“CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER”
Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
Every punch. Every missile. Every helicarrier. These are just a hand full of effects that go into making a superhero film these days. Watch any Marvel film with the visual effects in mind and it will leave you speechless by how much work goes into each and every sequence. There was a point in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” where the title villain fights with Cap, misses a punch, and breaks the concrete below them. He stabs at Cap with a knife, impacts the van behind him, and drags the knife down the length of the van. And you can imagine, these are not one take executions. All of these practical elements are present in almost every frame of these films. Imagine how less exciting this world would be without this type of attention to detail. And that’s not to mention the CGI that goes into making these humans into superheroes. Falcon would not be jumping out of buildings, Black Widow would not be wearing a digital face of someone else, and the Winter Soldier would not have a killer mechanical arm. Helicarriers would not even exist, let alone be exploding in the sky, and even the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters would not look as impressive. Nick Fury’s exploding SUV would not be the scene stealer that it turned out to be.
Of the team involved, Dan DeLeeuw is the only one of the group who grabs his first Oscar nomination. Bryan Gill has one previous nomination for his work on “Hereafter” (2010) while Russell Earl has two previous nominations, “Tranformers” (2007) and “Star Trek” (2009). Lastly, Dan Sudick grabs his seventh nomination, with all three “Iron Man” films and “The Avengers” included.
What’s its competition? The problem “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” faces in this category is that Marvel puts out these films every year and so people have gotten used to the kind of product they produce. Along with that, the visual effects that are added to this film, though impressive, are more like accessories. They attach nicely, they great a grander world that we live in, but they are additional. What do I mean by this? Take “Interstellar” for example. Nolan is literally creating galaxies in space with his vision and effects. “Guardians Of The Galaxy” and “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes” are creating living, breathing, talking animals that could pass for reality. In every sense of the term, they are creating something out of nothing. And though “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” are producing helicarriers and other ships, and weaving them into our world, these other films are just a few leaps ahead of it. That being said, “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” is in the same boat as Cap.
// Produced by Kevin Feige // Directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo //
// Dated Viewed: Thursday, January 22nd, 2015 // BLU-RAY // 38 films – 32 days //
Oscar Challenge 2015 