Review: ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’ is one of the best Marvel films yet

Posted on April 11, 2014

We’ve reached the point in the process where the individual films cannot be taken entirely by themselves, and it’s pretty much a prerequisite to have seen “Captain America: The First Avenger” and “The Avengers” to understand what’s going on in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

Although it’s obvious that this latest film has a secondary purpose of laying the groundwork for next year’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” television directors Anthony and Joe Russo (“Community,” “Arrested Development”) never forget that audiences are coming first of all to see Captain America’s latest adventure.

Each Marvel film to date has found its own flavor, pulling from a variety of genres including Shakespearean dramas (“Thor”) and old-fashioned war movies (“Captain America: The First Avenger”). “Winter Soldier” at times feels more like a political thriller than a super-hero movie, and that’s one of the reasons it works so well.

Marvel has created a multi-faceted cinematic universe unlike anything which has come before it. But it shouldn’t be lost that the studio has also created an entertaining line of individual films, and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is a shining example.

The film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, gunplay and action throughout.

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