Captain America: The Winter Soldier

After my dental appointment this morning, I decided to hang around at Kinokuniya for awhile before having my lunch and then going back to resume my sleep. The casts of Spiderman 2 are in Singapore for the Earth Hour 2014 and I was hoping to find some magazine articles which cover about this. As I was browsing through a film magazine, I saw some screenshot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier which were quite bad-ass. It was rated 4.5 out of 5 stars and the movie was already released 2 days ago! I then decided to watch it.

I am not a fan of superhero movies which only depict 1 superhero. That is why I actually never watched Iron Man, Thor, and the first Captain America although I enjoy Avengers thoroughly. It is not helpful that my sister said that the first Captain America was so boring that she fell asleep barely after 10 minutes into the show in the cinema. Lol I reasoned that there are 5 superheroes here (Cap, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Falcon, and Winter Soldier) so perhaps it will be able to complete against the Avengers.

Released on 27 March in Singapore but I can't find a big size Singapore poster.. Haha..

So how did the film fare? Hmm.. just a warning.. spoilers ahead.. Haha.. Not as good as Avengers but it deserves at least a 4 stars. Let's start with the good things. 

The movie feels like an action movie as the superheroes here are just normal human being with above normal physical abilities and prowess. Not much CGI needed to depict superpower abilities like flight, thunderstorm, telekinesis, etc. There are a lot of hand-to-hand combats and they are that good that they made me cringe.

The story is quite straight forward about S.H.I.E.L.D being compromised with H.Y.D.R.A infiltration. Nothing fantastic about it but kudos to the actors who are able to depict the gravity of the crisis of truth. You don't know who you can trust and so on. I hate Cap in the comics as he can be quite an arse but Chris Evans is hot! He has a hot bod but I am not complimenting on that. I find him hot as he makes Cap much more likeable in the movie. Yes, he is still patriotic and idealistic without the I-am-better-than-you-so-you-better-listen-to-me (which is why I hate Cap in the comics). As seen in Fantastic Four movies, he can be a joker but this is not possible due to Cap's personality. In fact, his "romance" and "friendship" scenes are rather flat. However, it can also be because he is still confused and adapting to the 21st century,

As a fan of women who kick ass, Scarlett Jo gets a 2 thumbs up from me! A bit biased here as I prefer to watch acrobatic and stealthy fight rather than head-on muscle fights. Unfortunately, Black Widow mostly fights the "extras" soldiers that she has little difficulty in fighting. I prefer her in Avengers where she got more difficult fight and there were more grunts. I thought that showed her strength more. Again, Scarlett Jo is still very good to depict Black Widow that you don't know whether you can trust or not. Despite being shot when fighting Winter Soldier, she is able to still show the willingness to fight as well as a bit of vulnerability that she may be on the losing side without being a damsel-in-distress. I hate her rebonded hair here but there is a scene where her hair is being dried and it showed the wavy hair she sported on Avengers. Hehe..

Samuel L. Jackson will always be the perfect person to depict Nick Fury so no complaints on him. Kinda expected that his death is fake as Nick is known to have real life decoy models in the comics. So it was clearly mind blowing to find out that his death was being faked by injecting a medicine which slowed down his heart beat tremendously that people thought he was dead.

Moving on the the not-so-good parts now. First, the dialogues are awfully dry and it feels quite draggy at (many) times. I guess that's why Avengers is still the best for me as it has both witty scripts and great action scenes. Second, for a movie titled Winter Soldier, the mentioned guy plays an awfully small role. He serves little role in the plot and is just a killing machine with few lines here. The relationship between him and Cap is not thoroughly exploited so that is a big disappointment! Third, the climax feels anti-climatic. Despite how scary Project: Insight is, the final fight does not convey the importance and the gravity of the situation and the need for the fight. Fourth, Falcon which is not being fully exploited too. Anthony Mackie is great and although Falcon did have a golden time in the sky, it felt too short for me and how he was grounded by Winter Soldier who completely destroys the wings was terrible. I feel that he should and could contribute more in the final fight.

There are 2 extra scenes during the ending credits. I only saw the first one as I did not expect that there would be 2!! Haiz.. This is why I hate watching a movie without reading spoilers first.

Anyway, movie season is coming soon. The next ones on my watch list will be Noah (next week!), Spiderman 2 (early May), X-men (late May), Maleficent (late May), and How to Train your Dragon 2 (June). Hohoho.. The first 3 are definitely must watch but the last 2 will depend on reviews and my mood too.