Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This review may contain spoilers.

If Avengers was the greatest Marvel Studios film ever made then Captain America: The Winter SOldier comes a close second. I would give this film an 8.5/10.

Captain America is a masterpiece of writing. I mean this is the perfect balance between superhero film and spy film. The pacing never dropped, it always knew how to keep the stakes high. The effects were brilliant to watch, I mean that scene where three helicarriers got blown out of the sky was fantastic. The fight choreography was also incredible, especially in scenes with the Winter Soldier. The score for this film was great, the music actually had a big play within this film. Also the end credits scene for this film makes me all kinds of comic book nerd excited.

Chris Evans, who played Captain America, is growing on me; I hated his first film but he has come a long way and I think that they picked the right guy for the role at the end of the day. Samuel L. Jackson, who played Nick Fury, finally got the screen time and the action scenes he deserved was phenomenal; he spearheaded some of the most emotionally engaging scenes of the film. Scarlett Johansson, who played Black Widow, almost got let down with her obsession to hook Cap up with a date but ultimately she kept the mystery behind her character strong and was enthralling to watch. Robert Redford, who played Alexander Pierce, was nothing but classic spy villain at his best. Sebastian Stan, who played Winter Soldier, is the next Loki in the sense that he's the villain you can't help loving. Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones and Garry Shandling, who played Peggy Carter, Dr. Armin Zola and Senator Stern respectfully, each brought their character back in fantastic ways; I loved seeing these people back for some great cameos.

But it was Anthony Mackie, who played Falcon, that really owned the show. This guy is going to be a fantastic addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe; his look and humour have such a refreshing feel that I couldn't help but pick this guy out as the star of the film.

What I found a bit contrived was the tendency for this film to go off into subplots that made zero sense or added nothing, for example Agent 13 was such a bad addition to the franchise.

Cobie Smulders, who played Maria Hill, got given the Avengers treatment again and literally added nothing to this movie. Frank grillo, who played Crossbones, was a disappointing minion character and I have no idea why some Marvel Studios execs want to give him his own film. Maximiliano Hernandez, who played Jasper Sitwell, was interesting as a minor villain but as all the Marvel one shots have demonstrated he does not deserve major screen time. Emily VanCamp, who plays Agent 13, was the most useless character in this movie and did not need to be in it.


Just out of curiosity for those who read these should I pick out a star of the film for each movie from now on? Would love to get some opinions on that.