I must say that this evening watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier was very pleasurable. I enjoyed it from start to the very end. I watched it with one of my best friends who even taught me something new about all modern Marvel movies. There is a surprise at the very end of each and every movie, after the end credits. This one was awesome as we got to see the Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver from the upcoming 2016 film, Avengers: Age of Ultron. It was epic, but let me not go too far ahead as that’s a whole year away and we have The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Guardians of The Galaxy coming out later this year and I can’t wait!

The Winter Soldier starts of with Steve Rogers out in public taking a few laps around a park’s fountain and he ends up jogging lap after lap around “” who ends up becoming the highly esteemed Marvel hero and Captain America sidekick and team member, Sam Wilson aka “Falcon,” in the movie and in the comics. Steve makes fun of Falcon and Falcon jokes around with him about not being able to keep up with Steve and his major abilities. Eventually they introduce themselves to one another, not that Captain America needs an introduction but it happens anyway.

Natasha Romanoff drives up and makes a wisecrack about looking for a fossil from back in prehistoric times which she means is Steve and Falcon and Steve both laugh it of. Great intro, nice punchlines, not too hard, not too soft, just perfect. Next thing you know Black Widow briefs Captain America about his new mission and he suits up in a new costume which I think is his best yet and he coyly jokes back about not having plans for the weekend as all his old friends from his barbershop quartet are now dead and she encourages him to ask out someone from their job and he says he’s just too busy. Next thing you know he leaps from the aircraft without a parachute and ends up on a ship and starts taking out targets one by one.

It was amazing and action packed. He was just in and out like Curare, the assassin from Batman Beyond. The moves were smooth and suave and he was like a one man army … literally! Then he ends up in a control room where he meets up on Natasha who he accuses of jeopardizing the mission by extracting data from the ship’s systems citing that that was not their mission. She response by clarifying that his mission was to take out the bad guys and she was assigned something else, that is to get the intelligence and then leave.

Angered by this back at S.H.I.E.L.D. he accuses Nick Fury of essentially being a fraud and keeping information secretively all the time and not sharing with everyone else he knows. He only tells certain individuals what they need to know. This is nothing new as Agent Coulson says the same thing throughout the Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series all the time. Can’t wait to dive back into that show now that I’ve seen this movie. but back to the review. Fury then uses his access privileges to show Steve three new helicarriers which are ready to be launched and shows him some of the secret work they have been undertaking.

Next thing you know we see Robert Redford who is a secretary in the presdent’s cabinet meeting with Director Fury about a matter of launching new S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers. Fury tells him to hold off but doesn’t exactly explain why, just saying for precautions, essentially. Redford’s character, Secretary Pierce is hesitant but they never-the-less are civil about it. But Nick knows something is up. Fury leaves and is driving along the roads and some policemen drive up to him in traffic but it turns out they weren’t law enforcement officers at all, they were bad guys out to take his life in a brutal and reckless manner, not even caring about the public and doing it in broad daylight. Some people just love to watch the world burn.

Fury now knows something is up and if not for his vehicle’s security mechanisms and “Knight Rider-like” technological advancement he would be dead. The even try drilling through the car and Nick is increasingly getting his ass kicked as the car starts failing him more and more. Then there is a joke from the vehicle’s computer about the air conditioning still working which really draw laughter from movie patrons in the theatre and myself and my friend as well.

Nick comes across a deadly weapon whom he has detected but is not so sure about. He doesn’t know who to trust so after he manages to escape this deadly foe by cutting a hole out of the base of his van, he ends up at Captain America’s apartment and essentially tells him the room is bugged and he doesn’t know who to trust and he, Captain America, mustn’t trust anyone else either. Something is going down big time so Nick types up messages on his smart device and let’s Steve read it and gets in on what’s happening by using code words while talking and still giving stuff away in secrecy to Steve. Interestingly enough the neighbour that Steve is attracted to, and rightfully so, as she is a hottie, ends up being an undercover shield agent. Eventually the apartment is compromised and Nick Fury is shot multiple times and is rushed to shield headquarters or at least that’s how it appears and is being treated.

It’s futile and he dies, sort of. I mean, would they really kill off one of the most important Marvel movie and comics’ heroes of that significance, especially with the franchise still being red hot and unfinished? I think not. But he dies anyway and Steve doesn’t tell a soul about what Fury said to him before he “died,” even to secretary Pierce and Black Widow. Eventually S.H.I.E.L.D. which has been compromised sends agents to try to kill Cap but fail miserably which is to be expected as Captain America is a one man army super soldier. He is Captain America for Christ’s sake! He is the hero, he can’t just die in the beginning of the movie or any at all! He escapes and encounters Black Widow who he seems to trust and ventures away but soon encounters whom Natasha calls “The Winter Soldier.”

The Winter Soldier is a living weapon who has been carrying out activities recently but who really surfaced around the time Captain America was in his cryogenic state. He is ruthless and embarrasses Steve Rogers by really putting up a hell of a fight. Nick Fury’s death is getting to Steve and now S.H.I.E.L.D. now blames him for it. Steve and Natasha end up searching for clues as to what’s going on and get into numerous fights. Eventually they meet up on Falcon and confide in him saying they need a place to stay and try to get to the bottom of things. He gets on board and is now the third member of now Rogue Team Captain America.

They end up targeting some members of S.H.I.E.L.D. and he, Falcon, comes  across some technology he used before when he was in the army. It was a pair of high tech flight wings, devices used to allow soldiers or a soldier to fly through the air like a bird, effortlessly and impressively. It was epic. Steve and Natasha end up visiting a high tech facility but is not as heavily guarded as it seems like some base from world war two. It tells them about a secret anti-American agency or organization from Nazi Germany called Hydra, like a snake is deadly and vicious and it turns out they created The Winter Soldier and was using the man who uses the winter soldier to carry out heinous crimes.

