Pain and Gain helped me remember how good of a director Michael Bay can be when he actually cares.

This is the kind of video I feel like I need to watch twice.. perfectly constructed to make the comparison interesting, but deep enough to make me think there's a layer I'm still not seeing.

I love how you dive not just under the surface of these movies, but like, dig until you hit bedrock, and then keep going til you hit the mantle.

This is extremely interesting and I had never thought to compare Captain America and Pain & Gain even knowing they had the same script writers. I hope you eventually talk about Ambulance, a Michael Bay film where a day of violence is kicked off due to someone seeing a Michael Bay film one too many times.

I think you're missing a few key links in The Winter Soldier's envisioning of the world. The actions do matter over allegiance. Captain America is supposed to be a wise character we trust and believe, and he believes the program to kill people is wrong when he thinks Shield is doing it. Even threatens to try to stop them. The act itself is wrong, logo makes no difference. The movie also takes pains to establish that, to some extent, that fascistic ideology was not the result of some secret influence, but rather the natural outcome of Shield. It's implied Hydra grew so well under Shield because what Shield is will naturally produce members with fascistic ideologies. Zola in fact specifically says he had a very easy time convincing people to join this new Hydra. In the movie's world, there is little to no difference in Hydra and Shield on a fundamental level, and that both are fundmanetally evil.

Quirky pop references are Marvel's bread and butter

What you do in this video is exactly what Dennis R. McDonald does with his theory of mimetic connections concerning the New Testament and the Greek epics; highlighting the similarities and differences of the story and drawing conclusions between the two. Pretty dope.

I mean The Island is almost a scene for scene unofficial remake. But it REALLY improves it, and I even quite liked Parts.

12:30 Really was not prepared for that parallel. I thought your video on the Transformers films was a deep cut, wow.

Great to see someone looking at the writing of Markus & McFeely, who tend to be overshadowed by the Russo brothers when people are talking about the MCU films that both duos worked on.

Winter Solider doesn't even give a good answer to the "Freedom vs Security" question. In the end it's just S.H.I.E.L.D, Hydra, Government = bad, Captain America = good. Because Captain America's always right don't you know!

goddamn that was a good video. well written and well edited. i love this seemingly crazy but logical connection you've made.

funnily enough when my dad & i went to go see winter solider when it came out the theater we went to mistakenly started playing the first minute or so of pain & gain before being fixed lol

When I think what if Michael Bay made Captain America I also imagine the PeaceMaker show on dugs, booze and Merica😂

Just for the intro. No, the transformers movies are an hour long advertisment for Car manufacturers.

This channel is brilliant. Subbed this week. But I wanted to comment to say that particularly that these video essays are exceptionally well written. Like, some of the smartest and most balanced takes I've seen on KZfaq. Editing and narration is fantastic too. Glad I'm an "early subscriber" because this channel should blow up with consistent content of this quality. Nice work!

Really great and thought provoking comparative analysis, but damn if the 'thank to our top patrons' gag at the end wasnt the funniest thing ive seen all day

I don’t think anyone noticed how Michael bay is also doing a homage to Scorsese with pain and gain

Brilliant video! Really intriguing analysis I can already tell its gonna take up real estate in my brain for a while

i like the way you look at things man, very fun

the chad deep Bay vs the virgin naive MCU

Michael Bay is not what he seems. Some of his movies can have that overly patriotic tone, but it's there because that allows him to make movies with the US Army(and NASA in Armageddon, though they fast regretted that decision). Personally I don't think he tries to promote any worldview, he just is a former music video director, never losing his love for those fast cuts and moving cameras. While Pain & Gain is based on a real story, I think he is laughing more at hinself and his percieved audience with that movie

Michael bay did a DC Darkseid movie too in Transformers Darkside of the Moon.

Your content and examination of media is incredibly insightful and entertaining.

On the list of things things that Captain American is given to look into after being unfrozen, while I do agree that they are relatively vapid when compared to something like Apartheid or the Armenian Genocide, it seems very realistic. Pointing out the seemingly hypocritic nature of this ties into the themes of your video nicely but having had literally thousands of casual conversation at this point in my life, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times someone suggested I take a deeper dive into the history of a significant event that took place between 1940 and today. (Granted, I haven't been frozen for the better part of a century) Not a critism but it did make me think about how, often in film or literally analysis, we seek deeper meaning from things that could easily be chalked up to banal human nature. As a sort of off hand rebutle to the Oscar Wilde quote “everything in the world is about sex - except sex. Sex is about power." One of my college professors said, "some times rain, is just rain." That always stuck with me.

I don't have anything to say just commenting for engagement this video deserves it

This is one of his best movies

Heck of a video

i love high contrast high saturation look of michael bay films

Can you do a comparison between a fistful of dollars with Clint Eastwood and last man standing with Bruce Willis?

