In which I rant about something only tangentially related to James Bond, Post I

Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn't really a superhero film, is it? It's more like a political-thriller-slash-Bond-film, right?

Well....

Let's think that one through. The Bond stories TWS borrows the most from are GoldenEye (baddie is an old friend back from the dead, they end up fighting as a signal's about to go out), Quantum of Solace (evil organization has penetrated deep into the "good" governments, easy to get the good guys and the bad guys mixed up), and the novel version of Moonraker (a new super-defense program is actually a plot to destroy freedom, the super-patriot in charge of it is actually a Nazi).

Well, Quantum is hardly "a" Bond film, innit? (Might be why I like it so much in spite of itself.)  Moonraker's elements didn't make it to the screen, and GoldenEye's plot isn't entirely original (cough The Third Man cough - and note that there are a bunch of dots ready to stop moving near the end of TWS...)

But still it does feel like it's really not A Superhero Movie.

I suppose part of that is because - and this is basically true throughout the MCU - there are no secret identities. Everyone knows who Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson (and Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and, well, Thor) are. Captain America's mask is there to protect his head, not his identity. There's none of that "you can't know who I am because you'll be in danger" stuff that infects the Batfilms and Spiderfilms. Cap is a smidge broody but not because his parents/uncle were murdered or his city is hunting him or whatever the reheated Spiderangst was, but rather because the world suddenly got a lot more cynical while he was on ice.

So what do I mean by "Bond film?" Maybe that's a good place to start. Cap doesn't seduce a lot of women or drive expensive gadget-cars or even visit exotic places; The first film took place in a studio backlot the Western Front and the second largely unfolds in D.C. There's a fair amount of covert ops going on in TWS, but James Bond ain't exactly covert. Cap never visits a casino, and his super-constitution basically precludes him drinking expensive martinis since they're not going to get him drunk.

Hrm.