Review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) by Joseph B — 17 Jul 2015

Captain America: The First Avenger was one of the lowpoints of Marvels Cinematic Universe for me. It was slow and clunky and its action sequences suffered from having to be realistic within a WWII setting.

However this film does a complete 180 and takes the franchise into a whole new direction, unfortunately in some places it is just too jam packed. Pre-Avengers this film has a rivetting and twisting story which is easily the highlight.

It makes the audience question characters they previously favoured and learn to love some new ones. The addition of Falcon was cleverly intergrated and some of his action scenes were very cool but going forward however he seems too 'plain' and without much of interesting backstory.

He serves most definitely as something to create appeal and I feel this is what alot of the film does. It looks nice and pretty on the outside but when you begin to see through that at about halfway it becomes just one big mess of explosions.

The first halfway though is remarkable with the action thrilling and non-repetitive. The classic comedic elements of a Marvel film are there too and Nick Furys increased screentime is definitely something that is appreciated.

Cap 2 is by no means a failure. It improves significantly over the first and with some nice visuals and masterfully created sound it does win in the technical areas. Its story is realistic and is explained well with the actors doing a good job, however with exception to the first half of the film, overall this movie lacks any depth, emotion or balance.

In some places its just too wild and over the top, which is odd considering how slow and unexcitable the first film is.