Let's Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The First Avenger was a very unexpected hit with me. I wasn’t really sure what to expect with the film and I didn’t have much faith in Chris Evans in the role. The film took me completely by surprised and has become one of my all time favorite comic book movies. That said; I was expecting great things to come out of the sequel. Were my expectations met? Let’s review Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The Negative

The acting between Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson was a little stiff. We follow Captain America and Black Widow for the majority of the film, with their interactions with one another filling in any slow section. This is a problem because most of their dialogue with one another feels flat. This is easily explained away by the fact that the two of them are high-level secret agents and being un-emotional is key in the field. I get entirely what the film was going for; I just wish the two could emote a bit more than the film would allow them.

The biggest question that keeps flashing in my mind regarding this film is where is Hawkeye? The plot of this film has major ramifications to the SHIELD organization and with Hawkeye being a top agent; you would think that he would appear in this movie. There isn’t even much of a mention as to what he is doing during the events of this film. For the Avenger who has gotten the least amount of screen time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe you would think that this would have been their big opportunity to expand him a little. I do understand why they didn’t include him though. The amount of important super heroes in this film was starting to border The Avengers. If Hawkeye were in this film he probably would have gotten even less screen time than before. It just seems odd that with SHIELD being so important to his character, that he wouldn’t even get a passing mention to his current status.

The Positive

The plot was amazing. This film takes all of the covert splendor of a James Bond movie but does it with the amazing world of super heroes.  The film does an excellent job with pulling off its various plot twist with Cap finding himself in a world of espionage and uncertainty in who his allies are. If you are a fan of James Bond, I highly recommend you see this film. This was also an excellent film for Captain America fans as this movie crammed so much Cap lore that it almost had a blink and you’ll miss it quality to it.

The fight scenes were absolutely spectacular in this film, particularly the fight scenes between Cap and Winter Soldier. The fights between these two figures are fast and tight, showing off the ferocity two super soldiers can have in combat against one another. The scene that keeps coming back to my mind is a road fight between the two of them. The fight is claustrophobic with Winter Soldier relentless attacking with a knife with Cap barely dodging each blow. It was fight choreography like this that kept me on the edge of my seat in breathless excitement.

The villains were absolutely exquisite in this movie. As I stated before, the film’s plot is a massive mystery with Cap slowly uncovering who he can trust and who he can’t, so I’m not going to give all the villains away. That said spoiler ahead, skip to the conclusion if you don’t want a major plot twist spoiled…

 

We all set? Okay, so Arnim Zola is one of my all time favorite Captain America villains. It was cool to see him as a human in the first film but what I was really looking forward to was seeing him as a robot and this film totally delivered on that front. Zola was perfect and even better they made him one of the central plot twists to the film. This was my absolute favorite scene in the movie as Cap slowly comes to realize that in his 70 year absence the world has been slowly taken over by Hydra forces, with Zola being the starting point behind that front.

In Conclusion

This film quickly became one of my all time favorites in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This was definitely Marvel trying their hand at producing a James Bond film and they succeeded magnificently at it. The plot, the mystery, the villains, as well as the simply massive amount of Cap lore stuffed into this film was a brilliant love letter to one of Marvel’s oldest characters. This film has gotten me even more excited for the next Captain America film; I just hope it can live up to the first two films. 4.9 out of 5.