Very Impressive

Rating: 8/10 (22 April 2014)

The main thing I enjoyed about the first Captain America film was its period setting, so when it was obvious that future films wouldn't have this, I doubted I would like the Captain America sequel as much. Turns out, Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn't only better than the first movie, it rivals The Avengers.
Chris Evans is a great lead, and he builds on his role, the character has more personal conflicts than he did in his first solo film and The Avengers. Scarlett Johansson continues to improve on her role as Black Widow, she has a very good balance of intelligence, fighting ability, and emotion. She's also very attractive. Actually, scratch that. She's more like one of the closest people I can think of to being physically perfect. Nick Fury is given more to do this time around, a considerable improvement over his role in Iron Man 2 when the most memorable thing he did was telling Tony Stark to get off a donut. Anthony Mackie is also very good, and they make sure to establish him well before just putting him in the action.
Something that was lacking in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World was the villains, and they're much better in this film. They're more interesting than the others villains of Marvel's Phase 2 so far, and there's a lot of cool twists revolving around them. The action sequences are terrific, using practical effects whenever the filmmakers are able to and using quality CGI at other times.
Iron Man 3 was nothing more than decent, and Thor: The Dark World was a bit of an improvement. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is easily the best film of this phase yet, and if the films themselves along with Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson's performances continue to get better as they have so far, Avengers: Age of Ultron is something I'm definitely looking forward to.