Trope-filled, silly, pretty, and fun.

Rating: 6/10 (16 November 2014)

(VERY minor spoiler below) The Winter Soldier may be dressed up as an espionage thriller. Don't fall for the deception, it is a silly, high-budget, dumb but thrilling action-adventure-sci-fi-romp through and through. On the inevitable way to its conclusion, the film leaves no trope untouched, no predictable plot twist avoided.
First of all, for all concerned: this is very much a Captain America movie. It's filled to the brim with pathos and good ol' American Exceptionalism. We're meant to just accept that the US were accepted as the world's leading nations once more on merit of the Avengers. That's fine, though - a Captain America film is still that. Where it gets a bit iffy is a contrived plot twist that pulls what could have been a seriously critical look at the military-industrial complex and some soul-seeking on part of the American militarist public mindset into golden age comics territory. In the Marvel movieverse, the Nazis weren't done in 1945 - they still serve as antagonists all the way in 2014. Seriously? This is a movie that Captain America would love - its core message: idealism beats realism, and realism always corrupts. Personally, I don't agree (and a review is always a subjective thing), and for a movie that tries so hard to be an espionage thriller, this movie sure also tries hard to insult the viewer's intelligence. That aside however, if one is to accept the black-and-white morality and cheesy done-twenty-thousand-times-before plot, this is a competently directed, action-filled film with brilliant special effects and masterfully choreographed fight scenes (UFC getting name-dropped should give you an indication as to what to expect).
So yeah, there you have it - it's dumb, but fun, and anyone who wasn't prepared for American pathos going into a Captain America film probably only has him- or herself to blame.