MARVEL’S WHAT IF… THE RED GUARDIAN STOPPED THE WINTER SOLDIER? Review

Review

This season of Marvel’s What If…? is running the gamut when it comes to the series premise. We’ve seen the wild and the high concept. But today the series returns to well trodded territory as it takes two of the MCU’s most beloved actors and puts them together for a buddy movie-style episode which features great chemistry but fails to excited.

What If… The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? has a solid premise. Setting up Red Guardian (David Harbour) as even more of a Captain America wannabe hero. Dreykov (Piotr Michael) wants to send Guardian to Ohio where he will go undercover as a data analyst. But Alexi thinks his worth far more to The Red Room than that, wanting to stand up with their finest operative, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Jealous of his fellow operatives high-profile mission to murder Howard Stark, Alexi steps in and the Stark’s are able to survive the attack. Bucky and Alexi are forced to go on the run and now find themselves being under the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Science Division head, Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne).

What follows is a trail of destruction across the US as Foster and Ranger Morales (America Ferrera) continue to chase the pair. They get tangled up with Obadiah Stane (Kiff VandenHuevel), who turns out to be a Russian informant less interested in helping the rogue nation as he is in taking over Howard’s company. After their fair share of run ins with the law, Alexi and Bucky form a bond which is able to overcome Bucky’s programming and an attack from both Goliath – Foster’s superhero alter-ego – and The Red Room’s forces.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with A. C. Bradley‘s story. It has all the elements needed to make What If… The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? a blockbuster story. There’s action, it’s fast-paced, there’s great ties to moments from Civil War as well as mythology from across the MCU. The issue is that is needs to do that in 32 minutes, a longer runtime for What If…?, but still very brisk given just how much is going on. It would have benefited from being a two-part story, perhaps setting up Red Guardian and the Winter Soldier’s perceived rivalry, leading up to the intervention on the night of the Stark hit. Then in a follow-up story we find these two on the run and learning to work together to save their own skins.

Instead, moments pass by so fleetingly that there’s little time for them to resonate with the audience. Tonally there are thriller elements, as well as the buddy-cop story and the traditional Marvel-style adventure. It’s a little messy and disjointed once the more light-hearted banter between characters is thrown in to the mix.

I mentioned this in my review of yesterday’s episode but there’s genuinely wonderful chemistry between the leads here. Harbour and Stan work together incredibly well on screen. Even if they never recorded dialogue in the same room. However this magic has been created, Bucky Barnes and Alexi Shostakov so well together which bodes well for 2025’s Thunderbolts*.

Verdict

What If… The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? is not the series’ finest moment. A middling episode which features a great cast but squanders them on a generic story that fails to fully take off.

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