THE BRIEF: Being a fan of The Winter Soldier comic, CA: TFA, and MCU films in general I was eagly enticipating this movie. Expectations were high with many heralding it as the greatest Marvel solo film to date and some even saying it surpassed The Avengers. While I can honestly say (much to my disappointment) that neither of those statements are true, this is still a very good film.
MINOR SPOILERS
hand fight scenes are expertly choreographed and executed and this combined with great cinematography makes for intense and fact paced punch ups and shootouts. The characters of Captain America, Nick Fury, Black Widow are all expanded on and explored in greater depth through perfect writing and acting. The film also introduces new characters, Sam Wilson and Alexander Pierce who are equally memorable and great additions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Overall the direction and tone of this film is excellent, it's not quite as grim as a movie like The Dark Knight but much more serious than many other MCU entries and rightfully so. However the film does have several good moments of levity, which are all well timed.
THE BAD: While the hand to hand fight scenes are well crafted the big explosion set pieces are poorly handled. Chalk it up to bad directing or bad writing but they just didn't have the impact they were supposed to. At the climax of the film 3 enemy helicarriers all begin firing on and crashing into one another which is impressive at first but it quickly becomes boring to watch. There's no jeopardy as we know that Captain America isn't going to die and the mix mash of gray and orange fire and rubble quickly becomes numbing and uninteresting. My biggest complaint with the film however, is the treatment of the The Winter Soldier character. He is a rather insignificant part of the story and is reduced to a henchman rather than a fearsome antagonist. It can be assumed that they are laying the groundwork for further development of this complex villain but in the context of THIS film, the character is criminally underused.
THE MIXED: The character of Brock Rumlow is a mixed bag for me, in this film at least. I would rather have seen him as Crossbones as opposed to the "rogue" S.H.I.E.L.D agent he was portrayed as, that said he was well acted and well written... for the second half of the film. The first half he is portrated as a nice guy and a good friend of Caps, I didn't buy his betrayal or this side of his character. Similarly, Sharon Carter is underused and underdeveloped in favour of Black Widow. I like Black Widow but I feel that her role would have been better suited to Agent 13 and would of helped develop her character instead of seemingly throwing her in for the sake of it.
THE SUMMARY: All in all I had a very solid time with this film but I couldn't shake the vibe that it felt like Avengers 1.5 rather than Captain America 2. Despite ending on a Desolation of Smaug-esque cliffhanger, I did get a certain feeling of resolution and I left the cinema perfectly satisfied. I eagerly await future Phase 2 films, and the eventual Captain America 3, which it seems will focus more on the emotional and intimate elements of the Winter Soldier storyline that I was hoping to see in this film.
8/10
Also, the TWO post credit scenes are top notch. Easily the best ones to date.