Lauren Smith
Staff Writer
America’s favorite super-soldier returns to the big screen in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”
Chris Evans stars as Steve Rogers, a world-renowned American super-soldier from WWII who struggles to keep his head above water in modern society and find his new meaning in life as an agent of a law-enforcement agency known as SHIELD.
When an unknown enemy compromises his position with SHIELD and Evans finds himself a wanted man, he teams up with an old friend, Natasha Romanoff, more widely known as Black Widow, who is once again played by Scarlett Johannsen.
A new hero known as the Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie, also joins the fight back against this force that is led by a new and mysterious villain with a shocking identity.
Breaking box office records and raking in over $101 billion since its opening on Friday April 4, there’s no doubt the film has scored highly with both audiences and critics alike.
With a perfect cast, heart pounding story line, non-stop action and subtle humor, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” proves to be Marvel Comic’s best movie since “The Avengers.”
The sequel grossed nearly double that of the preceding movie “Captain America: The First Avenger” in its opening weekend. Although the first movie was also a huge hit among audiences, its sequel has shown much more popularity and success, a trend that seems to follow nearly all Marvel super hero films.
The Captain also appeared in Marvel’s “The Avengers” which was raved over in 2012 and is now number three on the list of top grossing movies of all time.
The overall flow of the film was satisfyingly fluid. There were not too many action sequences to get you distracted from the focus of the story, yet the slow and serious scenes were highlighted with either humor or important dialogue so you would not feel like you were about to fall asleep until the next thing that exploded.
Characters were merged into the storyline at just the right moments and the story was easy to follow from beginning to end.
The film also made the clever move to reference the important parts from the first Captain America installment so it was possible for those who have not seen the first movie to completely understand what was happening during the film.
Throughout the endless excitement in the movie, including car chases, aircraft explosions and one-on-one fight scenes, one of the most enjoyable things about the film was the undeniable chemistry between Rogers (Evans) and Romanoff (Johannsen).
They first became acquainted when they were inducted into The Avengers Initiative back in 2012, but their continued interaction in “The Winter Soldier” proved to be that of a complicated and unlikely—yet strong—friendship.
The way the characters were able to poke fun at each other even during fight scenes and serious moments and have conversations about their heavy pasts, romantic relationships and trust issues made them feel much more real and relatable.
It brought their relationship and overall personalities down to Earth in such a way that you do not see them as just super heroes on a mission to save the world, but as real people with real human problems, which makes them all the more enjoyable, and in a way more heroic and brave.
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is an excellent example of what a super hero movie should be and well deserves the profit and success that it has reaped.
The Captain is scheduled to return to the silver screen alongside his fellow Avengers next year in “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” and in the third installment of the Captain America series with a release date that has yet to be revealed.
