Sorry it's been a while since my last review, but I've been busy with a few things for the past few weeks and so haven't had time to look at some films let alone review them. But I'm back and I just saw this movie so here's how this movie turned out.
Plot: Two years after the events of The Avengers, Captain America has been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. with Black Widow, while still trying to adjust to modern society. But things get even harder for the Cap, when Nick Fury is attacked by the mysterious Winter Soldier and tells Cap that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised before being gunned down. So Captain America and Black Widow are on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. who has branded them as fugitives.
Wow. Just...wow. I had no idea that...well okay let me back up a little. As a man who so wisely prefers to be clueless as possible in terms of images and trailers for movies like the Marvel films, my general thoughts about this film from what little I knew about it, was that I hoped it would be good...even if the story line was going to be completely predictable when it came to the Winter Soldier. I won't give anything away for people who haven't seen this film, but let's just say that knowing who he is, is sort of common knowledge for comic book nerds like me. So that kind of made this film seem like the film was going to be a "meh, let's just get this over with" kind of movie in terms of going into this specific story line in Captain America's history. So from the moment I knew about the Winter Soldier until the moment I started watching the movie, I thought this movie was going to be somewhere into the good but not great category as much as I wanted otherwise as a Marvel fan. So with that said, I did not really expect to find Captain America: The Winter Soldier to give me so much more than I ever thought to be even considerable in terms of story telling and character/world building for both Captain America, and the all around big picture in the Marvel cinema universe. But boy was it beautiful. I know that is a odd choice of words for a movie like this. But the fact of the matter is that so many big things happened to Captain America and everyone and everything around him and the makers of the film did such a great job in almost every single thing about it. It was deep, suspenseful, thrilling, full of development among the characters and the all around Marvel universe, and it was all done so remarkably that... for a fans like me, calling it beautiful kind of fits. But let's get into details as to why starting with the character development starting with, who else, Captain America. In my review to the first movie, I stated how I was very skeptical at first with the casting, and admitted that Chris Evans turned out to bring us the character very well in terms of giving up Cap's willingness to save lives and care for the individual. Then in my review for The Avengers, I said that he gave the same quality, with The Avengers, but focused more on him as a leader, being focused on the mission and his lack of being up to speed in the modern world. Now he goes deeper then ever before with everything he's already given us, but is also giving us Cap going through more of how he's a man out of time, but is facing very political and ethical problems with S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury, Black Widow, and even some other characters that you may or may not have expected to be in this film. (which is another plus about this movie: there are some characters that make some surprising appearances, and all of them were great additions.) Some people have said that as far as Cap fighting goes, he made his shield more awesome in terms of using it for both defense and offense. Personally, I always thought he carried out doing both in the last two films pretty well, but I will admit that there was a little more offense than in those films in hindsight. Then you got Black Widow who got a huge amount of development! She was this total mystery in both Iron Man 2 and most of Avengers, and yet here we are where despite being an opposite of Captain America, finds her life to begin to crumble and begins to be a little vulnerable. And she has developed a very deep and sometimes funny friendship with Cap which is very enjoyable. I have heard that they are working on a solo film for Black Widow, and all I can say for now is that when it comes to going deep into her as a character, this film has brought her up to a terrific start. They've done a great job with other characters, like Nick Fury and Winter Soldier, but I won't go into a whole lot of detail about them because a lot of stuff about them contains spoilers. The only characters I can think of that didn't really get their due in terms of development was Maria Hill and Sharon Carter. Maria Hill kind of just popped up a couple of times and helped out occasionally, so we didn't get very far with her. And Sharon Carter did have at least some development, but not quite to a satisfying amount. But at the same time, it was very nice to have her appear at all, and when it comes to these Marvel films, who knows if we'll get more of her. Now to world building. I can't say a whole lot as to what made this great for the sake of spoilers, but in a nutshell, despite the fact that it's Captain America's movie, it was also kind of a movie for S.H.I.E.L.D. and what is happening to it as an agency, which is mainly what made this film so big in terms of world building in the Marvel universe. After that, all there really is to say is that the action is really great, it was very loyal to the comics, and the story itself was very mind blowing when they kept adding more things and the stakes were raised higher and higher. Also, you might not like this moving if you want really big funny moments like with Avengers, Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, but this film is meant to be more serious than funny in a very good way, and I think it works okay with the funny moments it does have.
And that's my review for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. What I thought was going to just be a nice, good film, turned out to be a surprisingly great one filled with great character development, world building, action, and just gives a great, giant story for both Captain America, and Marvel in general. I'd say more, but this review is already almost as big as my review for Man of Steel, so I'll say for now that if you haven't seen it, do so now!
