, the Joker's Inclusion as Assault on Arkham's true villain doesn't feel like a cop-out to provide it with greater name recognition.  His appearance organically flows from the film's plot and never leaves us questioning his narrative necessity.  Troy Baker plays the Joker as a proper Victorian gentleman gone mad: somewhere between a sadistic wife-beater and Hannibal Lector.  His savage treatment of Harley - coupled with dismissive dialog like "women: can't live with 'em, can't throw 'em out of a moving car" - is an unsettling portrayal of real-world violence.  If not for Heath Ledger's iconic performance in The Dark Knight, this would be my favorite film portrayal of the character.

Assault on Arkham's only real downfalls are its brisk seventy-five minute run-time and its PG-13 rating.  While we get all of the fun that the Suicide Squad has to offer, we don't get much of the depth.  Killer Frost's and King Shark's relationship was another one or two moments away from being truely memorable while Deadshot and Harley's relationship barely managed to scratch its surface.  Another fifteen or twenty minutes could have fleshed these characters out in ways that would have made the Squad's interactions - as well as Harley's decision to leave Deadshot for the Joker - that much more dynamic.  Bumping its rating up to R would have made Harley and Deadshot's night of passion more than just a quicky as seen from outside of their hotel and given the Joker room to flex his New 52 muscles: skinning a security guard and wearing his skin like Leatherface.

                     

More than anything else, Batman: Assault on Arkham proves that straight-to-video films can be just as well-made and entertaining as theatrically released ones (or better, when you consider previous Batman outings).  It succeeds at skillfully threading together multiple parallel plotlines where other films fail to convincingly present just one.  Overall, I would give the film a high 8 out of ten: a definite must-see for fans of DC and action films alike.

Unreality Companion: The Post-9/11 Metaphor of Marvel's Phase 2

In which I develop on the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

Sometimes a metaphor is obvious: screaming its meaning from the streets and bludgeoning you over the head with its importance.  Sometimes it's a bit more subtle.  Sometimes you miss it entirely, only catching on to it well after the fact.  Sometimes you wonder how you could have overlooked it at all.

Before Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released on BluRay last Tuesday, I had completely missed the implicit metaphor of the film.  Yes, I knew that it dealt with post-9/11 politics like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Patriot Act.  Yes, I knew that Cap' was invoking JFK with his iconic "The price of freedom is high" speech during the film's climax.  And, yes, I understood the ideological analogy of the Bush Administration's policies to fascism.  But I glossed over them until they just became aspects of the movie, rather than its central focus.  And, after writing my Unreality article for this week, I looked back on all of Phase 2 and realized that every Earth-bound entry formed a consciously post-9/11 metaphor with the Battle of New York nesting at its core.

In order to see Phase 2 as a post-9/11 metaphor, we first have to see The Avengers' climax as a 9/11 metaphor, if an admittedly light-hearted and ultimately triumphant one.  We need to strip the Battle of New York of all of its fantastical dressings and see the socio-political underpinnings implicit in its design: hostile foreign operatives, lead by a megalomaniacal fugitive from the United States government (fresh from an incredibly public attack of civilian targets on US soil), unexpectedly attack New York City, specifically targeting civilians and civil institutions of no strategic value - indiscriminately killing and destroying whatever they come across.  And, yes, the city is defended by gods, monsters and super soldiers who ultimately turn back the tides of destruction, but at its core - beyond the quips and the schwarma - it's basic premise is a call back to a bright Tuesday morning in 2001.

Iron Man 3, which opens Phase 2, immediately sets out to make this metaphor one of its central premises.  In the wake of New York, Tony Stark finds himself with the same feelings of insecurity and fear the nation was forced to grapple with after the September 11 terrorist attacks.  He begins suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks and debilitating flashbacks to his experiences in the battle.  Afraid that he's just "a man in a can" who's incapable of protecting those he cares for most from harm, he spends sleepless nights building an arsenal of Iron Man suits: going from building seven suits over the course of four years to building thirty-five over the course of one.

