Having three boys means we see a lot of two types of movies: superhero and animated. Because they do not necessarily understand complex characters, we’ve shied away from anti-heroes and those with ambiguous motives (Deadpool, Suicide Squad, Punisher, etc).
However, those with a little more clear cut, or the issues being over their head we’ve see. We liked the pure good, of Superman, especially the Christopher Reeve movies, as well as several others.
We’ve liked the MCU with the first round of heroes as they are typically fairly clean, and while violent, they tend to be more of the “clean” violent, not with blood spattering, etc. and clearly defined good guys and bad guys, which they can better understand.
Captain America has been one of our favorites and we were saddened to see him leave, although turning his shield over to Falcon seemed right to us. Both Captain and Falcon seem to have clear morals and try to always do what is right, the same types of things we teach our boys.
With the Falcon and Winter Soldier we knew it was going to be at least partially about how Falcon handled his new responsibilities. However, some early reviews made us decide to screen it first, and we’re glad that we did.
The government has chosen who they want to be the next Captain America, and unfortunately, he’s also a bit unhinged, and tends to fight violently. Way more violently, I thought, than what you saw in the movies. (Yes, now we sometimes get blood spattering, and anger, and him acting on that anger.)
The conversations around what and why someone behaving like that as Captain America we thought might confuse our sons. They don’t understand PTSD (although I think its unfortunate to say a lot of adults also don’t), and how even our heroes don’t always make the right decisions.
We didn’t want them acting like what they saw “the good guy” on TV doing, which might hurt themselves, or their classmates. You see, they wouldn’t see him as anyone else, because he had the outfit and the shield.
While it might be more “real” we thought it was not the appropriate thing to expose them to. So we opted to not show them.
If it is needed to be explained, we’ll just tell them, _____ (I ain’t going to spoil it) is the new Captain America and let it go at that. Hopefully that will satisfy them.
As for any future Captain movies, and superhero in general, we will have to start screening them as well, because they don’t always understand that just because someone says their the good guy, doesn’t mean that they always are.
So what do we think?
Now, I’ve spoken about the series from what we let our children see. This is my wife’s and my opinion of it.
Well, we really liked the Captain America trilogy (First Avenger, Winter Solider, and Civil War), and we loved the Falcon character that appeared in Winter Solider and several other movies since then. While a morally conscious good guy, he also seemed fun. Therefore, we went into the series with high hopes.
BTW: Don't get me started on the fact that I think Age of Ultron should have been an Iron Man movie and Civil War an Avenger movie... That's my own personal take however.
In this series, however, many of the things we liked about the Falcon character were gone. He was too introspective, unlike the guy who jumps in without thinking to save his friends and colleagues. Too doubting (unlike the guy who randomly volunteers to help take down Shield/Hydra because he knows it’s right). Too serious.
In short, he wasn’t the Falcon we knew, and but he wasn’t like Captain America either. He was almost like a whole new character that didn’t fit. When you have established characters, it’s important to keep that them acting like you’ve established them. It seems like they couldn’t figure out what to do with him until the end of the last episode.
In comparison, the Winter Soldier (Bucky) was still brooding as he works to find his redemption. This part of the story worked. Unfortunately, it was only one of the story lines, and not enough to save the whole of the series.
We’ve seen Anthony Mackie in other roles, and he always delivers. Regrettably, the project didn’t utilize his talents effectively, leaving him with nothing to work with.
