This very nearly earned a perfect grade from me. I would have liked a little more time catching up with Cap at the beginning, and the final battle could have been a bit better edited. Otherwise it's a flawless action movie, the type we don't get to see anymore.

Now someone could say "well you like every Marvel movie" and this is true, I have given a B+ or higher to every single film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Despite never being that into comics, I love superheroes and I'm not shy about this. So what is it that makes The Winter Soldier special in the face of so many similar movies? The action sequences! It soars past everything but the final battle in Avengers. Casting someone like George St. Pierre to play a throwaway villain, dispatched fifteen minutes in, may seem silly, but it makes a huge difference when actors can do their own stunts. Cap is in a mask, so it's easy to throw another fighter in there to give us a good few minutes of brawling without super quick cutaway editing. Things like this are scattered throughout the film, and never that far away from the last. This and the great cast keep The WInter Soldier from ever coming to a halt as it plows through the relatively short 125 minutes runtime sans credits. Could have easily thrown another ten minutes on at the start and finish without hurting the pace. That is just nitpicking though. I'm very satisfied with what we got.

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch tease the next Avengers, just as every Marvel film will keep leading into the next movie until we stop seeing them. Some will see this as a bad thing, that things will inevitably turn ugly if there is no fear of failure. Maybe that is true, but right now we are in the era where Disney can afford to hand a billion dollar property off to a pair of bros who are best known for doing a beloved sitcom that just can't seem to find eyeballs. Even the biggest fans of Community would not have seen them as expert action directors, yet the proof is here before us. So while the Marvelverse will continue long after the Russo's finish Captain America 3, so will the RUSSO Universe. All of those films (with big $$$ attached to them) now being must-sees.

Frigga is getting her own spin-off?!?

We could see a show on Netflix following the politicians of Asgard!

The Avengers - ***** (A+)
Iron Man - ****½ (A)
Captain America: The First Avenger - **** (A-)
Iron Man 3 - ***½ (B+)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - ***½ (B+)
The Incredible Hulk - *** (B)
Thor: The Dark World - *** (B) (still couldn't explain a damn thing that happened in the movie though)
Thor - **½ (B-)
Iron Man 2 - **½ (C+) (though it'll need an eventual rewatch now that we're past the "setting everything up" point)



- The last twenty minutes are kind of a drag

- The Falcon is stupid (not the actual character, Anthony Mackie is a welcomed addition, but the suit and how he can immediately fly it, is dumb)

- Robert Redford is somewhat wasted. ("Hail Hydra!", though the maid shooting was fantastic)

- And the movie doesn't have one surprise in it. If you didn't know Bucky was WS (though this one is more forgivable because Cap literally has to explain who he is to the audience), or that Nick Fury was still alive, or that Robert Redford was the main bad guy, then you've clearly never seen a Marvel movie, which begs the question, what are you doing reading this? That does get me wondering though if whether these Marvel movies are getting too predictable. Maybe it isn't even the point.

But the 120 minute movie that came before the last 20 minutes? Boy, it's a lot of fun. Evans is once again perfect as Cap, and Black Widow is even somewhat becoming a fleshed out character. And any worry I had that the Russo's might not have been able to handle the action went out the window with the opening scene on the boat. That was really well done. Also a standout is the Nick Fury chase.

If I had to pick between the two Captain films, I'd say I enjoyed the first one more because of the serial nature of it. The throwback style made it completely different from all the other Marvel films. It was a blast. With the sequel, they're clearly going for a homage to the espionage thrillers from the 70s (Redford!) mixed in with a real world vibe of today, and I would say I appreciated it more than enjoyed (though I very much did) this time around, where it was the other way around with the original.

I hope at some point a time machine is introduced so Cap can go back to the 40's, or fight the Russians in the 50's. I think that'd be a lot of fun. The only problem is Evans probably won't stick around to do it at that point. We'd also get a young Haley Atwell back. Her presence throughout the film is missed in this one (though I did appreciate the scene with Cap at her house), as the new girl did literally nothing. Black Widow I guess is the primary replacement, and she's great, but I did miss the spunk of Peggy Carter.

(B+)

I thought SHIELD basically being Hydra Mk. 2 was a pretty huge surprise.

I've seen complaints in here and elsewhere about the other Avengers not turning up to help Cap. While that'd be nice, it's not really that reasonable. Is Bruce Banner just sitting around drinking coffee and reading his iPad? No! He's doing Hulk things somewhere else. Is Thor supposed to put his battle with Malekith on pause to go help his buddy Steve get out of a jam? Cap was lucky to have to some ass-kicking eye-candy to tag along with and a new BFF that can fly.

On a related matter, will Cap 3 have a bromance triangle?

They could put out solo movies every year, showing exactly what everybody is doing. Then people would complain about too much Marvel. And if every movie was like Avengers people would complain about the lack of character development. I'm not talking about you, but I have seen/heard people use this as a reason to shit on the whole franchise.

That was pretty much my reaction, actually. I was grinning like mad when Toby Jones revealed it.

TDS is a horror fan, though. So his "surprise" standard is pretty low.

lol

The man who dug GREEN LANTERN is correct.

I didn't "dig" it. It's not nearly as bad as people say. Except for the mask. The mask is awful.

At the start of the movie, Cap has grown to think Shield might be getting a little too powerful for its own good. Is it so much of a stretch to guess that something might be amiss and our hero might be right? And since it's a Captain America movie, who else was it going to be?

Loved it. Having never been a fan of these characters growing up (X-Men, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four took up all of my time), this is the first SOLO Avengers movie I can say I actually loved. Still like most of the others but this is a BIG step in the right direction.

1. Avengers
2. Winter Soldier

3. Iron Man
4. First Avenger
5. Thor 2

6. Thor
7. The Incredible Hulk



8. Iron Man 3

9. Iron Man 2

Really excited for GOTG and Ant-Man.

It's a pretty fun movie. I like the first Captain and this one is even better. Despite no shirtless action from Evans here.

What's your point?

It means if this was a court of law you'd be going upstate for 10-25 years you sick motherfucker.

"Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency." - Joseph Addison

The action scenes are really sharp but that's about all it's good for. Sick of Marvel

Indeed, the action is masterfully directed.

Fury sure does like to fuck with Cap. This is now twice he's pulled this shit on you to "accomplish" some other bullshit.

No right minded person would trust Fury with watching their pet, let alone their lives.

what was the point of the nurse across the hall storyline?

She's in Civil War.

But what was the point of her in this? She didn't do anything, I guess just to move the story along...