Captain America: The winter soldier

For the last six years I have been watching, and shaking my head at, the cinematic leviathan that is the Avengers universe.

This tidalwave of movies has hit us with such force and ferocity and all we did was stand there with our mouths wide open, letting the salty death smother us.

As you might have known (if you can read swedih) I am not really a fan of the Marvel movies. If you don't know, let me tell you.

I do not like all these Marvel movies.

In the beginning it was kind of exciting, the whole Marvel universe faithfully recreated in movie form; but right from the beginning I knew something was wrong.
I won't go into to much detail, but out of the 10 movies that habe so far been released, only two have been actually good (Iron man 2 and Thor). The rest have been in the "kind of crappy" section, but even so, people still pilgrim to the cinema every time a new movie comes out. Me included.

Last night was the premiere of the latest of these movies and like a moth to the electric flame of a bugtrap, I went and saw it.



Some time has passed since the New York event (Avengers vs space crocs) and S.H.I.E.L.D have been keeping busy protecting the world from all matter of scum. Since he is the only one actually on S.H.I.E.L.Ds payroll, Steve Rogers has been on the frontline of every mission. The future (or the present in our eyes) has been good to him but he still feels like he never got to live his life. This is actually depicted very nicely in the scene where Steve visits a very old Peggy Carter (the would be love interest from the first Cap movie).

On top of this, he has become suspicious of S.H.I.E.L.D. plans within plans and a lot of "need to know basis" is making him wondering what it is Nick Fury isn't telling him about S.H.I.E.L.Ds plans for the future.
And, when Fury is attacked in broad daylight by some kind of supersoldier, it becomes clear that someone is hiding in the shadows. Secretly scheming to take control, of the world.

Let's be honest, the first (avenger) Captain America film was "kind of crappy". It relied to heavily on the isms and themes of the old comic book. It was borderline silly with all of its WWII pride. In this age of (Ultron) darker and grittier comic book movies, The first avenger was more like Batman & Robin than The dark knight.

That was always in the back of my head as I sat down to watch The winter soldier.
I was actually pleseantly surprised.

Don't get me wrong, the movie was still lackluster in most areas, but I have to admit that this was one of the best Avenger movies to date.

First of all, Chris Evans has grown as an actor. Partly because he is working a much improved script this time, but also because he is becoming more comfortable wearing the suit of Captain America both figuratively and literally.
It also helps that the first half of the movie does not get bogged down by a tedious origin story. We are thrown headfirst into the action and since all the character have already been introduced, they all have room to grow and not just be an avatar for what's to come.

The winter soldier is a true sequel. It leavs room for character development, amps up the action and re-introduces ghosts of movies past. It builds perfectly upon the lore of the movies that came before. Now that I think about it, it wasn't as bad as I thought last night.

But there are still a few things that bother me. The winter soldier, the actual character, was criminally under used. To be one of the two characters in the title, he doesn't have a lot to do with the main plot. A few plot holes really made me scratch my head, I won't spoil anything but there were some classic movie villain moments thst just made me snicker and then there was the 3D.

Why do they keep insisting on making these movies in 3D, but only film them in 2D? Converted 3D is a punch in the face of the movies who actually use real 3D and try to make something good of it.

Just like with Iron man 3 and Thor: The dark world, the 3D doesn't add anything to the experience, except for a couple of extra digits on the ticket price.

To sum it all up. The winter soldier is actually a pretty good movie. It sets itself apart from the rest of the Avenger movies and becomes its own experience, and at the same time ties in good with the rest of the lore. It's not the best movie I've seen so far this year but it manages to surpass most of its predecessors and actually prove me wrong.

But in a market so saturated with som many comic book movies, it kind of blends in with the rest of the crap. In the end it's not a real movie, only a build up to Avengers: Age of Ultron. Therefor it doesn't get the attention, both from its creators and its audience, it deserves.