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Reviews Film / Captain America The Winter Soldier

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wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane Since: Dec, 2010
belongs to the hurricane
01/18/2016 20:16:21 •••

The best Marvel movie, by far.

I have to confess that I used to have a pretty low opinion of the MCU. the only two movies i legitimately enjoyed were iron man 1 and the first captain america. After finding both avengers and iron man 3 to be lackluster, I mostly dismissed the MCU as bland, vapid and weightless action blockbusters and turned my back on it for years.

On a whim, hearing all the praise for TWS, and how it was the best MCU film thus far, I decided "why not" and gave it a shot.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that it mostly lived up to the hype.

What makes this film so strong in comparison to the other MCU films is that it is engaging on multiple emotional and narrative levels.

The beginning of the film starts out by establishing a conspiracy at the highest levels of SHIELD, and creates an incredible sense of paranoia and tension that did not exist in any marvel film before or since. it is legitimately difficult to know who to trust, and the ensuing plot twist about the nature of the conspiracy is one of the few legitimately unexpected developments the MCU has had so far.

Of course, the feeling of paranoia eventually fades as we come to understand what the conspiracy is, but by that point the film has set up other emotional hooks. Mainly, the touching relationship between Captain America and the eponymous Winter Soldier; if you aren't familiar with the comics, it's yet another brilliant and powerful twist. If you are familiar with his identity beforehand, the film still works because Cap's reaction to the reveal and the drama that comes from still makes it a worthwhile plot element.

And of course, it goes without saying that almost every other character in the film (black widow, fury, falcon, etc) has a well-defined and useful role to play in the narrative, making the film feel very cohesive and tightly plotted.

The action scenes were also relatively well-coreographed, and went a long way towards selling me on Chris Evans being the super badass that captain america is supposed to be.

overall, it was not only a good superhero movie, but a legitimately decent political thriller. it has restored my faith that marvel studios can produce something legitimately worthwhile, and i look forward to civil war.


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