Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier on April 8, 2014!! I am not a big fan of The Avengers, but I always see the superhero movies that studios put out. I'll be honest: I'm more of a DC guy, but when it comes to Marvel I love X-Men, which I also look forward to seeing at the end of May. Captain America is great, because he actually comes across as a hero in my eyes in terms of how he conducts himself, and what he stands for.  Many of the other Avengers like Thor are portrayed as heroes, yet I find him to be really pompous and always root against him. I'm a Loki fan-much more intricate character, which is probably why the second Thor movie was more enjoyable for me than the first one. It really showed that Thor has an antagonistic personality, and made Loki more sympathetic, while still maintaining that cerebral part of his personality.  I just wanted to make that point. In Captain America: Winter Soldier, they successfully combined the events of the first movie with the events in this one. There was really good connection between the past and the present. I liked that Hydra ultimately becomes a first class antagonistic organization-very planned strategies. It's great when comics and movies portray intelligent villains. Chris Evans does an excellent job as Steve Rogers. I thought that Scarlett Johansson was very good as Black Widow. I really just want them to make a stand alone Black Widow movie, as I find her character to be fascinating. Unlike Rogers who is a super soldier, she's a mortal woman just going out there kicking ass and looking good doing it. This is a great look at being wary of who you can trust. We find out SHIELD is compromised. The movie really does a great job of creating different twists that kept the movie flowing. I predicted who was behind the whole hostile take-over as soon as they introduced the character, but it was still very well done. Samuel L. Jackson was at his best as Nick Fury in this. Sebastian Stan did an excellent job as the Winter Soldier. Anthony Mackie looks a lot like the Falcon should look from the comics, and his friendship with Rogers looked natural on screen. This movie had some of the best action sequences in comic book movies. I think the scene where Nick Fury is attacked on the street is one of the best scenes you'll find. The sequences are fast and exciting. Every character from Captain America & Black Widow to Alexander Pierce (played brilliantly by Robert Redford) & Maria Hill (played by the awesome Cobie Smulders) had a chance to shine. Everybody had a purpose, while the story was very intricate combining the threat of Hydra in the past with the present day hostile take-over of SHIELD. This movie was very well done. I know everybody thinks the Avengers was the best movie ever (I don't at all), but I would say Iron Man 1 & Captain America: Winter Soldier were the two best individual Avengers movies, while my favorite Marvel movie is X-Men: First Class. The deeper look at the main characters, the strong usage of the supporting characters, the intricate detailed plot filled with double turns bridging the past & present, and the excellent action sequences make this a truly special comic book movie. There's also some great twists in SHIELD headquarters during the final battle sequences that were handled so perfectly. I'll give it a 4/5, as I do most comic book movies with the exception of The Dark Knight and X-Men First Class which both earned 5/5 from me. Also, stay after the credits for the extra scene which helps set up Avengers: Age of Ultron (which should be 1,000 times better than the first one hopefully) really well. I'll just say we got a great look at two characters that will have a tremendous impact on that movie. One of my all time favorite Marvel characters (Black Widow actress first name & Hermione Granger are your hints) was one of them. They handled that pretty well. I was very impressed with Captain America; Winter Soldier. It's been a while since I could say I really liked a Marvel movie before this.