Best Marvel Movie to date.

Rating: 10/10 (2 April 2014)

I guess I would be considered a big Fan-boy as I have collected comics for 30 plus years and I was just sure Hollywood would totally butcher this wonderful comic book story arc. (Like they did with the Extermis story arc in Iron Man 3 in my opinion) Despite that I was as giddy as a school girl waiting on this movie to come out because I really wanted to see The Winter Soldier depicted on screen. Based on early reviews and trailers I felt that just maybe this time Hollywood might do this story justice and they certainly did.
The Winter Soldier Rocks hands down, the action is fast, deadly and well placed. The acting is great for any movie not just a superhero movie (and let's face it these are usually such one dimensional characters in the films)
The reviews are pretty spot on this is an espionage/thriller and is the best of what captain America really is, he's not as strong as The Hulk and has never claimed to be, he's a soldier that's what he always wanted to be and he's damn good at it. He knows what's expected of a soldier and always does his job, but in a new era of no black and white but purely gray areas, this soldier has to find the truth in a world full of lies and this plays well in the film.
These actors have really come into these roles and this script does give them the chance to really act.
Chris Evens is great and beyond the first cap film or the Avengers I finally see him as Captain America, Sam Jackson is great as usual but with much more depth for his character in this script he's even better.
Another thing i'm happy about is you finally get to see a hint of what the real Natasha Romanoff is like in the comics.(They have just not done this character justice in the other films, until now.)
This time around these feel like real characters for a change and we care about what happens to them. The new characters introduced here to the Marvel Cinematic Universe hold their own especially Anthony Mackie as the Falcon.
I was worried that no actor could play this role correctly without it just seeming cheesy but with modern CGI they pulled off the Wings pun intended, however CGI wings aside what really sold this role was Mackie, in the comics this is one of the big long standing and important friendships in the Marvel Comics Universe, between Cap and the Falcon, (hell the cap comics were titled Captain America and The Falcon for years)
so it was important to get this friendship right, cap needs a friend not a fan and The Falcon in this movie is a soldier and in this version of the story that is where they find their bond, an unspoken understanding and trust between real soldiers not Black Water mercenaries . Though very different from the original meeting in the comics the same unspoken bond forms none the less.
Spoiler Alerts ahead! Though they have pretty much switched the roles of Agent 13 and the Black Widow in the movie version, it works and the Black Widow makes a great counter to Cap in this film while still being one of the good guys. A lot of reviews are saying Scarlett Johansson runs away with this movie but I disagree, no actor runs away with this movie they all play their parts well and are an important part of the story there is no Star here just good performances.
As for The Winter Soldier himself he had close to no dialog in the comics at this point in the story arc and this was a role that really needed to be played with the actor's eyes and Sebastian Stan pulls this off beautifully. I loved the Winter Soldier on screen the CGI was perfect and he was as cold, and menacing as he was in the comics. An emotionless killing machine. The High tech Bionic metal arm looked great and was totally believable. The use of actual stunt men in place of what is usually all CGI in fight scenes these days was great to see and was choreographed perfectly, way to go old school. And no two fight scenes felt the same, even when you see Cap fight The Winter Soldier for the 3rd time.
The best thing about this Movie was the pacing, I was never bored and this did not seem like a 2 and 1/2 hour film, just as things slowed down, and you were getting more of the story BAM!, more well placed action and then back to a good solid script.
All that said and I had a lot to say, did Hollywood fall back into the 10 second count down sequence at the end? Yes. Did they dumb it down some? Yes, but was it great fun and did it give us the spy thriller feel of the Ed Brubaker comics? Yes it did Bret! Yes it did!!
I loved this movie and it's hard to please a fan-boy. So please go see this movie tell your friends and family I really want more Captain America movies based on the Brubaker story arcs and there is a lot more to this story which really gets better down the road.
If you have never read a comic or anything by Ed Brubaker, read some you will be surprised how good comic books can be, good comic writers don't come along often and Brubaker is one of the best.
Oh and look close at Nick Fury's Grave Stone at the end there is a tribute to his character in Pulp Fiction.