Better than the first but still more of the same from Hollywood

Rating: 6/10 (8 April 2014)

The great: Chris Evans performance. He does a great job and plays this type of roll very straight which works and saves the film in my opinion. Also Anthony Macky..Mackey? Was a shining spot in the film. Cannot say the same for Scarlet Johansen as Black Widow who is a bit annoying on screen spending most of the time practically winking at the camera and continuing her cartoonish Betty Boop "aren't I sexy?" eye/lip gimmick. Redford is serviceable too as is Sam L Jackson.
Also the action sequences and CGI are both very well done. This has entertaining stuff in it to be sure and is not boring, a lot better and moved along with energy more than the first.
The Bad: Pathetically predictable, not to mention that Hollywood studios show us half the movie in their "teaser" trailers nowadays. And...ahem, Dear Hollywood, can you think of anything else in a superhero movie than ending it with some type of count-down doomsday event mixed with multiple mcguffins? The film should have been smarter than this, but just like the Dark Knight series, it had to end with some death star count down with unexplained stakes that don't make much sense when thought over more than 5 seconds. And aren't we past the predictably evil villain who practically twirls their mustaches while explaining their evil plot to the good guy to give them time to get away? And Hollywood, seriously...are you still stuck in the mode of constantly bringing about WW2-era villains like the big bad Nazis? This was already the focus of the first film..we need it again? Heil Hydra? Are you f**king kidding me? And a computer controlling our intelligence community and secretly controlling all events on earth like it's a finely tuned ballet? Not even our incompetent CIA/NSA could accomplish that even if they wanted to. My point being, the film was ambitiously aiming high with the political thriller content, but it became a bit laughable when faced with a retro computer zombie Nazi explaining to us his evil plan that apparently 30% of Shield went along with for some reason...and I guess all other military agencies just kind of allow our capital to get blown to hell for hours before asking potshot Black Widow to explain the events to them..and the audience.
And lastly..the villains. Come on..a pro MMA fighter as a bad guy cameo? Why not cast Hulk Hogan. Just as silly.
And recycling 2 people we already know is bad enough but one of the "super villains" is just good at shooting guns, posing with guns, and strutting around like a cat while bad guys hand him guns? Is there really no fleshing out of this character from the comic books or any of these millionaire screenwriters pea brains?
And alas! Hollywood has only two modes with films: 1) Super serious/dark or 2)super campy/quip filled..PICK ONE! You can't take yourselves so damn seriously while having undeveloped laughable villains who take time to let good guys run away instead of shooting them in the face or who explain their intentions instead of shooting them in the face.
Anyways...frustratingly familiar but I admit I had a good time. A fun ride with some bright spots being the main cast and the direction/action. But Marvel needs to break the mold again and not fall into the trap of the cliché, cookie cutter formula action/superhero film that they think we expect or need as an audience paying out the nose for a ticket.