Surprisingly good for Marvel

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2016)

Marvel have a history of promoting hyper aggressive female characters and this movie is no exception. For the first time though, they've extended that hyper aggression to most of the cast (male and female). It used to be reserved for the Hulk and Black Widow. In order to create the illusion of extreme feats of strength, the first 20 minutes of the movie was almost unwatchable as they cut and chopped fight scenes frantically. Later scenes did not suffer from this fragmentation.
Then, there was the ridiculous speech by Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) telling us that the only people who face adversity were women and that no woman ever went anywhere before the 1950s. Maybe, the writers and VanCAmp should study people like Frances Kelsey and Srinivasa Ramanujan. This speech was just plain insulting. But, it's consistent with Marvel, so, everyone should be used to these propaganda statements by now.
However, if you can look past revisionist history by the writers and VanCamp, the story was otherwise almost flawless. There was, surprisingly, a lot of heart to this movie. Thankfully, the writers and directors spent a lot less time on hyper-violence than past efforts. However, they are still obsessed with ninja warriors. They've now added another over the top ninja to the cast.
Surprise performance of the movie was Jeremy Renner as Arrow Guy. It's the first movie where he hasn't been lame. Elizabeth Olsen also demonstrated some solid acting chops.
Visual effects were surprisingly inconsistent for a Marvel movie. There is a scene with a truck and some fire which looked particularly fake.
However, this movie was most the most enjoyable of the Marvel Universe for me. Some heart to the characters, good acting from most of the performers, believable conflict and a toned down Robert Downey Jr. Win, win, win.
If you didn't like the Avengers movies, you may like this one. It's got enough heart that you actually care about the characters this time around. However, it's still got its share of hyper-violence, although, for the first time, most of the characters get their moment of hyper-violence, not just Black Widow.