“A political thriller of the ’70s” is how Kevin Feige, the man in charge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, described the new Captain America movie his studio was releasing in the spring of 2014. At the time, it seemed like an awfully highfalutin point of reference for a film about a defrosted patriotic superhero who chucks his shield at bad guys. Hadn’t James Mangold tried the same tack a year prior, dubiously citing Ozu as a major influence on his Marvel adaptation The Wolverine? Couldn’t these guys just admit they were making capeshit? As it turned out, there was some...