Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Steve Rogers’ first solo outing was a film of two halves an affecting underdog story set against the backdrop of WW2 followed by a loud and largely forgettable fight for a magic MacGuffin. The Winter Soldier reinvents Rogers’ tale yet again as an old-school spy thriller, and does so in thrilling fashion.

Robbed of black and white wartime certainties and dropped into a murky 21st century world of surveillance culture and rampant corruption,  The Winter Soldier is a film that feels startlingly relevant. There’s shield-flinging and explosions aplenty, but Cap’s real superpower here is his need to question what’s right for his country.

There’s another threat in the form of the Winter Soldier a figure from Cap’s past who returns as a brainwashed, cyber-armed assassin. But despite boasting his name as a subtitle, the Winter Soldier is only a small piece in a much bigger picture.

The action is intense and the script loaded with plenty of character beats. Johansson’s Black Widow has a big part to play and finally emerges as more than a badass  in a black catsuit, while Anthony Mackie’s winged Falcon is an insta-likable BFF for Rogers. op marks for casting Robert Redford as SHIELD director alexander Pierce, too, in a role  that plays on the  actor’s iconography  as the all-America hero.It’s a brave film for Marvel one which lobs the formula out the window and sends
shockwaves through the Marvel cinematic universe.