Captain America: The Winter Soldier

An elegant waltz of shields, helicarriers and patriotism.

I feel like I’ve started every post-“Avengers” movie review the same: “Based on how good/bad the first movie in this series was, I have high/low hopes for this one.” And unsurprisingly, I felt myself thinking this about Captain America, which was tied with “Thor” for being the most okay Avenger storyline in my opinion. And so, fearing another “C-” Avengers follow up, I walked into the theater. But much to my surprise,  “Winter Soldier” improved on its predecessor in every way. Perhaps a little too much. Maybe I should explain.

The first movie starring the captain in the new marvel universe, “The First Avenger”‘s  plot was as flimsy as any movie with Nazis in it. It’s not like anyone in the theater has any doubt who the bad guys are, as our star-spangled hero dramatically screams and shield-bashes his way to victory, with patriotic music blaring in the background, bordering on propaganda. Fourtunately, Marvel decided to come to its senses for the sequel. Sort of.

Apparently, someone on the production team decided that the movie needed a stronger plot, but instead of trying to develop a deep, engaging story, decided to cram as many plot twists into the movie’s two hour and 16 minute run time as possible, leaving me and my friends in states of various shock, ranging from a confused glance to facepalming repeatedly. I can imagine a set of Marvel execs sitting together in a confrence room, watching Nick Fury use his sonic screwdriver thing to dig out of another sticky situation, nodding and mumbling soflty to themselves. Seriously, this is worth the watch just for absolutely crazy twists. There was one twist near the end of the movie that was such a massive cop-out that I almost walked out of the theater.

All of “Winter Soldier’s”  plot twists would be welcome too, but they encounter serious resistance in that the twists so far-fetched and insane that they take almost half an hour to register. The plot is beyond predictable, and not only that, but about 90 percent of the twists are completely unneccecary. There’s a grand total of two twists that actually surprised me and added to the story. The rest just seemed like fluff to increase the run time. But those two twists were strong enough to carry the story. Sure, it’s a story in the same way Mariah Carey is a heart surgeon, but it’s still a plot, which is a major milestone for a Marvel movie that isn’t called “Iron Man”.

In the end, what carries “Winter Soldier” is the action, with fistfights, explosions, lack of attention to the laws of physics, and slow-mo galore, all of which prevented me from thinking about the story until I left the theater.

And so, looking past the mass of near-useless plot twists, and  the predictable story, “Winter Soldier” is revealed to be a solid movie . There is a plot, despite excessive twisting, and the action is awesome, with a few of the most insane fight scenes I’ve seen in a while. And though “Winter Soldier” is difficult to take seriously, that doesn’t stop if from being one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen since “Pacific Rim”. And it’s the same kind of entertainment too. With a story that takes itself way too seriously, a steriotypical beefcake leading the way against an enemy that is more interesting than the heroes. The Captain’s struggle to re-establish a normal life is buried in an avalanche of conspiracy and Nazis, which is in turn rendered irrelevant by bad storytelling, which is in turn neatly covered up by explosions and action, as logic and reason are thown out the window in favor of another pound of dynamite.R egardless, “Winter Soldier” delivers what it promised, lots of explosions and fighting. It is, for lack of a better word, fun.

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