It's no coincidence that the film's villains of choice are The Mandarin - an ideological cross-section of Osama Bin Ladin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il - and The Ten Rings: the Al Qaeda stand-in from Iron Man.  The Mandarin's televised addresses to the American public bear a striking resemblance to Osama Bin Ladin's cave-side chats: a reminder that he's not just at-large, but active.  The film's plot twist - that the alleged Mandarin was a think tank-designed character played by failed actor Trevor Slattery - is a direct indictment of lax media scrutiny, and even direct media manipulation, that convinced the American public that incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan were not only justified, but necessary to our national security: claims that would be widely disproven after-the-fact.

While it may be easy enough to overlook, Thor: The Dark World's London setting is more than just an appeal to Marvel's British fan-base.  The first high-profile terrorist attack after September 11 was the 2005 bombing of the London Underground, in which three suicide bombings occurred on three different London trains.  While far from September 11's level of destruction and exposure, it never-the-less catalysed terrorism as a global, rather than domestic, issue.

What Thor: The Dark World loses in terms of real-world analogy, it gains back in tenacity.  Malaketh, while not the super-Bin Ladin that the Mandarin is designed as, nevertheless leads a campaign of terror across the nine realms.  Not only does he leave Asgard realing and defenseless after an unexpected surprise attack and prison break on the realm, but he makes London the epicenter of what essentially amounts to a realities-destroying bomb that will unmake all nine realms (the Infinity Stone known as the Æther).  Although foiled by Thor & Co., Asgard ultimately ends up being ruled by the "war criminal" and Bin Ladin stand-in from The Avengers, Loki, who opportunistically seized power and now is positioned to continue his political ambitions from an even stronger seat of power (which is chillingly remeniscent of recent ISIS activity).

If Iron Man 3 dealt with the public mindset and aftermath of September 11th, and Thor: The Dark World dealt with the increased globalization of terrorism, Captain America: The Winter Soldier dealt with the political policies of the Bush Administration.  Following the Battle of New York, Nick Fury convinces his superiors that S.H.I.E.L.D. needed "a quantum surge of threat analyis," resulting in a fleet of next-gen helicarriers designed to preemptively and unilaterally deal with national security threats and curtail civil liberties.  He even brags that they will be able to neutralize threats before they even occur.

The twist, however, is that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated and is being controlled by Hydra: the Nazi deep-science division that was headed by the Red Skull during World War II.  The metaphor is obvious: the exact same fascist idealogies that American soldiers fought and died to defeat in the 40's are the same ones running the country today.  What's worse, though, is how much sense it all seems to make.  Nick Fury merely wanted to keep the nation safe from Loki, the Mandarin and the Ten Rings: agents of terror in Marvel's post-Avengers world.  Alexander Pierce, the head of Hydra, argued that "it's only a matter of time before a dirty bomb goes off in Moscow, or an EMP fries Chicago:" two of the very real threats endangering global security today.

With the three terrestrial Phase 2 films so hyper-focussed on the global reaction to September 11th, I can't help but wonder what Age of Ultron has waiting in the wings for 2015.

Why I'm Okay with No Iron Man 4

In a recent interview with Variety, Robert Downey Jr. stated that there are currently no plans in the work for an Iron Man 4.  This is not exactly surprising.  Although signed on for the next two Avengers, he was never contracted for any additional Iron Man films.  At 49-years-old, the prospect of continuing the incredibly physical role of a superhero has to be more than just a little daunting.  And although I recently speculated on the subject of a fourth Iron Man film, I am generally fine with the promise of none.

Now, that's not to say that I don't want to see an Iron Man 4, because I do.  After the Captain America films, the Iron Man franchise is the one that Marvel has done the best work with (even after taking into account Iron Man 2).  Before 2008, Tony Stark was a mainstream non-entity with the same level of popularity as Thor or Ant-Man.  In 2013, despite a smaller budget, Iron Man 3 outperformed Man of Steel at the box office by over $117,000,000 dollars.  Marvel somehow took an alcoholic, narcissistic prick - himself played by an alcoholic, narcissistic prick - and turned him into the breakout character of not just Marvel's Phase 1, but of the post-millennial film scene.

