"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Review--Spoilers!!

If you have not seen the latest Marvel Studios film Captain America: The Winter Soldier then do not read this review, because there will be spoilers because honestly if I did not have spoilers, then I would just be randomly rambling on about how good of a movie this is.

There is my spoiler warning. Let us begin

Alright so, hopefully if you are reading this then you have seen the movie. Cap 2, is in my opinion, the best installment of a Marvel movie so far. Yes, I am including Marvel's The Avengers. This movie has everything, and does everything that it needs to do to be a near perfect movie. The fighting was intense, the drama was intense, the music chimed in perfectly. The movie was unpredictable. And it was quick to get at the core of the movie, in like the first twenty minutes or so things have gone wrong and we don't know why. Do we find out? Of course. But not without a lot of mystery.

Don't forget, folks, that this is a sequel to the first movie. It feels like it is more of a sequel to its first movie than Iron Man 3 and Thor:The Dark World. The former dealt with Tony Stark's mental state while the latter dealt with Thor facing a threat to his homeland. Cap 2 picks up with a Steve Rogers who is trying to find a place in a brand new world, working once again on the side of good. They do discuss New York a little, but, it's actually less about that. This movie sort of shows what S.H.I.E.L.D. does before an attack and how they prepare, whereas other movies simply show the organization popping in and helping out. Something that they do very little of this movie.

We get a few new characters in this movie, most notably Sam Wilson (Falcon), Alexander Pierce, Crossbones, Leaper, and Agent 13, or Sharon Carter. The latter have insignificant names because that is who they are in the comics and that is what they basically were in the movie. Out of all of them, I really enjoyed seeing Sam Wilson helping out Cap. Sure, he was a goodie-two-shoes throughout the entire movie, but, that's what Captain America is about. He would have someone like Sam Wilson at his side, because they both share a desire for freedom and for truth in the world. Not to mention that Sam's military past shows. Pierce is an interesting character because from the moment he gets on screen, we don't know who he is. And coming off of watching ABC's Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D., I was not in the proper mindset to be trusting in the organization from the start. Really the only straightforward badguy is Badroc the Leaper and he was actually one of the most entertaining parts of the movie because he fought like he does in the comic books. It was cool to see Cap struggling against him.

As for our returning characters, we've got, of course, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Nick Fury, Maria Hill and even Sidwell who has been in a few Marvel movies but this might have been his biggest role so far. We've also got Bucky Barnes as the brain-wiped Winter Soldier. Is he brain-washed? We'll get to that. The three Avengers mentioned first play their roles like they usually would, it's just that in this movie they get a lot more development. Maria Hill has about as big a role as she does in The Avengers but still is awesome. Sidwell, well, is like any high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. And the Winter Soldier...well he is just fantastic.

When I heard that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be changed forever, I bought it. I knew that things were going wrong based off of the TV show and that this movie would make it worse. But did I expect for the entire organization to get compromised to the point of total annihation? Heck no! I thought, "Oh, okay, we'll probably be introduced to A.I.M. and S.H.I.E.L.D. will just have to maintain a little control."

Nope. Gone. S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone. Bye-bye. See you later.

And it wasn't even A.I.M. that did it! It was Hydra of all organizations! Yes, I know!

That was a huge twist for me. When the doctor from the previous movie, Dr. Zola, came onto the screen at the secret hideout in New Jersey, I nearly flipped. Then he revealed that HYDRA has been waiting so long for S.H.I.E.L.D. to finally, and unknowingly, let a HYDRA member into their top ranks as well as filter them throughout their ranks. Then the secret base is destroyed, by S.H.I.E.L.D. no less, and you know it's about to get real bad real soon.

That's what makes this such a good sequel to its original film. It shows that the end of that film is still very relevant to the plot of the first one. HYDRA did have to do some retracking and catch up on lost time without their army and without the power of the Tesseract, but in the end, they were still just as relevant. It made me realize how stupid it was to let Zola live in the first one. Pretty much all of this could have been avoided.

This movie is a very well-thought out mystery movie as well as a conspiracy movie. Nobody knows who to trust, a line uttered by the dying Nick Fury, and nobody knows, really, where to go. By nobody I mean our main heroes, because HYDRA knows exactly what they are doing. In the most obvious twist, Pierce turns out to be the bad-guy who controls the Winter Soldier and has sort of inherited HYDRA. Since he is a high-ranking officer of S.H.I.E.L.D. that also grants him access to both.

