Review: Captain America - The Winter Soldier (third-pass)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2D) (third-pass / SPOILER-FREE)
Cert: 12A / 136 mins / Dir. Joe Russo / Anthony Russo




NB: My first-pass review without spoilers is here, and my second one with vague spoilers is here.

Not really much more to say about The Winter Soldier, other than my third viewing of it kept me every bit as engaged as the first two. As far as social observation goes, the film's a bit of a blunt instrument, and it's nowhere near as intriguing™ as it'd like to be. It is, however, a very solid two-hour-plus action thriller, with scowly faces and massive explosions aplenty. Spiritually, it feels more like a sequel to Avengers Assemble than the first Captain America movie, but that's by no means a bad thing.

Marvel-universe Easter-Eggs and namedropping abound here, and there are far more offhand references than I could keep up with (some presumably for future-use, others just for the hell of it). And I could be entirely wrong, but the first time we see the Insight heli-carriers, I could have sworn that one of the technicians on-deck is wearing a black Imperial Officer's uniform. It was pretty difficult to be sure even in the front-ish section of the cinema with the movie being digitally projected, so I'm not sure how the BluRay will illuminate matters, but that's what my brain highlighted, anyway.

For what it's worth, this was the first time I've seen the film in 2D, and yes, the action-sequences are a lot easier to follow visually without the darkening and ghosting. I'm not hating on 3D, that's just how it is for this movie.

With Spider-Man 2 currently doing the rounds, Days Of Future Past landing within a month and Guardians Of The Galaxy in the summer, if this year doesn't make the average cinemagoer throughly sick of Marvel, I don't know what will.

I, for the record, am not the average cinemagoer.
Bring it.

Lines of dialogue deliberately used out of context, but other than that, yeah.



Just about.



It does, although it may be setting out to do something that's not to your taste.



If you want to catch it on a big screen, you'll have to be quick.



A little.



I will.



The Winter Soldier's signature sound-effect seems to be an extended Wilhelm, yes.

You know the bit where they're in the bunker and they go down in the elevator to the secret underground bit and then it blows up (hey, I'm trying to be spoiler-free here)? How come when Cap throws off the rubble, they're basically at ground-level? What kind of crap underground bunker is that?

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.