What's even more unfortunate is that Marvel seems to have finally gotten the hang of this particular franchise.  Yes, Iron Man was a resounding success for Marvel and single-handedly launched the company's cinematic universe, but it still suffered from "The Marvel Problem" - a solid, although forgettable, villain that ends up only being functional within the narrative.  How much to do we really care about Iron Monger (or Whiplash or Red Skull or Malaketh) beyond the fact that they're evil and in need of a good thrashing by whatever Avenger we've paid $10 or more to see?

Although far from being a bad film, Iron Man 2 is by far Marvel's weakest outing to date.  Whiplash was far less interesting than even Iron Monger was, the plot barely treads water and Justin Hammer and Senator Stern are tied for the most unendurably obnoxious character in the MCU's ten-film canon.  What really strikes me about the film is that is seems like it was rushed into production with the sole purpose of capitalizing on the unprecedented popularity of the first film.  It understands what people loved about the first movie - Robert Downey Jr's iconic performance, Tony's playful, bad-boy demeanor and the brilliantly-rendered Iron Man armor - without really understanding why people loved it.

Iron Man 3, however, realized not only what made Iron Man awesome, but why as well.  It even managed to solve the aforementioned "Marvel Problem" by giving us the MCU's most memorable villain to date: Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery / The Mandarin.  It was funny, exciting, intelligent and even managed to pull off a cute kid "sidekick" without throwing him in a pint-sized suit of armor and pitting him against a bunch of Extremis soldiers.  It didn't just realize that Tony Stark was more than "a man in a can," but made it its central theme.

"You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys, but one

thing you can't take away - I am Iron Man."

The reason why I am fine with the current hold on Iron Man films - despite loving the franchise and the new, unexpected directions that they've decided to take with it - is because there's so much more to Marvel, and even Iron Man, than just Tony Stark.  Marvel is creating an entire universe of characters, not just Stark & Friends.  Their rapidly expanding roster of characters, franchises and potential franchises is beginning to outpace what they can produce in the five or six films per phase that they've currently managed.

Phase 3 already has Ant-Man, Captain America 3, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Avengers 3, with maybe one open slot remaining.  Is that where you stick Iron Man 4?  Why not follow Nick Fury on his solo mission to Europe?  What about Black Widow's soul-searching journey after Captain America: The Winter Soldier?  Whatever happened to Hawkeye, who's been strangely unseen since The Avengers?  Or is this where you stick a Thor 3 or The Incredible Hulk 2 (or maybe even Planet Hulk)?  You can't explore these facets of the MCU without taking a break from another, and Iron Man has simply had more exposure than any other Marvel hero.

Marvel could also take their Phase 2 philosophy of shaking up everything that they've established in Phase 1 by taking the entire franchise in a new direction.  I would love seeing a War Machine movie: a darker, edgier film with Rhodey running covert ops - basically like a cross between Iron Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Don Cheadle is certainly a strong enough actor to headline his own film and I am confident that Rhodey will prove to be a thoroughly interesting character when he's finally free from Tony's shadow.

What about Pepper Pots?  She has consistently proven herself to be more than just a romantic lead or damsel in distress, convincingly saving Stark from Killian in Iron Man 3.  What if her Extremis abilities resurface, making her a prime Avengers candidate in her own right?  Either option should provide ample life to the franchise without Iron Man headlining the show.

Regardless of what future Iron Man has in the MCU, I am not concerned by his current state of moratorium.  He's still scheduled to show up in both Avengers 2 and 3, where he will doubtless steal a scene or two.  And with innumerable cameos to come, even without another solo film, we're far from seeing the last of Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man.

From the Vault: Oliver & Company

In which I review a randomly-selected movie from my collection.

