Fantastic action but no lasting stakes

Rating: 8/10 (23 January 2017)

So, after seeing Captain America in his first standalone film and then in The Avengers, I thought he was a decent character but wasn't completely enthralled by him.
Well, things get taken up a gear in The Winter Soldier as Cap tries to deal with life in the 21st century. His old flame from the 40s is bedridden and senile, post-9/11 America starts to scare him, and ultimately he must learn to trust no one.
SHIELD gets infiltrated, taking Nick Fury out of the picture, so Cap and Black Widow must fend off the Winter Soldier and the rest of the SHIELD double agents, later found out to be members of HYDRA. They must prevent Robert Redford's character; the corrupt leader of SHIELD from using heavily armed aircraft carriers to decimate the city.
So, the Winter Soldier is revealed to be Bucky Barnes, Cap's childhood friend from back in the day, who coincidentally got frozen and experimented on with the same super serum as Cap. And I'm not gonna lie, he's pretty badass. The first scene we see him or when he's escaping from Cap after sniping fury, I get chills every time. He is more of a threat to Cap because of course, he is brainwashed and also, Cap doesn't want to kill his friend.
Cap also befriends Sam Wilson or Falcon in this movie, and his debut entry with the mechanical wings on top of a skyscraper is possibly my favourite entry for a superhero ever.
The action in this film is incredible. The pyrotechnics and combat are amazing to look at, but they're not done in a gratuitous way (like Michael Bay, for instance) The only flaw of this film is the overall lack of stakes. Yeah, sure, Robert Redford gets eliminated but that was kinda predictable. Nick Fury gets shot and is pronounced dead in hospital. Turns out he survived. Rumlow gets crushed by falling building debris. Oh no, it's OK, he's coming back for Civil War. Cap receives fatal gunshot wounds, gets beaten in the face with a metal appendage and falls about 500 feet into the middle of the ocean. Don't worry, he's fine! See what I mean? The one problem with these Marvel films is that you know deep down, they're always going to play it safe. These films are laid out on a conveyor belt after all. These actors have multi-movie contracts.
Aside from that, this is my favourite Marvel movie. It mixes elements of spy thriller and action films into a superhero film and it works dividends. It has my absolute recommendation.