Captain America: The Winter Soldier

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Jess, Jim, Aaron, Andrew, Tom, Leo, Paul, Ant, Xoe

Marvel keeps churning them out and as long as they are as fun and well put together as this, we'll keep watching. And this one shakes things up a bit. Certainly for anyone watching their television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been keeping concurrent to the film releases so far.

The first Captain America was aping a ripping old school war yarn, and made great use of the idea of the character as a propaganda. And then had the most melancholy ending of any of the films so far. For my money, the most effective romance in the series. And to see how they conclude it here is a bit of a stab in the heart. Ouch.

They put the Cap through the ringer in this one and conceive of a threat that manages to be a great evolution and at the same time reference to the first film. The black and white hero and villain world Cap is used to has gone and this film follows him coming to grips with a world that's not so easy to deal with. Marvel does a 70's conspiracy thriller! Hence the casting of Robert Redford I suppose.

Scarlett Johansson is our second lead here and this is the most revealing the Black Widow has been as yet. They make a great team up. It's also the most Nick Fury has had to do. And they introduce The Falcon, but really he didn't make much of an impression. But the people they did bring back from the first film make for some interesting surprises. 

The action is pretty great and comedy directors Anthony and Joe Russo equip themselves well with the blockbuster Marvel style as well as the great paranoid thriller aspects. But it's funny as well when it needs to be. This one defiantly had one a slightly more interesting story to tell, perhaps just by virtue of the big picture story beats it's progressing, but even so although I was getting sleepy watching a late session but the film keeps moving at quite a pace even through the exposition and tricky plot twists, enough to keep me interested through to the big climax. Much fun.