The movie revolves around the plan known as "Project: Insight" which Fury wants to use as a way to help cleanse the world of its threats, undoubtedly including intergalactic ones since he knows he's pissed off a lot of aliens thanks to New York, but Pierce plans to use it on everyone that stands in HYDRA's way.

"You, Fury, Stephen Strange."

STEPHEN STRANGE?

Confirmed: Doctor Strange movie in the works guys. GUYS.

Anyway, enough of that. We'll get to the speculating soon enough.

When Cap returns to DC to deal with Project: Insight, the Winter Soldier arrives to take out Cap and his buddies before they can wreak any more havoc. In the fight, Cap learns the Winter Soldier is Bucky (we all knew that already) and that has been memory-wiped since he cannot remember what his name is or that Steve is his best-friend. The trio is captured as Black Widow and Sam Wilson help Cap fight the Winter Soldier.

While this scene is not the heaviest one in terms of action, it sure does give us a wonderful preview of what the climactic battle is going to be like. Falcon's wings are shown here and they are freaking awesome. We also get to see that Sam Wilson has not lost his touch. Also, Black Widow has a lot more up her sleeve than just guns and ammo. She has a grappling gun and some electric darts. And she was only in civilian clothes.

The action in this movie, though, is better than any action we've seen in a Marvel movie so far. Why? Because all of the other characters are so strong that every time they so much as flick something an entire building comes down. But with these characters we were given much more awesome hand-to-hand combat. We got to see that the Super Soldier serum also gave Cap a few new moves, and that the Winter Soldier's fifty year reign as a master assassin has taught him to fight like a boss, of course, like the Winter Soldier from the comic books.

We come to find out that Bucky has been cryogenic-ally frozen on and off whenever HYDRA should need their ultimate weapon, which in this case, means taking out Cap and Fury. However, he does have a slight inkling of his memory, which tells me that he hasn't entirely been brain-washed. The end of the first fight as well as the end of the final fight between the two tell us this. Bucky has a moment of questioning who he really is when Cap brings it up, and then in the final fight, a part of Bucky holds back on killing Steve when he has the chance. He even saves him from drowning until he wonders off.

The Winter Soldier would have been a reasonably dry character with a decent backstory. But with the possibility of him maybe stopping the fight and giving his life for Steve, the character had all the more tragedy to him. You knew he was capable of doing it, since he held back, but, it was like his protocol to be following orders, it was what a soldier had to do.

When the trio get free, they find Nick Fury and get the pieces set up to fight back and take out HYDRA. With Maria Hill, they infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and Steve reveals that Pierce, the strike force led by Crossbones, and many other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are operatives of HYDRA and plan to kill over 20 million people around the world. The battle begins as HYDRA pretty much mows down every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent they can, but not our heroes!

Cap and Falcon take to the skies, where they begin setting in chips to override the algorithm Zolar made that will kill the twenty million people. This is where Falcon really shines as a super-hero, and is in my opinion, very worthy of a spot in the Avenger's line-up (get outta here, Rhodie). As just a regular army dude, he is able to pilot the wings like a pro and take out a jet that shot dozens of missiles at him, as well as complete his task and hold his own against Crossbones. His fighting prowess is no like assassin's or Captain America's, but, it is certainly on a high-military grade level. Plus, those wings.

All the group needs to do is place the final chip in the slot, which they manage to do with only a second remaining. However, the road there is a bit rough. First, Cap has to get by Winter Soldier. Then, he gets shot a couple times after refusing to fight Bucky. Once the chip is in place, Cap then has to save Bucky, because he's a good guy, you konw, only for Bucky to turn around and follow orders to kill Cap. This is where we see Bucky struggle, and instead lets Cap fall to the ocean to avoid the falling Hellicarrier before dragging him out of the ocean and leaving him on the shore.

Back at HQ, though, Fury deals with Pierce, who reveals that he just wanted a better world by whatever means, and that he was willing to give them that a a very steep cost. Fury has enough of that, and shoots Pierce before leaving with the other S.H.I.E.L.D. council people as well as Black Widow, who managed to stop Pierce from  killing the councilmen.

At the end of the movie, we see Black Widow in some trouble before pointing out that she is an Avenger alongside Nick Fury and Captain America, so if they arrested her, they would be doing the world a huge disservice. Then leaves. The sass. Nick Fury also burns some place with his eyepatch and heads out. Cap and Falcon, though, decide to head out and find Bucky. Also Crossbones is still alive and Agent 13 is getting some training in for the third movie...I mean she's training and stuff.

Boom.

