Joe Russo
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The Parallax View (1974)
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
influenced Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Themes Plot Visuals
Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), The Winter Soldier nods to ’70s classics Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
If the first “Cap” was a throwback to classic World War II films, “Winter Soldier” is a nod to the great espionage films of the 1970s, movies like “3 Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View,” even going so far to bridge the two by casting “Condor” star Robert Redford as shady politician Alexander Pierce.
It’s a rote “trust-no-one” shtick that’s as old as “The Parallax View” and “Three Days of the Condor,” the latter a film that the directing brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (TV’s “Community”) delusively think they are paying homage to.
Instead of the pulp-inspired 1940s aesthetic of the first movie, The Winter Soldier takes its inspiration from the paranoia-fueled conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, movies like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View , with a modern-day focus on ubiquitous government surveillance and drone warfare.
Subtitled The Winter Soldier, a nod to the Captain’s mysterious new cold-blooded nemesis, the movie comes wrapped not only in the Stars and Stripes but also Watergate-meets-9/11 paranoia from influences like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, the latter especially so thanks to the forceful and nuanced presence of Robert Redford.
That notion — of powerful or violent forces conspiring against civilians — also primed some of the decade’s finest, most haunting movies: The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, and All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor, both with Robert Redford as a cocky crusader against government corruption.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely gleefully unpack some of the persistent myths of that particular device, ripping apart the plotholes of iconic chrono-cinema stories like Back to the Future and The Terminator.
The possible answer to the dilemma of the missing Avengers is the film’s biggest joke, and I mean that literally since the dialogue will reference such fan favorites as “Back to the Future,” “Star Trek,” “X-Men,” “Terminator,” “Time After Time” “Somewhere in Time,” “About Time” (but not “Timecrimes” and “La Jetee,” the two coolest movies of that type ever made).
The Russos have always been big fans of popular culture, so I loved the references to all of the time travel films including Back to the Future and Hot Tub Time Machine .
Oh, and there’s more than a few references to “Back to the Future.”
The nature of the quantum realm is more sophisticated than in, say, Back to the Future (which gets a razzing, Stark preferring the theories of Planck and contemporary egghead David Deutsch), but the film echoes Robert Zemeckis’s farce in how characters encounter their former selves from previous films.
Before long, the surviving characters are ricocheting through the recent past, cheekily referencing movies like “Back to the Future” and “Somewhere in Time,” and reviving the classic would-you-kill-Hitler debate for the Thanos era.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
influenced Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Plot Visuals
It’s Marvel’s take on Three Days of the Condor , with Chris Evans leading the way in perhaps his finest go-round as the Stars-and-Stripes-decorated do-gooder.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who delivered “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” a film that diverted from the standard popcorn movie and gave audiences a more complex political thriller along the lines of “Three Days of the Condor.”
The presence of Robert Redford as an ambiguous high-level spook reminds us of the plot’s borrowings from the conspiracy thriller Three Days of the Condor, while a brief shot of the Watergate complex references Redford’s All the President’s Men.
Notable for having induced Robert Redford to take a (significant) role in the sort of blockbuster franchise that he has studiously avoided throughout his illustrious career, the film actually uses an important aspect of the veteran star's iconography as stylistic inspiration, that being the ethos surrounding Sydney Pollack's 1975 Redford-starring espionage thriller Three Days of the Condor.
The movie's other inspiration are '70s conspiracy thrillers like All the President's Men and Three Days of the Condor, which the Russo brothers honor by wisely and miraculously casting Robert Redford, who starred in both films.
Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), The Winter Soldier nods to ’70s classics Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
Directed by Julius Onah
influenced by Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Visuals Themes
…the covert ops mission Cap runs in Mexico feels lifted straight from the opening of Winter Soldier.
…even as a director, Onah wants to evoke the visceral paranoia-infused thriller of “Captain America: Winter Soldier” (2014); his action set pieces lack that energetic flair or urgency…
…much like Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). But, unlike that tight-as-a-drum masterpiece, here the frankly inferior screenplay purposefully ties plot elements together from The Incredible Hulk (2008)…
It’s a far cry from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a top-notch political thriller and one of the greatest superhero movies of all time.
…it’s not quite up to the standard of previous efforts like The Winter Soldier or Civil War…
Captain America: The Winter Soldier showed why a spy agency like SHIELD would be the perfect place for Nazis to fester with official positions within the government.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Directed by Irvin Kershner
influenced Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Plot Themes
Star Wars fans will also happily remind us that three years elapsed between the releases of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Look at "Return of the Jedi" after "Empire Strikes Back," "The Godfather Part III" after "Part II," or any "Terminator" movie after "Judgment Day."
