Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the 70th episode of Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers.It was written by Spencer Gilbert,Gilli Nissim,Ian Weinreich,Nick Smith,Dan Murrell,andAndy Signore. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the 2014 Marvel superhero sequel film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It was published on August 19, 2014, to coincide with the film's release on home video and Blu-ray. It is 3 minutes 59 seconds long. It has been viewed over 11 million times. The directors of Captain America: The Winter Solider, the Russo brothers, knew about the Honest Trailers series during production of the film and tried to make it "Honest Trailers proof." In 2018, this fact was used as the basis of a question on the TV game show Jeopardy.
You weren't that impressed with his first movie. He wasn't your favorite Avenger. Now, get ready for the sequel that made everyone say "Holy sh*t, who knew Captain America could kick so much ass?":
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The Captain is back, and he didn't skip leg day (shows Captain America kicking various villains). Thrill as he ditches his lame Avengers suit for a cool new one and shows off the full range of his vaguely-defined superpowers, like super gymnastics, super throwing (shows Captain America throwing his shield like a frisbee), super catching (shows Captain America catching his shield as it's thrown at him), and super jumping out of stuff.
When he's not kicking ass or taking names, follow Cap as he spends his free time freaking out kids at museums, hanging with his GILF (Peggy Carter), and catching up on the last sixty years of pop culture. (shows Nick Fury and Mace Windu, both played by Samuel L. Jackson) Man, Star Wars must've blown his mind.
When H.Y.D.R.A. returns, Cap needs to take 'em out by forming a team he can trust, including Black Widow, a sneaky double agent who he really shouldn't trust; and Falcon, a random guy he met on the street. Watch as Cap and two non-superheroes end up...actually kicking a lot of ass together in a really entertaining, well-directed movie. What? We have to be honest. It's good.
But since Honest Trailers is a comedy series, get ready for nitpicking. Prepare for the shocking revelation that H.Y.D.R.A. has been secretly growing inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. all along, despite the fact that the previous Marvel movies really didn't do anything to set that up; and get ready to try to ignore questions like, when did Nick Fury stop wearing the bullet-proof vest that saved his life in The Avengers? Why didn't Tony Stark find out about H.Y.D.R.A. when he decrypted all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files? How did an agency that employs thousands of people hide the fact that half of its agents were members of a secret Nazi death cult for over sixty years? If S.H.I.E.L.D. had their hands on the Tesseract for so long, why didn't H.Y.D.R.A. just use that to take over the world? That was the Red Skull's plan in the first place, right? And he was the O.G. H.Y.D.R.A. And if Nick Fury was such a threat, why didn't H.Y.D.R.A. try to kill him before he saved Tony Stark's life, thawed out their greatest enemy, and assembled a team of superheroes that would almost certainly stop any evil plans they had for the future? See? We told you it would be nitpicking.
So sit back and enjoy the best stand-alone Marvel movie since Iron Man, full of awesome action, awesome cameos, and one awesome twist they run into the ground, where Bucky turns out to still be alive, and Dr. Zola turns out to still be alive, and Nick Fury turns out to still be alive, and Crossbone turns out to...okay, no one ever really dies in this movie. Still great, though.
Starring American Austin Powers (Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America), Mad-Eye Moody (Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury), Unfrozen Caveman Soldier (Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier), Lucy (Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Falcon Punch! (Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon), Robert Redtoyota (Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce), and Hail Hard Drive (Toby Jones as Arnim Zola).
Honest title for Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Captain America: He's Cool Now. Titles designed by Robert Holtby.
Captain America: He's Cool Now
(shows a flash drive being hidden inside a vending machine) So Cap bets the safety of the free world on two people not wanting to buy gum?
Tony Stark: Not a great plan.
Trivia[]
Russo Brothers' Honest Reaction to Winter Soldier Honest Trailer
In April 2016, Joe and AnthonyRusso recorded a reaction video where they watched the Honest Trailer and gave their thoughts on it.
This Honest Trailer was notable for being almost completely positive towards the film it parodied. Other incredibly positive Honest Trailers include Die Hard and The Jungle Book.
"What is Honest Trailers?" Jeopardy 2018 screencap.
In April 2018, the American TV game show Jeopardy used Honest Trailers as the basis for a question: "The directors of Captain America: The Winter Solider shaped their film to avoid being mocked by this fake coming attractions show." None of the contestants knew the answer.
An Honest Trailer Commentary for this episode was recorded and was available on the Screen Junkies Plus until the website/app was discontinued. Screen Junkies don't currently have any way of releasing the video.
Honest Trailers - Captain America: The Winter Solider has a 97.4% approval rating from YouTube viewers. Many media sites commented on how positive the video was towards Captain America: The Winter Soldier.SlashFilm called Screen Junkies' incredibly positive slant on the film a "nice twist on the usual approach" and also wrote the Honest Trailer's nitpicking was "actually pretty clever and funny." The website Comic Book Movie wrote "it's rare to find an 'Honest Trailer' where they're forced to admit the movie was actually really damn good! Even so, they find some very funny stuff to point out and make fun of here, and they do raise a fair few valid points."
In an interview with Collider, Joe Russo said he was "flattered and amused" by the Honest Trailer. He also spoke about Honest Trailers series and how it impacted the development of Captain America: The Winter Solider:
What’s so funny is that I’m an avid honest trailer watcher. I love it, it cracks me up. So I think we talked about it in the commentary we used to sit in the room and go, “this is not going to end up in an Honest Trailer. This logic isn’t sound enough yet.” We literally tried to Honest Trailer proof the movie. Because what Honest Trailers really is, and I’ll say litmus test again, is “how sound is the logic in your film? How ridiculous are the buys that you’re asking the audience to make?” So we would just comb through the script over and over again and go, “how do we shore up this logic? How do we shore up this logic?” So it was a very helpful exercise for us. (Joe Russo, September 4, 2014, in an interview with Collider)
In response to Joe Russo's comment, many media sites praised the Honest Trailers series more generally. The Daily Dot wrote "Honest Trailers aren’t just there to make people laugh; they pick up on genuine, usually very stupid flaws that were left in Hollywood movies due to lazy storytelling." Uproxx wrote of Honest Trailers, "they’re funny, they’re insightful and, if the comments section is to be believed, they’re a hell of a lot better than CinemaSins’ Everything Wrong With series." CinemaBlend also commended the Honest Trailers series for having a positive impact on blockbuster movies:
While commenters have often decried Honest Trailers for accused cynicism or buzz-killing, it's clear the videos have proved a true source of inspiration for one of the summer's best films. And really, isn't that the point of this kind of dedicated nitpicking? To demand movies that allow us to suspend disbelief and experience an incredible ride? I used to think that at their best Honest Trailers provide some catharsis for movie fans who've been heartbroken over a film that didn't dare live up to their expectations. But it seems that at their best, Honest Trailers can actually make for better movies. Even Marvel movies. (Kristy Puchko, CinemaBlend)
Production credits[]
Video thumbnail for Honest Trailers - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