Is Michael Bay secretly a sometimes genius...Like with this movie's his other good movie's in my opinion are Bad Boys 2,The 1st Transfomers movie and Ambulance....I he can't take all the credit because the writers help him out too

so shield is basically some kind of MK Ultra variation

Very interesting. One point I have issue with is that "weapons of mass destruction" wouldn't really surprise Cap at all, other than the scope. The difference between one nuclear bomb and thousands of traditional bombs is mostly a matter of complexity. The Red Skull just wanted to kill all the people who opposed him. The US Government sued for peace. I'm sure Cap dealing with it could be very interesting, but that would require more complex moral and ethical debates than Marvel wants to get into, and most American blockbuster viewers are prepared to accept.

Pain and gain is winter soldier on pure columbian cocaine? Got it

more Michael Bay movies

I loved that movie

9:22 I like this line, but it’s slightly inaccurate. Only the male human characters in this world are greedy, aggressive, and misanthropic. The female humans are generally okay.

Pain and Gain is one of my favorites. I actually like most Michael Bay movies

In this video, you said Captain America might have been kept from the fact that the U.S. nuked Japan, when he stopped a WMD from being used on America. But he wasn’t trying to prevent the use of WMDs everywhere, just on his home country. Also, if you look at the projected total deaths from Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan if they didn’t surrender) , it’s far more than the casualties inflicted by Little Boy and Fat Man.

Positive comment

13:45 though, in a lot of ways, what logo (or flag) the person is wearing is what determines good vs bad... If you're a Ukrainian right now, shooting guns and tanks and rockets and drones while wearing a Ukrainian flag is good, but while wearing a Russian one is bad. And the same goes for Russia. If you do those things wearing a Russian Flag, you're good. Wearing a Ukrainian flag, you're bad.

Only one problem exists with your the Po-Po ignoring the plight of the Tony Shaloub character because he's 'not white' and only 'springing into action' when a white businessman is killed is that the South Florida is kind of a suburb of Havana. Lotsa Hispanics (many middle and upper class) from South America, Mexico and the Caribbean make up a HUGE part of South Florida's cultural, business and political life (frikkin hell, the half the cops you show from this movie are played by actors who are Cuban or Colombian, themselves). Having a wife from Cuba and having visited her 'South Florida Branch' of her family, the one thing I noticed is that I, as a Greek/Armenian guy, am usually the 'swarthiest person' there. So, I have no idea what you're trying to impute. If the police in South Florida don't want to get involved it's probably because they smell a 'brewing gang war' and don't want to get caught up in it.

Subbed. That was excellent. As a fan of Pain and Gain and one who thinks the Captain America films are the best of Marvel this was a nice analysis. The problem of course is that Pain and Gain doesn't have a Captain nor a Bucky analog and while the similarities are there when you point them out they aren't strong enough to make the parallel stick beyond the end of the video. I like your style and your ability to break things down, I will check out your other stuff. If I can make a suggestion for a new video. While Robocop has been done to death I think everyone is misunderstanding the movie. They think it is a criticism of capitalism but it is not. It is a criticism of socialism. Socialism is the will of the people (elected officials), using redistributed wealth (taxes) to seize the means of production (regulatory capture). That makes the US military the largest social program on earth making the USA the most socialist country on earth. Socialism sin't hospitals for sick orphans... It is redistribution of wealth, doesn't mean it has to be from rich to poor, it can be from poor to rich. It is Will of the people through democratic processes and representation, seizing the means of production which means running services without any competition. The police and military are both socialist programs. That makes OCP a private supplier to the state so they are paid for via social programs. Alex was handed to them by the police once dead, OCP didn't steal him and he was paid for with tax dollars. Robocop is a result of socialism run amok. Now add part 2 Robocop 2 is a commentary on the fact that the media after Robocop actively targeted children. Hence the movie and the bad guy are called literally Robocop 2. The movie is a critique of violence sold to kids. The Hobbs character is the kid that represents all kids, Hobbs was a philosopher whose ideas centred around the surrender to authority. Cain is a character that killed his brother, in this case the brother is the original Robocop movie and ideas. I mean shit, they even say it when Murphy tries to shoot Hobbs and he says "Can't shoot a kid can you fucker" and minutes later he is killed by Cain who can target kids. The failed Robocop 2s are all the attempts to Remake the violent original that were all squashed in favour of cartoons and toys... Neither movie is understood by the public, as the second is thought to be a hallow retread of the first with everyone missing the delicious meta and self aware nature of the film. The most interesting aspect to me is that what people think the first one's message of anti capitalism is closer to being the message in part 2. Not directly capitalism but more the lack of integrity inherent in a cash grab and as such the two films do tell a more complete story. The dangers of authority in the first and then showing how the desire to give up our rights to fight against capitalism is ridiculous because the worse capitalism can actually do is market R rated movies to kids and make shitty merchandise because ultimately capitalism has no authority and has to rely on its audience to voluntarily participate. Capitalism doesn't make you hungry, entropy does. Capitalism is the best and easiest way we have found to make enough food to feed everyone.