Of course, while most movie studios abandoned that storytelling gimmick, a particularly notable one was the ending of "The Empire Strikes Back" that left fans wondering for a number of years about frozen Han as well as Vader's shocking familial revelation to Luke.
This is not a spoiler: “ Avengers: Infinity War ” contains the most dramatic cliffhanger of any major blockbuster since “The Empire Strikes Back,” and everything leading up to it is a marathon.
The ending of The Empire Strikes Back is frequently cited in this regard, but I could just as easily include several story beats in everything from Mad Max: Fury Road to The Last Jedi to Marvel’s own Black Panther as creating fantastical situations that nevertheless were grounded in real human feeling.
There are many reasons why “Infinity War” evokes “The Empire Strikes Back” – the cutting across multiple storylines, the darker tones of its story – and one of the main reasons is because it’s so accomplished and does what it sets out to do so well.
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced Cherry (2021)
Visuals Themes Dialogue
Yet the Russos don’t limit themselves to simply that predecessor, delivering wartime aerial panoramas intended to conjure memories of Apocalypse Now, basic training sequences indebted to Full Metal Jacket, bank robberies with an icy Heat sheen, post-bank robbery getaway car freak-outs modeled after Reservoir Dogs, and jauntily edited action that boasts a faint whiff of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
The basic training sequences with the maniacal drill sergeants are reminiscent of “Full Metal Jacket,” while the war scenes are effective but nothing we haven’t seen before.
Cherry takes inspirations from Fight Club , Full Metal Jacket , Jarhead , and Requiem for a Dream to put them in a blender for a punishing two hours and twenty minutes, but instead of congealing into a satisfying whole, they simply create sequential layers of clashing flavors that make you want to lie down from the effort of chugging it all in one sitting.
They do less well when Cherry enters basic training: The directors change the aspect ratio and, in essence, offer up a condensed remake of the first third of Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.”
I hope the Russos were not just making their Deer Hunter meets Full Metal Jacket movie as a career stamp, with no outward cause in mind.
It’s as though the Russo brothers played “Full Metal Jacket” on repeat, but never grasped how that film’s dialogue worked.
Iron Man (2008)
Directed by Jon Favreau
influenced Avengers: Endgame (2019), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain America: Civil War (2016)
As one might expect, one of the most changed by Thanos’ act is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., whose Iron Man was ground zero for this particular superhero playground), who actually finds a way to begin his life again and doesn’t easily want to return to his avenging ways.
The Avengers fared somewhat better (if you don't count Iron Man stranded in outer space with Nebula).
Iron Man exceeded all expectations, created a new juggernaut (not Juggernaut) and sent a generation of filmgoers on an emotional journey that culminates in Avengers: Endgame.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely—all returning from Infinity War and all veterans of a pair of Captain America films as well—have done a splendid job of wrapping up 11 years' worth of MCU storylines spread across 21 films (from the 2008 Iron Man right up to this year's Captain Marvel ).
Parece que fue ayer cuando Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008) llegó a nuestras vidas como inicio de la primera fase del megaproyecto UCM y, al mismo tiempo, mucho ha llovido desde aquella reunión grupal que cambió el género para siempre en Los Vengadores (Joss Whedon, 2012).
Although “Infinity War” is by no means the last Marvel film (“Ant-Man and the Wasp,” “Venom” and “Captain Marvel” are just around the corner) it does feel like the culmination of a 10-year build up of origin stories and movies that began with “Iron Man” in 2008.
Thor (Hemsworth) in particular, is doing a great job of channelling Jeff Bridges’ The Dude, the lovable layabout from The Big Lebowski , in an amusing and entirely self-aware manner.
In other news, and perhaps the one light at the end of the tunnel, the newly restored Guardians of the Galaxy – just don’t think too hard about how they’ve been restored – are joined by Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, who in one of the movie’s best choices, has been temporarily transformed into an all-powerful version of The Dude from The Big Lebowski – paunch, beer, grey sweater and all.
It is not a joke to consider his hilarious turn as a tribute to “The Big Lebowski.”
(All of the Avengers are coping in their own way, with Captain America leading a self-help group and Thor going into denial and basically turning into The Big Lebowski’s Dude.)
He’s more The Dude from The Big Lebowski (1998) than a superhero that’s starred in three of his own movies.
Thunderbolts* (2025)
Directed by Jake Schreier
influenced by Avengers: Endgame (2019), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
Themes
I'm still pissed about how Endgame insensitively used Thor's depression and PTSD to make fat jokes.
…the stagnant state of the Marvel Universe as a whole since Avengers: Endgame. Seemingly every momentous peak of triumph is matched—or often buried—by some form of grief management…
Let’s face it, the MCU’s track record since Avengers: Endgame has been spotty at best.
