Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson

Synopsis:
Captain America and Black Widow team up to unravel a HYDRA plot from within SHIELD.

Impressions:
The first Captain America movie was pretty good and I heard good things about this one, so I was expecting a solid sequel and that's exactly what I got. In fact, this one may in fact surpass the original, something a lot of other Marvel characters' series haven't really managed to do. You wouldn't imagine a fairly topical spy/conspiracy thriller would be tied into a Captain America movie, but there you have it. It sets quite a different tone from the first film, but this actually works quite well as it further emphasizes the clash that Cap is dealing with.

I don't need to pile on fresh accolades for the headliners, though I will say that Cap, Black Widow and Nick Fury continue to maintain the high standards established in previous films. I rather liked the development of Cap and Widow's relationship. As far as newcomers go, I want to give a nod to Anthony Mackie as Falcon, who makes a good supporting character that I'm looking forward to seeing more in future films. I also liked Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce and Sebastian Stan as the Winter Soldier.

There's a lot of good action with special effects to back it up (and I appreciate that practical effects were used as far as it was feasible). You get a pretty good flow from one action set piece to the next with some nice quieter moments interspersed throughout.

This is one of the better MCU films, so if you're already invested, you're sure to want to see this one. I'd recommend catching this one before Avengers 2 if you haven't done so already as this one does more direct setup than any other Phase 2 film.

Rating:
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