First Impressions: Captain America The Winter Soldier

 Okay. It's been a few days. I'm gonna talk about it.

It isn't going to be easy...

It isn't going to be pleasant...

There will be spoilers...

You've been warned.

I was pissed when I left the theater, and it's taken me this long to at least begin to figure out why.

Let's start with what I liked.

The Good: 

Falcon! He was awesome throughout. His intro was hilarious, and his loyalty never wavered (unlike mine).

Black Widow! She's a spy, not a soldier. Now I know the difference.

Batroc! Kudos to the costume designer for working his traditional threads into his onscreen outfit.

Winter Soldier! He acted exactly as he should have.

Fury! 'Nuf said!

And Cap of course.

The Bad: As easy as it would be for me to say "everything else" that isn't true. But let's start with the story...

It seemed to me that the script crammed two different yet similar storylines:

and

I own the first, never read the second. Having heroes second guess each other was done in Civil War...which came out a year before Secret Invasion...and which I also have no interest in reading...ever.

Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D., however, was cool. You had one guy you could trust facing betrayal at every turn who winds up taking down the very organization he helped build in the first place.

Sound familiar?

So Cap and Natasha learn about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s corruption through an old war buddy...

(nice touch by the way - thought I recognized the camera on top of the computer...)

...after getting their asses kicked by another old war buddy.

And let me say this - I'm convinced more (civilian) people died in this film than in Avengers.

That's right...gunfights in the street beat alien invasion.

And none, NONE I TELL YOU!!! of the bad guys get stopped or killed.

Sure, Fury escapes and gets "killed" but gets better.

And Cap gets shot like what? Two? Three times?

How many times has he been shot in the comics?

I'm not even going there so DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!!

Then there's THIS guy...

...Agent Sit(the F**K)well. 

He was great in Item 47...

He was great in The Consultant...

He was great in Avengers...

Not only do we learn he's one of these:

...but he dies, even though he had nothing to do with people dying in the streets of Washington D.C.
HE dies!

And not in any sort of satisfactory way either.

You know what I'm sayin'.

So the good guys' plan works, and the Mighty Three fall from the sky.

Okay. Great.

But do we even get to see THIS guy get killed?

Of course not...

WTF???
Then there's this other schmuck...

...who's eight second cameo has given us this -

wait...what?

I'd rather have this...

ON YOUR LEFT, you mutherf**king piece of Hydra S#!T!

Okay. 

I get that Marvel Studios is trying to broaden their films into other genres. Fine. I get it.

They also wanted to make Cap 2 a political thriller like Three Days of the Condor and The Manchurian Candidate.

Again...fine.
But those films are one-offs. They use characters never to be seen or heard form again.

This. Is. Marvel.
Everything's connected. Right?
Didn't they realize that with this film...

1) we'll never see an Agent Carter series...

2) Howard Stark could well be a Hydra Agent...

3) Dum Dum Dugan could well be a Hydra Agent...

4) They absolutely had to follow up with a comedy...
What's next?

Are they going to tell us that Winter Soldier takes place BEFORE Iron Man 3
to explain why there weren't any agents at Stark's house?

That's insane!
One other thing I did like about this film...

...the end-credit scene.
With a little

and

thrown in.

I like my movies tied up nice in a neat little bow. I realize I'm the minority, and I don't care.. 

Yeah, that one ended on a downer, but everyone was working together to find and save Han.

There was a plan. A goal that we knew would be at least one of the points resolved in Film #3.

I sure as hell didn't feel that here.

Yeah, okay. Bucky's slowly getting his memory back,

but can anyone tell me WHERE THE F**KING SHIELD WENT?

What? Was there some sort of symbolism there?

Anyway, I was trying to explain all this to Mrs. Adorkification later on. She didn't get it. 

"It's just a movie", she said.

Okay hon. Let me put it in perspective for you...

Let's say a popular writer - someone with a lot of novels under their belt - decided to re-write Pride and Prejudice so that Elizabeth Bennett died old, poor and alone.

This new version becomes so outrageously popular, it outsells Austin's original piece.

In fact, it becomes so popular, the general public decides to accept this new version as canon.

And the story you loved...was replaced.

Well guess what?

That happens in comics.

All the time.

Which is the single biggest reason I stopped reading.

I could have always found the money and made the space. It just wasn't worth it to me anymore. Marvel sort of screwed me. And starting with Iron Man 3...

...now it's Marvel Studios' turn.

Is their plan to make the entire Phase 2 one big The Empire Strikes Back?

'Cause if it is, I'm going to have a hard time sticking around.

In Marvel Studios I Trust?

ON YOUR GORRAM LEFT, you muthaf**kin' piece of Hydra s#!t!