…one of the things I liked most about Thunderbolts* is actually one of the things I liked most about Infinity War and Endgame: Combinations of characters who’ve never met, but make for an interesting dynamic.
This might not be the best MCU movie since Avengers: Endgame (that’s still certainly Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3)…
…or Thor’s depression in Avengers: Endgame…
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Directed by Stanley Kramer
influenced Avengers: Endgame (2019), Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Plot
With a feeling that recalls 1963's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, dozens of famous fighters reunite — Chris Evans’ Captain America , Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Chris Pratt's Star-Lord.
This is the It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of Marvel movies, with Thanos subbing for Spencer Tracy.
Black Widow (2021)
Directed by Cate Shortland
influenced by Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Visuals
Shortland has layered in visual references to many action and spy movies – including a nod to John Woo’s love of doves, Bond’s love of sliding down escalator railings and Charlize Theron’s down-and-dirty hand-to-hand in Atomic Blonde, not to mention its MCU predecessor Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Director Cate Shortland adopts a strategy not unlike that of Captain America: The Winter Soldier , focusing on the core relationships at the center of this globe-trotting spy narrative while mostly eschewing the massive stakes of other Marvel Cinematic Universe entries, at least until the gratuitous goofiness of the third act.
Not quite as bad ass as Bourne but more akin to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (still my favorite standalone MCU movie thus far).
The fighting, gunplay, and visual effects are in the vein of Captain America: The Winter Soldier .
It wasn’t until the Russo brothers got a hold of her in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that Natasha felt like she developed something akin to a personality apart from “hot spunky spy lady,” and even then, it felt like too little too late.
New addition to the MCU Yelena Belova (one of the most must-see rising stars today Florence Pugh) asks her estranged nonbiological sister Natasha Romanoff (the eponymous Black Widow reprised, presumably for one final time, by Scarlett Johansson in this interquel set sometime after Captain America: Civil War) what her story is.
He also starred in other franchises like Star Trek (he was Captain Kirk's dad in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness ) and The Huntsman in Snow White And The Huntsman (2012) and The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016).
The possible answer to the dilemma of the missing Avengers is the film’s biggest joke, and I mean that literally since the dialogue will reference such fan favorites as “Back to the Future,” “Star Trek,” “X-Men,” “Terminator,” “Time After Time” “Somewhere in Time,” “About Time” (but not “Timecrimes” and “La Jetee,” the two coolest movies of that type ever made).
The attempted scientific explanations for time travel come across as sub-"Star Trek" level gobbledygook and, frustratingly, the movie sometimes breaks its own pre-established rules.
It works out okay for one of them, but the other is the stuff of nightmares: His head looks melted out of shape, like a Star Trek teleportation accident.
There’s a virtual replay of one of Tom Cruise’s silliest scenes, the notorious fistfight with himself in Oblivion , that also harks back to the campiest moments in Star Trek .
(If part one of this two-part Avengers saga occasionally hyper-jumped into the Star Wars space-opera quadrant of the blockbuster cosmos, part two sometimes resembles a particularly nifty episode of cross-universe rival Star Trek , complete with lots of layman quantum physics.)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Directed by James Gunn
influenced Avengers: Endgame (2019), Captain America: Civil War (2016)
The gags are still there but they’re an occasional light relief rather than the comedy roller coaster of an Ant Man or Guardians of the Galaxy instalment.
The scheme involves convincing all the major living players this is a worthy mission and then revisiting old locations including Asgard, Star-Lord’s intro in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the New York City battle from the original Avengers (2012) film, and Vormir where Red Skull awaits.
The Infinity Stones mostly came off as gimmicks whenever they showed up, in the likes of The Avengers , Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy , Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Doctor Strange .
The surviving “Avengers” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” characters, plus the recently introduced Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), are trying in various ways to cope.
Although all the Avengers (and affiliated superfolk) have undergone notable internal struggles and realignments, no one has changed quite as much as Nebula, who has been performing a slow-motion heel-turn from villain to hero since she first appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
A scene between Wanda and Vision where he attempts to cook for the first time, for example, has little to do with the central plot but is the sort of special observational touch that 2014's " Guardians of the Galaxy " had, setting it apart from the lesser, more by-the-numbers Marvel entries.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Directed by Zack Snyder
influenced by Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Characters
Then again, when you consider that "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame" have a combined runtime exceeding five hours . . .
It’s a true culmination of the story began in Man of Steel whilst opening itself up for plenty more, and its scope can only really be matched by Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame .
One cannot help comparing the monstrosity of violence that is inflicted upon our superheroes in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame by Thanos compared to the pleasantries exchanged by Darkseid, it seems.
