“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is…

…A thoroughly entertaining film that surpasses its predecessor and is only slightly less impressive than “Iron Man 3” as far as Marvel movie sequels go.  One of the main reasons for this is that in comparison to “Iron Man 2” and “Thor:  The Dark World, “The Winter Soldier” actually tells a story instead of assembling a pile of genre tropes and gibberish that were (mostly) made enjoyable through the sheer charisma of their casts and impressive special effects.  I won’t say that its attempts to emulate the “70’s paranoia movies” that were cited as the film’s inspiration were entirely successful — if your secret terror organization is going to have a catchphrase that everyone feels compelled to mention, then it has to be better than the one here (regardless of its origin in the comics) — but the effort did help distinguish it in the genre.  Plus, it led to some great scenes such as the encounter between Steve Rogers and Nick Fury in the former’s apartment, and Steve’s elevator encounter.

There are a couple other things that stand out about the movie as well:  The way the aforementioned “terror organization” was integrated into the plot has been done before in the comics and it came off a lot better here.  That’s mainly down to the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is relatively new which makes it a lot easier to accept as opposed to retconning nearly forty years of comics history.  Steve and Natasha’s relationship was handled quite well and was thankfully free of romance and unnecessary sexual tension.  I also though the filmmakers handled the “other” titular character quite well in the sense that they got his personality right, yet didn’t write themselves into a corner that needed a cosmic cube to get out of.  Most impressive of all, however, is the fact that after seeing everything that went on in this movie I’m really excited to see how it all shakes out in this week’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”  That “The Winter Soldier” was able to pull that off should be all you need to know about how good it was.

(Also, does anyone else think that the one villain to return here from “The First Avenger” is the “clairvoyant” that we’ve heard so much about in “S.H.I.E.L.D.?”  It’d make sense given his apparent level of access and reach.  Plus, they’d only need to pay the actor for his voice and I’m sure that appealed to everyone who wanted to find the most cost-effective way to have a direct link from the movie to the TV series.)