Review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) by Mrmoviebuff — 03 May 2016

'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' is, without a doubt, my favorite MCU movie since 'Iron Man' (2008), and I even rank this slightly above 'The Avengers' (2012).

Chris Evans returns as the super soldier still trying to adapt to modern life. We see in the beginning that he meets up with a former soldier named Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and they seem to really hit it off. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) also returns in the movie helping out the Captain on his missions as they try and rescue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from terrorists in a very well crafted fight scene that takes place on a boat.

The Captain learns that Black Widow has been storing some mysterious data and confronts Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) about it, they even have a conversation about trust, and who is more trust-worthy.

We also meet Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), who is a member of the World Security Council and is very good friends with Fury.

It seems that things get out of hand when Fury ends up in a car chase incident that leads him directly to the mysterious "Winter Soldier". The captain tries to track down this mysterious man with a metal arm, but it seems that he is so powerful and so quick, that he can even catch his shield. Nobody seems to know about this character, he has been around for decades it almost seems. The captain even goes as far as to say that "he's a ghost story".

There are many intense moments throughout this entire film, this is a grounded political thriller, which is unlike Marvel, usually, you would expect some CGI spectacle with a crowd running away from flying air-crafts or aliens invading...but this movie, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, relies mainly on practical stunt work, some perfectly timed and perfectly choreographed fight scenes, and many, many moments of characters doing some questionable things, but it turns out they were doing it for good reason.

It's amazing as to how the tone shifted, in 'Captain America: The First Avenger' (2011), that was more of a retro, colorful, almost cliched war film...but it was very good. Here, you have a solid, edge-of-your-seat political thriller. Chris Evans distances himself away from that Johnny Storm role in the "Fantastic Four" franchise he used to be a part of, now, he fully blends in as the self-righteous, hard-working soldier.

Both Evans and Johansson also have terrific chemistry, the way that the modern day Black Widow occasionally pokes fun at the 95 year old super soldier, and the way that they don't seem to trust each other at first, but must fight together to stop their enemies is all executed perfectly. The Russo brothers, clearly knew what they were doing.

Forget about the villain silliness of 'Iron Man 3' (2013), or even the CGI heavy 'Thor: The Dark World' (2013) (which I still liked)...Marvel has made, what could possibly be what 'The Dark Knight' (2008) was for the Batman character.

Solid storytelling, thrilling fight scenes, great action, a memorable villain...