‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ Might Be My New Favorite Marvel Movie

I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier last night, and although I had myself hyped to the max about the sequel the one of my favorite superhero movies of all-time, I didn’t expect it to be so damn amazing. After talking about it with my wife today I realized that TWS may be my new favorite Marvel movie. The story, action, and writing are all excellent and even though I hold The Avengers on a pretty high pedestal, The Winter Soldier may be my new favorite.

Maybe.

First off, the action. The fight scenes in TWS are so well choreographed and hard-hitting I was giddy in the theater. Winter Soldier shows off Cap’s talents better than his other two movie outings for sure. He easily knocks out thugs, sends them flying with a kick, and is super agile.

That wouldn’t be enough to make this my favorite Marvel movie by itself, but the supporting characters are great, the story is very interesting (and will impact the Marvel Cinematic Universe more than any other film) and the dialogue between characters is a lot of fun. TWS made Nick Fury seem like a real person to me for the first time. I hated his dialogue in The Avengers, but in TWS he feels like a real person and actually made me excited to see him in more movies. The same goes for Black Widow. She has more depth in this movie and has some great banter with Cap.

The introduction of Falcon is one of my favorite parts of the movie. Played by Anthony Mackie, Falcon is a lot of fun and I can’t wait to see him in more movies. He is a great partner for Cap and held his own in fights, and looked awesome flying around with his techy-wings.

Another great addition is Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce. Who would have thought a few years ago that we’d get a comic book movie with Redford? I won’t go into his role much, but he was a perfect choice and helped make this feel like a great political thriller first and a superhero movie second.

The Future of the MCU

I won’t go into spoilers here (I’ll save that for later), but this movie puts the MCU in a very interesting place. It leads directly into what will happen in Avengers: Age of Ultron come 2015, sets up new villains, and provides plenty to talk about. There are also a ton of easter eggs, but they are handled very well and never seem too in-your-face.

The last thing to mention is The Winter Soldier himself. While he doesn’t get as much screen time as I would have liked, when he is there he is kicking ass. The fight scenes between the good guys and The Winter Soldier are intense and brutal, and some of the things they get away with in a PG-13 movie are surprising.

All in all, I’d say this movie is tied (or slightly ahead) of The Avengers as my favorite Marvel movie. To give you some context, I’m a huge fan of the MCU but I don’t consider it all amazing. I didn’t see Iron Man 2 because I thought it looked dumb and I didn’t hear good things about it, and I was pretty disappointed with Iron Man 3. I loved the first Thor and Captain America movies and I’m always confused when I hear people say those two are their least favorite. I stopped watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after the first three episodes but I’ve heard it has gotten better so I’m going to give it another chance.

I think it’s beyond amazing what Marvel Studios/Disney and Kevin Feige have done in setting up this cohesive, high-quality cinematic universe, and I’m excited to hear they have it mapped out until 2028 because I like the idea of taking my future kids to see movies that take place in the same continuity as these. If you haven’t yet, read this article about Kevin Feige that was published by Bloomberg this week. It’s a really good read.

Let’s keep the comments here spoiler-free, and I’ll post a discussion thread in a couple days where we can all speculate and get a bit more geeky and spoilery.