Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This movie is very good I loved it so much.

This is indeed a great piece of superhero entertainment. If superheroes and action, plenty of action, is within your sphere of interest then this movie truly delivers. There is even a story to support the stunts and special effects fireworks that is not too shabby. As a matter of fact, for being a Marvel-based movie, the story is more than acceptable.

As the blurb states, our hero is meeting a few adaptation issues after having been awaken into the modern world. Luckily the movie do not fall into the trap of making some silly comedy out of it but keeps these parts at a reasonable level where it stays funny without ruining the movie or disrupting the pace of the real story.

The story? Simple and not very original with the usual slew of traitors strewn about, you cannot trust anyone, our hero becomes a fugitive etc etc bla bla bla. It is however a pretty straightforward one which works quite well and is not getting bogged down in silly emotions and general idiotic behavior by our hero like for instance several instalments of Spider Man have done. Actually this is one thing that I really like with this movie. The hero is a true hero from start to finish without any of that modern Hollywood crap where the hero must be tarnished in one way or another to satisfy the directors and producers.

As I wrote above if you like superhero action movies then there is little not to like with this one. Acceptable story, plenty of action, good special effects, a cool chick (hey I am but an ordinary male, I like female actors in tight costumes) and a clear hero. None of the actors are really doing a bad job of it and in general the acting is as good as one can expect when portraying characters that, after all, are be totally ludicrous in real life. Its 8 out of 10 rating at IMDb (at the time of writing this) is well deserved. I am astonished that some people seem to have voted it down with a one star rating. It is a Marvel-based movie. You might feel it is more or less good but the style of the movie should not really be a major surprise to anyone and there is no way in hell that it deserves a one star rating unless someone really watched the wrong movie by accident.

Put *a little* bit of brain in a superhero's movie script and you will have everybody talking wonders about it.

This is not a bad movie but neither astonishing. Fun and entertaining and with great FX, as expected.

The Winter Soldier has all the action, quirky one-liners, and bold adventure that we have come to expect of a Marvel movie.

Plus we get introduced to a new/old villain as well as some fun romantic tension between Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Natasha Romanoff (The Black Widow). (Scarlett Johansson is perfect in this role.)

But this film also has some minor irritations all stemming from Marvel's tendency to make _Captain America_ more complicated than it really needs to be.

MINOR SPOILER ALERT:
1. The love story/non-story. Is this necessary? Will the Captain remain faithful to a 80 year-old woman on her deathbed OR engage in a date with his next door neighbor? Plus the tension between him and Natasha Romanoff is intense. This comes off as forced, awkward, and pointless.

2. “The deception goes deeper than you can imagine. You can’t trust anybody.” It's this way every time so it should no longer be a surprise.

3. He’s dead but not really. Not him, the other him. Well…they both were dead – not really – but now they are both alive. But one of them can’t remember who he really is. In this film we get to do this with two characters instead of one. It’s not a huge distraction but why does Marvel keep returning to this plot line?

END OF MINOR SPOILER ALERT

The Winter Soldier is best when Rogers and Romanoff are on the move trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The explosions are nice, the action scenes are intense but the real enjoyment of the film is where skill and wits are relied on more than gadgets and explosions.

Patriotism is a bit more nuanced this time around and it's better for it. The cast is great, no awkward acting moments to report. It’s a great summer flick with all the action you want.

Till the end of the road.

Stonking! Now this is more like it, after the disappointments that have been Iron Man 2 and Thor 2, Captain America gets a sequel of substance and sparks. It manages to blend everything required to make a great superhero film, lashings of derring-do heroics, action bonanza, adventure, some sexy sizzle and of course the key, a story with brains and mystery elements.

True enough to say that the considerable contributions of Black Widow and Falcon (and Nick Fury of course) keeps this as a lively Avengers spin-off movie, which is no bad thing at all, but it's still the Captain who dominates things, marking himself out as a viable main man. In fact the whole film has the old school comic book feel, yes there's the grandiose pyrotechnics - unsurprisingly amped up for the big finale, but there's an adherence to serial thriller conventions that is, well, rather warm and comforting.

With the Captain getting some surprising amount of emotional depth and humanity courtesy of the perfectly cast Chris Evans, the viewers have much to care about. Themes of Bondian world domination and global security crisis keep things nice and fanciful, while the unheralded work by the effects guys is modern cinematic art. There's some adherence to genre formula, and a bit of Marvel universe copy-catting going on, but this is one of the best films from the Marvel stable. A rich sequel indeed - more Captain America please. 9/10

**A long format review from 2014**

Misleadingly, the titular Winter Soldier is essentially a minor subplot in what is more of an espionage-technoir-thriller meets spectacle-epic than your typical super hero film. The real meat of the movie, thankfully, has some more substance behind it. Though it wouldn't surprise me if we learn later that Sebastian Stan's villain was forced to take a back seat via last minute script changes à la Hawkeye in _The Avengers_.

These things are of course a matter of opinion, and I'd like to watch _Winter Soldier_ at least once more (particularly in 2D... God do I ever hate 3D) before committing to any particular ranking. But even without that, I feel confident in saying it's the best MCU Phase 2 film to date. We must await _Guardians of The Galaxy_ and _Age of Ultron_ before cementing that little award, but I'd say that it stands at the very least above _Iron Man 3_ and _The Dark World_.

I always try to keep my reviews spoiler free, but being that in most parts of the world it isn't out yet, I'll be extra careful to do so with this one. This makes talking about _Winter Soldier_ on its own merits difficult, but there are certainly a few things that can be said.

Chris Evans (Cap'), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and to a slightly lesser extent. Anthonie Mackie (Falcon) rule the film, and do so without any shortcomings. That's not to say that they couldn't physically have done any better, but their roles were all seamless as far as my blurred vision could tell, which is not an accolade I'd often give.

Where _The Dark World_ was simply a holding pattern for Thor with some very pretty pictures, _Iron Man 3_ and _The Winter Soldier_ went out and took some actual risks in their stories. But unlike _Iron Man 3's_, Winter Soldier's risks have (to its eternal credit) been universally well received.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo also managed to cameo a couple of Community alumni, which will never be a bad thing in my eyes, even if they're just one-off, throwaway jokes.

As I said, I really feel I need to give _The Winter Soldier_ at the very least one more screening before I feel totally confident in my thoughts about it.

But the fact that I'm really fucking excited for that second viewing speaks in its favour if nothing else does.

86%

_-Gimly_