When the announcement came that the inevitable sequel to 2011' s Captain America: The First Avenger would be called Captain America: The Winter Soldier I was encouraged.
Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier stories, in the pages of Captain America, were some of the strongest, most well conceived stories to come out of the House of Ideas. For years one of the cardinal rules of comics was, you can bring back whomever you want from the dead but you can't bring back Bucky Barnes or Spidey's Uncle Ben. Brubaker broke the rule and won out in the end.
I figured if anything, Marvel Studios was standing on the shoulders of giants by taking inspiration from such beloved source material.
When I discovered that they hired Anthony and Joe Russo to direct the film I became confused. The Russo's are known for comedy, such as the Owen Wilson vehicle You, Me and Dupree, and the sitcom Community. Do they have the chops to pull off an action movie, with such a dark premise? Strangely they do and they do so spectacularly. Among the explosions, fancy gadgets, bone jarring fist fights, car crashes and a smarmy Robert Redford, The Russos take advantage of the acting talent of their principals and help flesh out characters that seem and feel real. The characters interact with the world in a believable way and are given consequences for their behavior and tests for their convictions.
The real villain of the film is the cinematic equivalent of the NSA, a few views of the trailers will likely clue you in on whose taking on that role and pushing that post 9-11 dilemma between security and freedom. When faced with such a dilemma, Cap has no choice but to stick it to the man. With the help of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and newcomer, Anthony Mackie, who brings new energy to the franchise as the Falcon, Chris Evans' Captain America is led on an odyssey which essentially unravels our understanding of the shared universe these characters exist in. The story also careens Cap and his pals into a couple of showdowns with Sebastian Stan's lethal Winter Soldier. The results are some of the best fight sequences in recent memory, fueled by the fact that Cap has to fight the last person in the world he'd ever want to deliver a beat down to.
Winter Soldier's menace owes itself partly to Stan's troubled performance and to some extremely vicious robot arm sound effects.
Without giving too much away, the status quo of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is changed dramatically. There is no reboot button at the end of the film.
In the process, Winter Soldier also plants the seeds for what is to come as well as sets the Phase 2 films squarely on track quality wise. While, I am an ardent fan of Marvel Studios, I felt with Iron Man 3, they didn't have sufficient faith in the source material, which I felt caused the film to suffer. Thor: The Dark World was fun and made a pleasing effort at expanding the scope of the Marvel Universe on film, However it wasn't entirely structurally sound and seemed to be the victim of extensive editing. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a film that will make comics fans feel validated but will entertain the casual viewer who is not as invested in the source material, because of the characterizations, the editing, the pace and the way the story unravels. If you get the chance see it with a crowd and stay through those credits.