Soon in going through all of these files they are targeted but are almost killed but due to quick thinking from Captain they manage to escape with their lives. Eventually it it learnt that Secretary Pierce was working with the Winter Soldier and when he housekeeper found out he shot her several times, killing her to protect his secret. It turns out he was the head of Hydra and in a another subsequent battle with the Winter Soldier Captain America or in this case plain old Steve unmasks the soldier who turns out to be his old best friend, Bucky. He doesn’t remember Steve but Steve remembers him and is shocked that he is still alive.

In the comics and in the first Captain America movie he died in combat. Bucky was made into a weapon. Who he was before is now gone and his hair is longer as well. He is still as young as Steve and was in cryogenic stasis for years but was revived by Secretary Pierce to cause chaos and bring a new order to the world, with him and Hydra as the rules. in order to do so he intends to kill twenty million people. Essentially, in order to build a new world he has to tear the old one down and killing millions of people is his way of doing things. I must say that Robert Redford was an amazing actor in this film and was an impressive villain. Bucky, The Winter Soldier may have been the title villain and main co-star of this movie but Robert Redford is the kingpin of evil in this movie.

Eventually Steve Rogers, Falcon and Natasha make it onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, the main base and uses the intercoms to alert all of S.H.I.E.L.D. about Hydra which the shield directors of the council are shocked to learn and he urges everyone to use their consciences and do the right thing to cleanse a compromised shield and make things right. Hydra is not too pleased and Steve’s neighbour/undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent steps up to the plate and stops a few Hydra operatives and then all hell breaks loose and clean shield agents stop the hydra double agents from launching the three new helicarriers I referred to earlier from launching and causing hell on earth.

After Bucky starts remembering the time he shared with Steve back in the 1940s a ruthless Pierce orders his memories to be painfully wiped free and him to be rebooted as a weapon of mass destruction. in fact when he was being made into this evil anti-hero his arm was sawed off and replaced with a cybernetic arm. He was essentially dead after his battle in the forties so they took what was left of him and that’s that. Bucky again, after he reboot, targets Steve and rips Falcon’s wings apart and Fury has also resurfaced throughout the mess and reveals that he had to fake his death in order for him to stop being targeted. Apparently he used some technology to slow his heartbeat to let the doctors think he was dead so that those he could trust could revive him later at another location.

He believed that he would be vindicated in “death” and that Steve would eventually prevail and they would work together to take out Hydra and stop whoever was behind the leadership. Ironically Secretary Pierce appointed him Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the top dog so he could secretly use his trust to get around him and cause his master plan to be enacted. It was a plan that was decades in the making, before he was a member of the now US president’s cabinet. Natasha at this point used facial and voice cloaking technology to impersonate a member of the council and stopped Pierce and for a long while it seemed things were under control but it turns out that the second she put on the disguise she and her life was compromised like the others in the council as Pierce put undetectable software and hardware into their attire that would kill them if they got in his way.

It was Pierce’s was his trump card and he tried to use it against Natasha who now leaked all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s info to the internet including information about herself and now Pierce insisted the world would never see her the same way again. Accepting the consequences she proceeded and Pierce almost kills her but is saved by Fury and Steve. Winter Soldier Bucky is now facing off against a reluctant Steve who wants to bring his old friend back. He eventually gets his butt kicked and stops Bucky but Bucky isn’t down for too long and shoots Steve several times before Steve manages to take out the helicarriers with some help from the good shield operatives and saves the day.

Eventually Steve refuses to fight Bucky confident that he would remember who is he and their long standing friendship going all the way back to before Steve was Captain America and just a puny little wimp with dreams of fighting for his country in World War 2. Bucky beats the crap out of Steve and they end up going down into the ocean and Bucky saves a now unconscious Steve remembering some of his past but deserts Steve to find himself.

Hopefully we’ll see him in Captain America 3 or in one of the upcoming Marvel movies prior. Nick Fury is now presumed dead and Nastasha has to testify before a council, perhaps the US Senate or Congress and walks free but has to now live with her now open life and past employment out in public. Nick Fury now visits the grave he was supposedly buried in and Captain America lives to fight another day and now Pierce is the villain and has been killed throughout the whole drama by Nick Fury.

Great movie and solid ending. I am a sentimental guy so I would have loved to have seen Captain America and Bucky with his memories intact embrace and have all being well again. But Bucky is gone and Steve vows to find and restore him. I never knew how Charles Xavier managed to end up alive at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand as I thought he had died but thanks to my friend I now know that Marvel movies have secret endings after the credits and like I said before I saw the creation of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. I know they’ll be in X-Men: Days of Future Past, at least Quicksilver will be but they’ll both be in “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” movie next year.

Not sure if Scarlett Witch will be in Days of Future Past but I can’t wait to see both those movies and Spider-Man comes out this coming weekend so I’ll be first in line to see it. I plan to buy my ticket early! Only thing I hate about the movie before even seeing it is the fake and crappy looking electricity infused effects from Electro. It looks completely whack and fake! Marvel could have come up with something better than that. I wanted better. I hear from sources who are familiar with the comics that Gwen Stacy may die in the end like in the comics but I don’t want to know before I see the film. I prefer to be surprised.

If that happens it would be sad. But hey, that’s comic book cinematology and mythology! Stay tuned for more great movie reviews and I will be posting a blog about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 this week which comes out here in Jamaica before it does in the United States of America. At least this is one instance where being a Jamaican has perks. Sometimes movies from the states are released here earlier. Go team Jamaica!