Everybody has their own pick for "most criminally-underrated Disney film."  When you've been churning out feature-length animated movies for 77 years, with nearly 100 theatrical releases and over half as many straight-to-video releases - not to mention 9 Academy Awards and 20 nominations, including a nomination for Best Picture, across three associated animation studios - it's understandable that a few might get lost in the shuffle.  While the concensus favorite "lost classic" appears to be The Great Mouse Detective, I believe that 1988's Oliver & Company is the most overlooked and underappreciated Disney film.

In a loose adaptations of Oliver Twist, a kitten named Oliver (Joseph Lawrence), finds himself abandoned in New York City.  After helping a Jack Russel Terrier named Dodger (Billy Joel) steal some hotdogs from a vender, Oliver winds up joining his affectionate gang of con dogs and pickpockets.  Fagin (Dom DeLuise), the kindly, down-on-his-luck owner of the gang, has three days in which to repay the money he borrowed from ruthless loan-shark Sykes (Robert Loggia).  While assisting Fagin's gang with a con, Oliver winds up being adopted by seven-year-old Jenny Foxworth (Natalie Gregory) and has to choose between life with her and life with the gang.

Despite its lower profile, Oliver & Company easily holds it own alongside the much more celebrated Disney classics.  Rather than choosing a cast of established actors and praying that they can actually sing - like Gerard Butler's cringe-worthy turn as the alleged "Angel of Music" in The Phantom of the Opera - director George Scribner chose established musicians to voice his characters.  Pop star Billy Joel lends his sly, laid-back voice to street-smart Dodger and belts out what is easily the catchiest song of the film.  Bette Midler, best known for singing "Wind Beneath My Wings," voices the prima donna poodle Georgette.  Disco / Electric singer and Tony Award-winner Sheryl Lee Ralph voices the almost-motherly Saluki Rita and Huey Lewis - of Huey Lewis and the News fame -  headlines the utterly heartbreaking "Once Upon a Time in New York City."

The film's sleek, minimalist art style, with its palette of sunset oranges and midnight blues, is something that you'd expect to find in an Upper West Side art gallery instead of an 80's Disney movie.  It captures the manic energy and rapid tonal shifts that encapsulates New York.  The city is presented as a sprawling, overcrowded ecumonopolis which can transform into a completely different setting just by darting down the right street.  Posh 5th Avenue just a stone throw from the crooked alley where Oliver was chased by feral strays (which look identical to the wolves from Beauty and the Beast), itself caught somewhere between the middle-class streets where he was abandoned and Fagin's dockside shack.

While "Why Should I Worry" is the scene-stealing song that everybody always walks away singing to themselves, the true heart of the film is captured in its opening sequence.  As Huey Lewis sings "Once Upon a Time in New York City," we see Oliver get passed over time after time as smiling boys and girls walk away with his siblings until he's alone in a water-logged cardboard box with a sign that says "free."  The coreography, done with the same under-stated style as the rest of the film, plays with and compliments the song's lyrics, creating just as agonizingly sad a scene as anything from The Lion King.

Oliver & Company's greatest pitfall is its scant seventy-four minute run-time, which is just enough to establish its characters and their conflicts, but not enough to develop them.  Oliver is just a cute, orphaned kitten in search of a home; we get that he's plucky and determined, but we never really get to see him grow into anything more nuanced.  While we understand why Dodger is so hurt when Oliver chooses Jenny over him and the rest of the gang, we don't see enough of Oliver with the gang in order to feel like the choice is as deep of a betrayal it obviously is.  We see the pressure that Fagin is under to repay Sykes, but he's around only long enough for us to merely sympathize with him.  Relatively minor characters like Tito, Einstein, Francis and Rita are given so little development that they can simply be referred to as "the gang."

Despite its shortcomings - shortcomings which would largely be fixed in the Disney films of the 90's - Oliver & Company features a spectacular combination of great music, a compelling story and a unique, hazy art style all its own.  It is as engaging and emotional as the best of Disney's animated canon, even if it lacks the same level of sophistication.  Overall, I would give the film a solid 7.5.

