Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

By Meg Scully

*CONTAINS SPOILERS!*

 

     Now, before I get into too much here, I want to state that I am not really a Captain America fan. Out of all the Avengers he is probably my second least favorite. I am also not that big of a comic book person. I love the movies and do the research to know what people are talking about in the films but that is about it. That being said, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the best movies Marvel (or Disney, which ever everyone prefers) has done to date; this is because Avengers: Age of Ultron has not come out yet but when it does stay tuned for that write up because that movie is going to be incredible, anyway back on target.

 

     Captain America: The Winter Soldier packed everything a top notch super hero film should have. Plot twists, and by plot twists I mean multiple plot twists, they're so bad they're awesome villains, intense and well choreographed fight scenes, which I will elaborate more on later, comic relief, amazing acting all around, and attractive people every where I looked on the screen. Again, not having any knowledge prior to the film about anything Winter Soldier, I was intrigued the entire two hours and sixteen minuets. Let's discuss the acting first. Chris Evan really stepped up his game for this one. I feel, as an audience member, I was able to connect with "Cap" more in this one than in the first film in his series and the Avengers. The scenes that really stood out for me that made me feel something for "Cap" was the scene at the beginning of the film with a much older Sharon Carter when she forgets who he is, it was an extremely heart wrenching moment. And the other was the final battle scene in which Steve, Captain America's real name for those who do not know, and Bucky, the Winter Soldier, fight on one of the destroyers which happens to be falling from the sky as they fight. One you see how much Steve did not want to fight his long lost best friend and the realization from Bucky towards the end made the audience extremely happy.

 

     Now onto Black Widow played by Scarlett Johansson. I must say, I have never been that much a Black Widow fan until now. She was probably my second favorite character in this film. Maybe it is because the writers wrote better stuff for her in this film I do not know. Scarlett Johansson really outdid herself with this performance. Her comedic timing was brilliant, her sadness pertaining to Nick Fury's "death" was incredible, her fighting was sensational. I was pleasantly surprised. Sebastian Stan embodied the Winter Soldier. Everyone, stand up right now and give him a round of applause. This man deserves an award for what he did in this film. The emotion that came from him when realizing who Captain America was, the passion he had for his "mission", the drive, the facial expressions, his movement, he was the Winter Soldier and Bucky. The scene when Hydra, go see the movie if you do not know what Hydra is, straps him down and does another memory swipe was brilliantly portrayed by Sebastian. And the last character I want to discuss, and was my favorite character hands down, would be Falcon played by Anthony Mackie. His performance as Falcon was amazing. His comedic timing was spot on, the way he delivered his lines was phenomenal, he fought exceedingly well, the way he carried himself in this film, and I believed he was Falcon. I would go on and on about this cast because everyone, not just the people I picked out, was amazing. I mean Robert Redford and Samuel L. Jackson; enough said.

 

     Now lastly, the fighting. Where do I begin? The readers of this review should know I have taken a class in stage fighting, have kept up learning more about it on my own, and will be helping instruct a class on stage combat next year, so I like to think I know a little about choreographed combat, not as much as other but enough to know what is good and what is not and the combat in this film was sensational. For starters, in the ship scene at the beginning of the film, Captain America takes out seventeen bad guys on his own, yes I counted. In the same scene Black Widow demolished whoever got in her way and most of the time they did not see it coming. There was also a scene between her and the Winter Soldier that was very well choreographed and it look very real, I know it is supposed to but one would be surprised at some of the combat scenes out there. Falcons combat scene at the very end in the S.H.I.E.L.D. building was perfection. Anything the Winter Soldier did concerning combat was spot on. He is supposed to be a kind of human drone, he is a killing machine essentially, so his fighting had to be perfect and believe me it was. His movements were clean and precise and perfectly executed. And finally, the final battle scene which I touched on before with Steve and the Winter Soldier. I can not say enough about this fight because it was just an incredibly choreographed combat between these two characters. Plus the emotion the actors portrayed really helped because it was an emotional fight between best friends. The stunt men/women should really be commended for their work in this film. I do know that most of main actors do most of their own stunts but there are some stunts and fight moves that are obviously way to dangerous so they bring in professionals to do them, and it was great. Though this film was loaded with fight scenes, almost every other scene had some sort of combat in it, I do not think it was too much.

 

     That about raps it up but, remember what I said earlier about how I'm not that big of a comic book person or a huge fan of Captain America? I have seen the film twice and found something different to fall in love with and felt something for the characters the second time around. It is a extremely well made film, they really outdid themselves with this one. As on April 13th it had grossed $476.7-million world wide so, I have a feeling it is going to be in the theatres for a while so stop reading this and go. Now.

 

 

Cavna, Michael. "BOX OFFICE: In Sequel Showdown, ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’ Holds off ‘Rio 2′ by a Few Bills." Washington Post. The WashingtonPost, 13 Apr. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2014