I would have posted this earlier but I went to the ballet Saturday night. I AM MORE THAN JUST MOVIES!No I'm not.
This movie was awesome. I talked to a lot of people at work who told me that Captain America is their least favorite of the Avengers because he's such a goody-goody. Well, some of the shine gets rubbed off that big boy scout face this time around.
When he's not trying to figure out Thai food or the whole Berlin Wall situation, Captain America (Chris Evans) works for S.H.I.E.L.D. He and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) have an easy working relationship, despite their vast life experience disparity, until her super-secret spy ways put a mission in jeopardy. He complains to Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and is told that this is how the world is now and S.H.I.E.L.D needs to be on the front line of the fight, even if that sometimes means a pre-emptive strike. Today's enemy isn't so cut and dried, like the Nazis were back in the day. Then Fury begins to unravel a plot that seems to be within S.H.I.E.L.D itself at the same time a legendary assassin called the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) shows up and starts wrecking D.C.
If you saw Marvel's TV special "Assembling a Universe", you'll know that the powers that be within the company have made a point of making each film a different genre, to prove that superheroes function just as well in larger contexts, not just superhero movies. This film is in line with political thrillers from the 70's like Three Days of the Condor and pretty much every other movie Robert Redford was in during that decade. Which is good because they also got Robert Redford to be in this one. It is a little slow to get started but once the action starts it does not let up. I wanted to immediately rewind the film and watch it again because I was sure I hadn't seen all of the choreography in all of the fight scenes. This definitely works as a standalone and as part of the overall Marvel universe. In fact, it has far-reaching implications for everything that comes after it.
Don't forget to stay through the credits for the Avengers 2 tease in the middle and the short post-credits clip, as well. It's not as important or revealing but it's a nice coda to the story.
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