Unreality Companion: Oh Captain, My Captain

It's a Hell of a time to be a Marvel fan right now.  Guardians of the Galaxy is posed to top the box office for yet another weekend and both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be released on BlueRay and DVD this Tuesday.  In this light, it was only fitting to look back on Captain America: The First Avenger for my Unreality article this week.  While doing so, however, I came to an epiphany: Captain America is the greatest MCU hero.

You need to understand that I don't mean to say that he is the most popular hero (Iron Man) nor my personal favorite (Hulk).  I am not saying that he is the smartest nor the strongest.  I'm not even saying that he's the most important (although I believe that he is).  When I say that Captain America is the greatest Marvel hero, I mean exactly that: well and above everybody else, he exhibits the qualities greatness.

Captain America is a boy scout.  He's Marvel's answer to the unimpeachable morality of Superman: "an ideal [...] to strive towards" rather than one of Marvel's managerie of narcissistic, hubristic, emotionally damaged or just otherwise flawed characters.  He is such an innately good character that his only development over his three big screen appearances is that he's not quite as innocent about the ways of the 21st Century as he used to be (and even that slight wrinkle in his star-spangled persona only came after his best friend, who he thought was killed in action, resurfaced as a brainwashed assassin working for the Nazi faction that he supposedly defeated in 1945, which has now infultrated the United States government at its highest levels).

Compare him for a moment to Tony Stark, the most dynamically developed of Marvel's crop of big screen superheroes.  We are introduced to him as a self-described "genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist:" a flippant, narcicistic douchebag who's as dickish as he is fun.  He's an arms dealer: designing and selling next-gen weapons as he profits off of war and death.  Sure, he's doing it for the right reasons (to protect America from its enemies by constantly supplying it with the next nuclear deterrent), but that doesn't change who he is nor what he's doing.  Iron Man is about him understanding, in a truly fundamental way, the cost that his business is having on world security and taking responsibility for the unintended harm he has caused.  Iron Man 2 focusses on his substance abuse and reckless, devil-may-care attitude toward life and the people who are most important to him, ending with him trying to do right by those same people.

In The Avengers, we see the former "iron monger" speak out against nuclear deterrents: the entire business model for his company only four years ago, realize his goal of supplying the world with sustainable clean energy and finally put the good of the many before the good of himself: launching himself into the Chitauri wormhole in order to save New York from an ill-conceived nuclear strike.  In Iron Man 3, we see a shell-shocked Tony attempting (and generally failing) to grapple with the events of The Avengers: realizing that he is just "a man in a can" in a world of aliens, gods and monsters.  And, at the end of the day, he realizes that he isn't Iron Man because of a suit of armor; Iron Man is an aspect of his personality: an expression of his desire to be a better person than he was in the not-so-distant past.

It took him three solo films and a crossover team-up before he got to where Steve Rogers was in the beginning of The First Avenger.  When we are first introduced to Rogers, he's failing his fourth attempt to enlist in the army during World War II.  Knowing full-well that he is physically uqualified and will return home in a body bag if he ships out, he still desperately tries to do his part for the war effort because "men are laying down their lives [and he has] no right to do any less than them."  When asked if he just wants to kill Nazis, he says no: "I don't want to kill anyone.  I don't like bullies; I don't care where they are from."

He's polite and respectful toward women in a time of wide-spread sexism, stands up to disrespectful loud-mouth in a movie theater and even threw himself on a grenade in the hope that his fellow soldiers would survive the blast.  As in the comics, he does what he should do rather than what he is ordered to do.  He disobeys a direct order from a superior officer in order to mount a one-manned rescue mission "thirty miles behind [enemy] lines, through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe" simply because he believes that it's the right thing to do.  When S.H.I.E.L.D. essentially weaponizes The Patriot Act by launching a trio of next gen helicarriers to pre-emptively assassinate terrorists (both actual and potential) he argues that "this isn't freedom.  This is fear" and rage-quits the agency.

Captain America is not just an embodiment of an ideal America, but of an ideal American.  He knows that "there is another evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men."  Nobody expects us to be Cap', just as much like him as we can.  When it really comes down to it, we are supposed to do what he does, just slower.