Review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) by Chadd C — 08 May 2015

The true definition of a "Marvel's Avenger" movie.

I had such low hopes for the sequel to "Captain America: The First Avenger," because I did not care much for the first movie, nor any of the recent "Avengers' movies, such as "Marvel's The Avengers", 'Iron Man 3", and "Thor: The Dark World." It's not like they were terrible, but they became so predictable and not as exciting as the first two "Iron Man" movies and "Thor." The reason why those movies worked was because it was able to develop new ideas that surprised me and kept me engaged. Thankfully, the writers got it right this time.

After viewing "Thor: The Dark World", I just had this idea that the chronological order would be screwed up when trying to view all of the "Avenger's" movie together, but this movie almost made it seem like fans of only Captain America, can go straight from the first to second one.

The Pros: So, as the first one ended, Captain America was now in present-day America, where he will have to fight crime by teaming up with S.H.E.L.D. At the second starts, it seems like a complete continuation of the first one. The addition of Anthony Mackie was excellent, because he's both talented and he needed it in order to boost his career, since his movies lately have not been well-proclaimed. Samuel L. Jackson's scenes were probably my favorite, especially with his car chase from the assassins. Right then, I knew that this movie was special, because it was still able to have strong action sequences without it's main character. Overall, the acting and action scenes were superb and smart.

The Cons: Even though I was entertained through the movie, it frustrated me that most of the ideas were taken from other movies. With all of the politics and how one guy was trying to make the team better by taking some team member out, reminded me a lot of "Watchmen' and as for the ending action s scene on top of the ship, reminded me too much of the ending action scene from "Star Trek from Darkness." Overall, I think that if it were not for the copycat scenes, I would have raised my score to 5 stars.

Final Thoughts: Definelty one of the better superhero movies from the "Avenger's" franchise. It was smart to go into a completely new direction and broaden the Marvel universe. I can't wait for the new "Avenger's" movie that comes out!

B+.