Surprisingly good

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2014)

The power of a mature story becomes apparent yet again in this film. The Marvel heroes stories have been created, changed to fit the times, merged, split, reinvented, all while in the crossfire of devoted fans that see and cry foul at any mistake or inconsistency. That is why Winter Soldier, while mixing up a lot of story lines, heroes and technologies, ultimately works. It is also not boring, as the plot is indeed thick.
But that is not all. All the actors played well, and just look at that cast, Scarlett Johansson had a major role and looked as delicious as she ever did, the action scenes were very good and diverse (although I still don't know why people aim at the shield and not at Captain America when they try to shoot him) and a bunch of story lines opened up.
As I see it, comic book companies want to recreate the comic universe on video - it makes sense since nobody reads anymore - and that opens a lot of available stories that are both wonderful and terribly silly. If Winter Soldier is at the level of quality of future films in the Marvel universe, I am happy with it.