![]() Bucky (Sebastian Stan) is in therapy, still coping with the many atrocities he committed while brainwashed into being the Winter Soldier. After that, though, we’re in the glum, angsty, sluggishly-paced mode of the Netflix Marvel shows(*). If the Batroc chase isn’t equivalent to the best of what we’ve seen from MCU action sequences, it still wouldn’t feel out of place as a tertiary set piece in one of those films. Turning him into a human fighter jet can be entertaining in its own right, but also creates the expectation that any problem can be solved by some previously unknown gadget in the flight harness or Redwing. Part of the fun of Falcon is that he basically just flies yet can be so effective against bad guys without additional powers. But it’s also a bit repetitive, and both Sam’s wings and his drone Redwing have been souped up to the point where his powers are basically indistinguishable from War Machine’s. Director Kari Skogland shoots it cleanly, and there are some cool individual beats, particularly whenever the LAF goons are flying around themselves using wingsuits. Sam’s aerial pursuit of Batroc takes him from one plane to another, through canyons and clouds and multiple helicopters, giving it a scope that the action scenes in the Netflix and ABC shows couldn’t afford. It’s hard to judge the episode too strongly, simply because it’s setting up so many story ideas, but it also feels very much like an episode of one of Marvel’s now-abandoned Netflix shows, only with a much bigger budget and more direct ties to the films.įrom there, we flash back to Sam on a full-on Falcon mission to stop a terrorist group called LAF - including Batroc, the kick-fighting mercenary who appeared in the opening sequence of Captain America: The Winter Soldier - before they can cross the border into Libya with an American hostage. Because where WandaVision suggested that Marvel shows could be whatever they wanted, this first chapter of Falcon mostly echoes what we’ve seen before - not just in the MCU films, but in the Marvel series produced when Jeph Loeb was in charge of the TV end of things. And had this premiere been our first glimpse of Feige’s, well, vision for Marvel’s small-screen endeavors, the conversation would likely have been very different. WandaVision only came first, though, because the pandemic disrupted production of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was originally meant to debut late last summer. ![]() Without that MCU tie-in, would a tribute to the history of the American sitcom have been a sensation, or a pop-cultural afterthought? With several Avengers present, WandaVision announced just how many things were possible under that now-familiar logo. The Kevin Feige era of Marvel TV began earlier this year with WandaVision, a show about television that was clearly made for television (at least until the finale), and an example of how versatile the Marvel brand can be. A review of The Falcon and the Winter Soldierpremiere - complete with spoilers - coming up just as soon as I take you out for pinochle…
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