Basically, Ed was right.
***This review will contain spoilers***
A few months ago, Ed Brubaker came out and said this was the best Marvel movie ever made. I don't know if he was talking just Disney or all Marvel films ever, but either way he's completely correct.
Where to start, where to start...? I don't even know.
This movie is absolutely fantastic. It finally feels like the right balance of action, plot, comedy and character development that Marvel has been all over the place (especially recently). As many of us feel Thor 2 and Iron Man 3...were lacking, suffice to say. Whether ti was the ridiculous over usage of gag jokes in Thor 2 or the straight up embarrassment of turning your main villain into a joke in Iron Man 3...they weren't exactly winning favor in my books.
Captain America: The Winter Solider brings all of this together in one fantastic package. It easily is one of the greatest CBM's of all time and as mentioned, its probably the best Marvel movie made to date, period. We get tons of great and quite frankly visceral action (maybe just because its less fantasy than other movies) with some nice comedy (but it isn't over used thank god) and all topped off with some pretty great character development. The characters in this movie are changed by the events. And not minor changes...things that affect them to their cores and the world itself.
TWS starts us off with Cap going through the motions being the good soldier and carrying out his missions with supreme skill. The opening act in which Cap and crew assault a pirated ship was just awesome. Cap single handily beast modes his way across the ship and has a pretty cool fight with Batroc at the end. We learn of course it was hardly a routine mission and instead a cover up for something more.
Without going into too much detail, the plot of the movie slows unfolds and makes for a throughout engrossing experience. Elements from both The First Avenger and Avengers are visited in more detail. We see why Captain America is still Captain America, his sense of justice and his morality (though seemingly a number of people died in this movie...minor quirk lol).
The movie turns into somewhat of a political action thriller, which in my opinion is a perfect type of movie for Captain America. It plays out more like a Call of Duty or Tom Clancy game frankly. The style was just extremely enjoyable.
The Winter Soldier in particular was handled very well in my opinion for the most part. He didn't really have many lines, but they were faithful to how TWS was used - as sort of a tool but not necessarily the master mind behind it all. One minor quibble I had with him is they slightly changed his origins - which works just fine for the purposes of the movie universe. However, given that they sort of abandoned the whole Soviet-creation I don't really know why they kept the Red Star on his arm...or why he spoke Russian at times. Like I said, minor quibble - there's no major flaws in this movie at all.
Speaking more of TWS...the action and fights in this movie were very awesome. They were brutal and visceral and extremely epic. I don't know that Marvel has ever done action better than this, quite frankly. The third act of this movie was far more enjoyable for me than even the third act in Avengers. Again minor quibble, but they sometimes got up close and personal with the shots and the infamous shaky cam appeared a few times, but since all movies do that...nothing to cry about it.
Another great reason to see this movie? Black Widow is a serious badass in this movie. Its so completely refreshing to get some chicks kicking ass in movies, cause frankly the "I'm pretty damsel in distress" is getting old - especially if they are the hero's love interest. And yes thank god, Black Widow and Cap stay platonic in this movie and it works very well (still kinda would liked to see a bit more of Sharon, but there's a lot of characters to given screen time too)
There's a couple of post credit scenes btw. Two of them in fact, so stick around. Although frankly the 2nd was somewhat mediocre (the first is great though so stick around for that at least)
Overall, this review doesn't really do this film justice at all - I simply can't really do anything better at the moment. My mind is still all over the place thinking about the movie and I will definitely be seeing it again. Just go see it, nothing else really needs to be said. Its one of the greatest CBM's made.
