Captain America: The Winter Soldier

**A long format review from 2014** Misleadingly, the titular Winter Soldier is essentially a minor subplot in what is more of an espionage-technoir-thriller meets spectacle-epic than your typical super hero film. The real meat of the movie, thankfully, has some more substance behind it. Though it wouldn't surprise me if we learn later that Sebastian Stan's villain was forced to take a back seat via last minute script changes à la Hawkeye in _The Avengers_. These things are of course a matter of opinion, and I'd like to watch _Winter Soldier_ at least once more (particularly in 2D... God do I ever hate 3D) before committing to any particular ranking. But even without that, I feel confident in saying it's the best MCU Phase 2 film to date. We must await _Guardians of The Galaxy_ and _Age of Ultron_ before cementing that little award, but I'd say that it stands at the very least above _Iron Man 3_ and _The Dark World_. I always try to keep my reviews spoiler free, but being that in most parts of the world it isn't out yet, I'll be extra careful to do so with this one. This makes talking about _Winter Soldier_ on its own merits difficult, but there are certainly a few things that can be said. Chris Evans (Cap'), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and to a slightly lesser extent. Anthonie Mackie (Falcon) rule the film, and do so without any shortcomings. That's not to say that they couldn't physically have done any better, but their roles were all seamless as far as my blurred vision could tell, which is not an accolade I'd often give. Where _The Dark World_ was simply a holding pattern for Thor with some very pretty pictures, _Iron Man 3_ and _The Winter Soldier_ went out and took some actual risks in their stories. But unlike _Iron Man 3's_, Winter Soldier's risks have (to its eternal credit) been universally well received. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo also managed to cameo a couple of Community alumni, which will never be a bad thing in my eyes, even if they're just one-off, throwaway jokes. As I said, I really feel I need to give _The Winter Soldier_ at the very least one more screening before I feel totally confident in my thoughts about it. But the fact that I'm really fucking excited for that second viewing speaks in its favour if nothing else does. 86% _-Gimly_