(Bucky-related
spoilers, including Captain America: Civil War.) When I first saw Captain America, Bucky was just so-so character, mainly coasting on
Sebastian Stan’s performance. It wasn’t
until The Winter Soldier that he came
alive for me, both in that film and retroactively in the first movie. By the time Civil War finally came out, he was one of my favorites.
At
first blush, Bucky in Captain America
feels like little more than a plot device, Steve’s best friend who becomes a
tragic casualty of WWII, and it’s true that he has a lot more going on as a
character in the later movies, but there’s still some good value here. I like that Bucky appears so out of Steve’s
“league,” friendship-wise, before the super-soldier serum turns Steve into Cap,
but he doesn’t treat Steve that way.
Right from the first, it’s clear that their friendship goes deep. It’s also important to establish him as a
brave all-American boy who likes to have fun, because when he comes back in the
later films, we need to see how thoroughly he’s been changed.
‘Cause
Bucky has it rough. Loses his arm and nearly dies after a fall
from an elevated train. Taken by the
enemy and experimented on, giving him a bionic arm and powers similar to Cap’s. Brainwashed and sent on wetwork missions,
committing acts that would horrify him in his right mind. Held in cryogenic stasis between missions to
keep him a viable asset for almost 70 years, routinely wiping his mind and
subjecting him to further brainwashing.
Because of all this, formidable as he is in The Winter Soldier, he’s always more of a weapon than a
villain. I love the way he fights like
an absolute animal when he’s activated, because it demonstrates how much he’s
not his own person at that point. He
does insane stuff, even for a powered
person, and he just keeps coming relentlessly.
There’s no sense of self-preservation or falling back to regroup,
because the fascists who’ve been playing with his brain don’t leave any room
for that.
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