After 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, it’s difficult to watch the introduction of Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciarán Hinds) without comparing it to the arrival of those other harbingers of a cosmic, death-embracing villain, Thanos’ Black Order, especially Ebony Maw.
DC fans might not appreciate the comparison, but the change is comparable to how Avengers: Infinity War improved Thanos from his earlier MCU outings.
Put all these pieces together, and you’re left with a comic book adaptation that feels like an event, and is on a scale every bit as grand as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame .
Black Panther (2018)
Directed by Ryan Coogler
influenced by Captain America: Civil War (2016), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
During the rite of succession, T’Challa drinks a sacred potion that lights up his veins, whereupon he drifts off, astrally speaking, to meet his father, T’Chaka (assassinated in Captain America: Civil War ), on “the ancestral plane.”
Taking place shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War (the first Phase 3 film isn't required viewing, but it definitely helps), Black Panther opens on its titular badass (Chadwick Boseman) returning home to the hidden African nation of Wakanda after handing over Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) to the American government.
Chadwick Boseman already played this superhero in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, a supporting role in a Marvel Comic Universe best categorized as #AvengersSoWhite.
The film begins right where “Captain America: Civil War” left off, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns home to Wakanda, a country hidden from the world where science and technology reign supreme, to take his place as King, after his father, King T’Chaka, was killed in a bombing at the Vienna International Centre.
Chadwick Boseman, first introduced in Captain America: Civil War, returns as Prince T’Challa, who following the death of his father (John Kani) assumes two roles: those of the king and superpowered protector—known as the Black Panther—of the African nation of Wakanda, which keeps its riches hidden from the outside world under the guise of being a Third World country.
Black Panther picks up shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
Cherry takes inspirations from Fight Club , Full Metal Jacket , Jarhead , and Requiem for a Dream to put them in a blender for a punishing two hours and twenty minutes, but instead of congealing into a satisfying whole, they simply create sequential layers of clashing flavors that make you want to lie down from the effort of chugging it all in one sitting.
Bogged down by the type of macho angsty nihilism that already felt dated back when David Fincher successfully played around with the same sort of thing in 1999’s Fight Club , Cherry clobbers the viewer over the head for a numbing 141 minutes, dragging us through the main character’s troubled life.
…or whichever one of the “Fight Club”-fresh sight gags happens to be misfiring in the background.
As is, Cherry feels like Taxi Driver had an affair with Full Metal Jacket , and had a baby raised by Fight Club .
It rips off Spielberg’s A.I ., and Marvel fans probably won’t recognize that it also rips off Thornton Wilder’s Our Town — that’s part of the MCU cultural cheat.
The possible answer to the dilemma of the missing Avengers is the film’s biggest joke, and I mean that literally since the dialogue will reference such fan favorites as “Back to the Future,” “Star Trek,” “X-Men,” “Terminator,” “Time After Time” “Somewhere in Time,” “About Time” (but not “Timecrimes” and “La Jetee,” the two coolest movies of that type ever made).
Before long, the surviving characters are ricocheting through the recent past, cheekily referencing movies like “Back to the Future” and “Somewhere in Time,” and reviving the classic would-you-kill-Hitler debate for the Thanos era.
Captain Marvel (2019)
Directed by Ryan Fleck
influenced by Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Visuals Plot Themes
And it’s better for it, feeling much like a the super-charged, spunky sister of Ant-Man and Spider-Man: Homecoming rather than coming across so larger-than-life and august as Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther (though both the latter and Captain Marvel do expertly and effortlessly examine sundry social themes).
That’s how she came to us: When Iron Man and Hulk and Captain America and Thor and Dr. Strange and Spider-Man failed, in the closing tag of Avengers: Infinity War, Nick Fury called for the most capable hero he knew: Carol Danvers.
Last year also saw the release of “Black Panther” and one of the best Marvel films to date, “Avengers: Infinity War,” with the latter raising a rather large question as to the whereabouts of a certain major superhero from the Marvel Universe.
The end of Avengers: Infinity War left a devastating cliffhanger, set to be resolved in Endgame this April, and suggested that the introduction of Captain Marvel onscreen would help with that.
(Huge as its revenues will be, “Captain Marvel” is essentially a bridge between last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and next month’s “Avengers: Endgame.”)
It isn’t as dark and serious as, say, Captain America: Civil War .
Ever since 2000's X-Men, they have been growing in numbers exponentially.
Those three massive new next-generation Helicarriers and a large-scale plan to prevent crime before it even happens (it's very "Minority Report," with splashes of some of the "X-Men" films) probably have something to do with it.