Marcel Winatschek

The Metal Arm at the End of the Trailer

The first trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier dropped and I watched it four times back to back, which I’m blaming entirely on Scarlett Johansson in the Black Widow suit. Chris Evans looking impossibly earnest. Samuel L. Jackson doing the thing where he’s simultaneously intimidating and exhausted. And Scarlett. God, Scarlett.

The film was set for spring 2014, and based on the footage it looked darker than the first—less WWII adventure serial, more political thriller. The Winter Soldier himself appears in glimpses: metal arm, blank face, unclear allegiance. It’s the kind of sequel that seems to understand what the original got right and wants to complicate it rather than amplify it.

I have a particular weakness for the Steve Rogers character, maybe because he’s the only Avenger whose power is essentially just being decent. No traumatic backstory that explains the heroism, no billionaire engineering his way out of guilt. Just a person who was always going to do the right thing, now scaled up to punching helicopters into the Potomac.

The trailer ends with the Winter Soldier catching a thrown shield bare-handed. One hand. Doesn’t even flinch. It’s the image that tells you the film is going to hurt, and that you’ll enjoy every second of it.