This movie hits all the notes it needed to. Up until now, Phase 2 of the Marvel movies has been basically a comedy-fest. While that isn't entirely a bad thing, it was good to see them get serious where it really needed to. The strongest and most powerful organization in the world came crumbling down in a flash of not glory but in humiliation. Everyone in the world now knows about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s darkest secrets (like, this is worse than Wiki-Leaks people), which is something I guarantee we will see a repercussion of in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sure, there was some humor, like the running gag about Black Widow trying to fix him up with a girlfriend (eventually pointing him to Sharon Carter, the "nurse" they'd been talking about), which was pretty funny. Other time it was sort off of-to-the-side humor, like Falcon making the joke about super-heroes eating a different kind of breakfast. But it was a very dark, mysterious movie, one that the Marvel movies seriously needed.

It also needed a shake-up, which is what I think makes this movie so great. Arguably, the two biggest shake-ups the MCU has seen so far have been: appearance of Thor, arrival of the Chtaori, this movie. Why? Because Thor is an alien, THe Chtaori are bad guys, and now S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone. What's that mean?

It means that here on out, in every MCU movie, people are on their own. S.H.I.E.L.D. was Iron Man's way of getting to Captain America, it was Earth's way of allying with Thor and Sif. Now that it's gone, it seems like everyone is on their own. And with big baddies like Baron von Strucker and the world-ending Ultron on their way, they're gonna wish S.H.I.E.L.D. was still as powerful as it was.

This movie definitely gained points for going where it did and hitting hard on what it wanted to, which was basically every aspect of the movie. It strongly relates to the original and sets itself up for a very interesting character-driven story for the third movie. This all without anything we've seen from the new Avengers movie. Ultron has a way of screwing things up big time, and with Cap 3 being just one most misplaced from that one, I have a feeling Age of Ultron will have strong implications on Cap, Falcon, and Winter Soldier.

But the movie did not end there, people! We have mid and post credits scenes to talk about! The mid-credits scene was the one that served as the big link we were promised to Avengers: Age of Ultron. We cut to a secret HYDRA hideout, where our next villain, Baron von Strucker, scoffs at all who would oppose him. We see that he has gained control of Loki's sceptre, thus potentially the Mind Gem (uh-oh!) as well as two twins: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Their powers are not explained, but are considered "miracles." We know that these two are mutants, but Marvel is not allowed to call them that. Given that von Strucker has the scepter, though, I would assume that his "experiments" on them have something to do with him testing the power of the Mind Gem and their power giving way to expansions of their capabilities, such as the potential for super-speed (Quicksilver) and psychic abilities (Scarlet Witch).

The post-credits scene is nothing huge but does also set up a potential story for Cap 3, as it shows Bucky Barnes, hiding his metallic arm, looking at the little memorial of himself at the Captain America exhibit we were shown earlier, thus realizing that he is beginning to remember who he is.

THEORY TIME.

Alright, so, I was getting a very strong feeling that Bucky would turn to the side of good and help Cap escape from the falling Hellicarrier. In a way, that happened. The Winter Soldier does go onto become a good-guy, as he actually becomes Captain America when Steve Rogers dies. Hmm.

With Crossbones coming back, probably, in the next Captain America movie, one would assume that Cap's death may be on the way. Chris Evans only has two more Marvel movie deals coming up, those being Age of Ultron and Cap 3, we very well could be seeing the end of Steve Rogers. Sebastian Stan, who plays Bucky Barnes, on the other hand, has now seven more Marvel movies to go. Might we see him in Age of Ultron? One would assume that he will be in Cap 3, so, that leaves still five movies. If that is the case, is Marvel planning for the big switcharoo and giving Bucky the shield? We've already seen him wield it in this movie pretty well, and with the first generation Avengers running out of time contractually, one is to assume that we might be getting a brand new team.

Ant-Man is a confirmed movie, as it is coming after Age of Ultron, so there's one new hero. I'm not entirely sure on how long Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are supposed to be sticking around, but those are two new ones. Plus the Vision has been confirmed for Age of Ultron, and the Dr. Strange movie has all but a specific release date. Along with the Guardians of the Galaxy and maybe one other new character, we are gettting pretty crammed on super-hero space. Might we just get to see a new Avengers team?:

-Bucky Barnes as Captain America
-Scarlet Witch
-The Vision
-Quicksilver
-Dr. Strange
-Ant-Man
-Black Panther? Maybe? Hopefully? Please, Marvel?

Not to mention the Netflix deal that Marvel has that will introduce Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist to the MCU and give them their own team, the Defenders. Nobody is very sure on what is to happen, and in that respect, the advertisements were right.

The MCU is forever changed. And so are its possibilities.

See you next time!