Only time will tell if 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' turns out to be the 'Citizen Kane' of superhero movies but it is most definitely the 'Three Days Of The Condor' of superhero movies - or 'The Parallax View' or 'Winter Kills' or 'All The President's Men' of superhero movies.
It's an adult thriller steeped in paranoia, cover ups, abuse of power and conspiracy theories. It's a film made by intelligent adults for intelligent adults. It's a film that asks "What if?". "What if Captain America, the paragon of virtue and justice had to square up to political corruption and fight the military-industrial complex to which he is inextricably bound. It's a much better question to ask than "What if Captain America had to fight a giant robot? Or some silver tentacled alien thing. Or a madman with a bomb.
It's clear that everyone involved has aimed for something higher than a run-of-the-mill superhero sequel without alienating the core fans, kids market or people who like spectacle and action. It lays down the gauntlet on how to do this thing right. You've got to hand it to Marvel; they set the bar higher with every major step forwards in their film universe.
The action is pitched at the level of something like 'The Raid' with the disclaimer 'frequent moderate violence' something of an understatement. This is as intense as it gets for a 12A film. It has brutal and nasty fight scenes that are brilliantly choreographed, often surprising and thrilling to watch. The set pieces develop naturally out of the plot and there are genuinely tense moments building up to them.
It may be a 'solo' outing for the Captain but this is just as much about teamwork as The Avengers. The interplay with new (The Falcon) and old (Black Widow, Nick Fury) characters is well handled and interesting, without any need for reliance on Joss Whedon style smart ass backchat and one liners.
It would have been easy to have just run with the Captain America as an old school hero in a modern world idea and just poke fun at it and make it silly entertainment. It would have been easy to just have had a 'good' Captain America smacking a 'bad' Captain America around a city for an hour. Instead, this is an ambitious film about a character trying be a hero in a world where his values are obsolete. It asks interesting questions and the answers have big implications for the Marvel universe.
It may not be as much fun as 'Avengers Assemble' but it is a better film. It's maybe not as comic-book in feel as 'Spiderman 2' or 'Superman 2' but it does capture the feel of a contemporary graphic novel. It's grown up and interesting without being dark and moody. It makes you want to read a comic book; it makes you wish you could still run around in the playground and act all this stuff out. It engages the head as much as the heart. That surely makes it one of the very best superhero films ever made. It's easily top five. Maybe top two.
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