Movie Review - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie review

I saw the first Captain America movie back in summer 2011, and although I loved Chris Evans in it, I gave it a Maybe review rather than a Yes. This installment was more of the same, although if I was rating the film solely on action scenes, it would get 5 out of 5 stars, as they were awesome. The movie is fun and worth seeing, but it's just missing something - I'm not sure exactly what - that the other individual Avengers, such as Iron Man, is not.

In this sequel, Captain America, aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), is on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D., as it turns out that not all of the people who work there are "the good guys." Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was also targeted, and the Captain must team up with Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff, played by Scarlett Johansson) to figure out exactly what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plan is and how to best take them down. To complicate things, the Winter Soldier (slight spoiler: Sebastian Stan) is going around killing people as well, and Captain America is trying to stop him too; at least, until he finds out the Soldier's true identity.

I think one of the things that the Captain movies lack is more humor - Iron Man as well as the Thor films are rich with one-liners - but there were still some humorous parts throughout. All of the actors do a great job in the film, and aside from the normal Captain cast, we have some newcomers as well: Anthony Mackie as a friend of Captain America's, Robert Redford as one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. leaders, and Emily VanCamp (TV's Revenge) as another S.H.I.E.L.D. employee. Cobie Smulders, from the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show and The Avengers, also shows up, and keep a look out for the traditional Stan Lee cameo midway through the movie.

Yes, see this movie, but it gets my lowest Yes rating (3 stars). I wanted to give it 3.5 stars, but it didn't hold my attention as much as the other movies in the Avengers universe, or even as much as the first Captain America. There were definitely a few twists throughout I did not see coming, which was good, though, and if you're looking for a "popcorn flick" to see, this would be a good choice. Make sure to stay until the end of the credits, as there's one scene midway through and another at the very end, and these set up the next film in the series nicely.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is in theaters today, April 4th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 136 minutes. 3 stars out of 5.

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