Just in case you haven't seen the movie (in which case: why are you reading this, go out and see it!) there are heavy spoilers for this film. You've been warned. Now, onto my review:
I'll guess I'll start off with the negatives of this film. There aren't many but I do feel like there are some worth mentioning. The film, throughout, moves at a fast pace. Which is good...for the most part. The film really doesn't give you all that much time to breathe and it is an exhilirating movie but I feel like there are certain parts it could've benefited from slowing down a bit. There is one scene in particular, when Captain America is being chased out of the Traskelion by S.H.I.E.L.D., where it all of a sudden jumped to him driving with his motorcycle wearing his helmet. It brought me out of the movie for a second as I thought "...but I just thought he was in the main complex. How did he get there?"
The plot at the beginning felt a little off to me as well. It wasn't anything game breaking from the start nor does the film get destroyed. It mostly happens right after the raid on the S.H.I.E.L.D. boat. The film just slows down only to speed right back up ten minutes later and then slow back down again, to speed right back up only five minutes later. However, from that point onward, it is constant and the pace remains the same.
Overall, not too much to complain about at all, just a few nitpicks.
Now, on to the good stuff.
I would argue that
The Avengers would be the single greatest Comic Book Movie of all time. However, the best comic book movie, for me, that features a lone hero is
The Dark Knight. There is very nearly nothing that Nolan's sequel gets wrong.
The Avengers, while being more fun I felt, lacks a lot on the plot department. While Nolan's second film in his universe felt empty and void of any real connection with Bruce Wayne and mostly relied on the strengths of the villain while
The Avengers operated on the strength of its heroic characters.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier combines the best aspects of both movies.
The Winter Soldier is barely in it but it clear that this is just an introduction to a character that will clearly be revisited in the sequels. The real big bad is Alexander Pierce, a council-member from that World Secruity Council we saw in
The Avengers, that really is a H.Y.D.R.A. leader after it is revealed that H.Y.D.R.A. never really died but took over S.H.I.E.L.D. slowly to destroy it...and the world. Pierce and H.Y.D.R.A. not only seem like a huge threat, the plot continually proves why they ARE a huge threat. The villains drive the film but don't take the focus off the title character.
This is where the movie clearly beats out
The Dark Knight for me. In
The Dark Knight, we see Bruce Wayne dealing with crisis after crisis but he feels unstoppable. Even when he feels like he can't handle the weight, it never really feels like he is ever in any real danger. And, I would argue, it doesn't feel like Captain America is ever in any real danger. But I think that was the point.
The Dark Knight was trying to be Batman's version of "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", a turning point that changed Batman forever. The goal in this film is never to change Captain America. It gives you time to see who this guy is and what the stakes mean to him. Rather than be changed, Captain America drives the plot and changes his surroundings, giving a level of grandeur to the character I wish more CBMs would more clearly awknowledge. You don't ALWAYS have to have your character go through a moral journey where he comes out the other side. Just something different by the end of the film that makes it worth it.
Black Widow also gets more attention in this film and she does change at the end of the film. However, I don't really feel a particular connection with the character because we know so little about her, even though we know things we didn't know in
The Avengers. Still, she's a supporting character in a Captain America movie and thus isn't the main focus of the movie.
S.H.I.E.L.D. however is truly what becomes the game changer in this film. The end of the film really makes you know why you spent two and a half hours of your life sitting in a theater. Unlike the previous Phase 2 films which were dedicated to the personal journeys of the characters (which I feel will be undone in either the next
Avengers film or their next solo film), this movie really changes the face of the world that
Marvel's been building since the beginning. S.H.I.E.L.D. has always been that glue, that support. It will be interesting to see how the world will react when it is stripped from them.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not only an achievement in CBMs but an achievement in cinema. The film is a truly great adaption of a beloved character. And the film makes everything worth it.
I give this film a 9.8/10.
The film understands what it is and never tries to be something it isn't. The characters are well-defined, the story is well crafted and the repurcussions massive. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the first Marvel standalone film to blow Nolan's creative efforts on The Dark Knight and Whedon's work on The Avengers out of the water. It is, truly, the best CBM of all time.