Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a 2014 production from Marvel Studios. The movie’s directors are the Russo brother, Anthony and Joe, with the script written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. This is the second Captain America movie, starring the Captain himself in the lead role, portrayed by actor Chris Evans. The cast also features Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie and Robert Redford. The movie scores a 7.7/10 on IMDb and received a 70 Metascore.

A Summary

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is now a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but when he finds out that some information is withheld from him, he begins to questions the organization’s intentions. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) does tell him about Project Insight, three new Helicarriers equipped with heavy weaponry. Everything goes south though when even Fury himself gets locked out of the systems.

Firstly, Fury couldn’t get into a flash drive that Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) acquired for him. Apparently, his access was denied by Fury himself. When Fury leaves S.H.I.E.L.D. that day he gets attacked by the police, who are not registered on police dispatch. After an intense chase, Fury managed to get himself to safety, just before Bucky “The Winter Soldier” Barnes (Sebastian Stan) could get to him.

When Steve comes home he finds Fury in his home, heavily injured. Nick tells Rogers that his house is bugged and someone is listening to them. Moments later a sniper tries to shoot Fury but fails. Steve tries to pursuit the attacker but also fails. Fury is brought to the hospital where he’s undergoing surgery. Then he flatlines.

Steve is ordered to go to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a talk with Defense Secretary Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford). He asks him why Fury was at his home as he tells Steve about some of Fury’s secret actions. Steve says only one thing, that Fury told him not to trust anybody. When he tries to get out of the building, he gets attacked in the elevator by a whole squad of men. Of course, Captain America manages to escape the attack and leaves the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

He runs into Natasha and together they go to the location where the flash drive originated. Turns out it is Steve’s old army camp. In a basement, they find a computer containing Arnim Zola’s mind, the researcher who helped the Red Skull during the first Captain America movie. He tells them how HYDRA has been more active than ever before and how they got into S.H.I.E.L.D..

Natasha and Steve meet up with a former soldier who Steve met during a running session, named Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie). He was part of a military project called Falcon, a suit that would give a soldier the ability to fly. En route to get one of these suits, they get attacked by The Winter Soldier. During this fight, Steve notices for the first time that The Winter Soldier is, in fact, his old friend Bucky Barnes. They are no match for a whole battalion of HYDRA agents as they get captured.

During transport to the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, the guard in their car attacks the other guard as it turns out that Agent Maria Hill was the guard. She leads them to Fury, who is still alive. Together they devise a plan to stop the Helicarriers from killing millions of people. They’re going to change the targeting chips on all three ships, which will cause them to shoot at each other instead of people.

Heavy fighting follows at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base as loyal followers of S.H.I.E.L.D. gets told about the HYDRA infiltrators over the intercom. Captain America gets one chip into the system, while Falcon does the same for another carrier. But then The Winter Soldier joins the party. He takes out Falcon and then sets his eyes on Captain America. Steve finds a small window in their fight to put in the chip and the ship’s targeting systems are overridden.

All three Helicarriers go down, including the one with Captain America and The Winter Soldier still on. Steve refuses to kill Bucky as he is sure he will remember their past. They crash into the water and Steve sinks unconsciously to the bottom. We see Bucky drag him out of the lake as he probably remembered, at least some, of their past.

The Story

Steve is trained to be a soldier, but soldiers need orders and when those orders are faulty, you kind of run into a problem as the soldier. The infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. was to me an excellent storyline. To this point, Steve mostly just followed orders, but when Fury got shot down, he needs to make his own decisions. I felt like the first Captain America movie didn’t give Rogers a real threat. He walked straight at the enemies and still managed to come out without a single scratch.

However, during this movie, he needs to step up his game. It becomes more than just taking out some guards, now he needs to be aware of possible HYDRA agents at every step of the way, while also fighting a long lost friend turned super-soldier. Also, the fact that it is HYDRA who poses the threat adds an extra layer for Steve. He thought he destroyed them before his long sleep, but that was only the start of it as they have now grown way bigger.

The Characters

Steve Rogers / Captain America

As I said, Steve gets into more problems than ever before, while also losing Nick Fury as his commander. Now he needs to prove himself, show what he is capable off on his own. And I feel the movie did an excellent job of showing that growth. Steve gets set up to become a leader in the years to come as he learns to manage on his own and even giving orders to Fury when they reunite.

HYDRA

I will take several into one here, including Bucky, Pierce and the organization itself. HYDRA gets seemingly destroyed during the first Captain America movie, but it turns out Zola got ‘saved’ as a computer program and continued to grow the organization. With the infiltration in S.H.I.E.L.D., they managed to get close to full control of the most heavily armed organization in the world.

In my opinion that was an excellent storyline. While Pierce lacked the charisma to stand as a villain, Bucky stood in as the real threat of HYDRA. Of course, his long-lasting relationship with Steve sets the tone for an interesting fight. Alongside an understandable ideal HYDRA proves to be one of the better antagonists I’ve seen throughout my movie viewings.

The Production

As with any Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, it is big-budget and therefore easily high production value. I was particularly impressed with the scene where Nick Fury gets chased down in his car by the fake police. The shots, the acting, it all added to a thrilling sequence where the viewer is pushed to the edge of his or her seat.

Alongside some epic Captain America action, as well as funny scenes, mostly involving Falcon, we get a beautifully crafted screenplay which I would rate as one of the better movies I’ve ever seen.