If I were Steve Rogers I’d be a little pissed off by now. Heroic in battle, had to serve in the USO, gave 70 years of his life for his country, fought off an intergalactic portal-opened global threat engineered by an actual deity, selflessly serves putting life on the line and now his own government wants him dead. What is up with that?! All the guy ever wanted to do was fight Nazis.
The usual sequel premise has a man battling himself. This would have been a nice twist as, while Captain Rogers (Chris Evans), lacks, say, the personality flaws of Iron Man or the intelligence flaws of Thor or Hulk, he could certainly be done in by modern culture. There are things a kid who grew up in the 20s and 30s will simply never understand that a 90s kid takes for granted. Captain America: The Winter Soldier gets around that by having Steve in disguise visiting the Captain America display in the Smithsonian. I know the film does this for exposition purposes, but it strikes me as vain and a little weird. Aside from that, Cap’n seems pretty damn well adjusted to a century he probably never should have seen.
One post-mission evening, the good Cap’n comes home to find Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in his living room. It’s a good bet that if at any 
time Sam Jackson is camped out on your couch, your life is going to acquire some severe headaches in the near future. This holds true as suddenly Cap’n America is a marked icon … and so are Nick and Natasha (Scarlett Johansson). Seems the “good guys” are interested in order at all costs – there’s such a fine line between the protection of democracy and creating a police state; this film attempts to understand it … a little. In short, there’s an evil element within the government and the Avenger gang landed outside the protected zone. Now they’re being hunted.
Adding to the threat is The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), another playah from Cap’n’s time with roughly the same abilities. But he has no shield. A-ha! Hey, was Winter frozen for 70 years, too? Why is he the same age? Geez, why am I questioning a comic book film?
Two good action sequences in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and both are a tad claustrophobic – one with the Cap’n fist-fighting a dozen peers in an elevator, another with Nick Fury in his Bond-converted SUV surrounded on all sides by DC’s finest. The other action sequences in the film really don’t measure up despite the freedom of movement. In the first such lesser sequence, the camera tries to follow the path of Captain’s frequently flung shield. Thankfully, it gives up that particular bit of cinematography after a while. Most of the other action is plentiful and forgettable.
There’s a lot of unparachuted air travel in this film. A lot. I know because every single time somebody dove/tripped/fell/was 
pushed/skipped off a building/plane/cliff/tall tree/hovercraft without the aid of balloon/wings/jets/flappy arms/springs, I said to myself, “I would die in this situation.” And I would die a bunch.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier attempts the very rare – a big budget action film with a message. And message-wise, it fails, of course. Once we get a load of Anthony Mackie’s crime-fighting costume, any thoughts that this picture would have some deeper meaning fly right out the window. Try to enjoy the ride.
If you didn’t grow up with TV, would you care about your FB page?
If an exposed ankle was your lurid, what would you think of Baywatch?
If your time had no integration, what would you think of Prop 8?
If you fight battles with fists, how would you react to cages?
Does the Captain miss fireside chats?
Rated PG-13, 136 Minutes
D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
W: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Genre: Super sequel
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Captain America
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The Winter Soldier
