Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the third movie of Phase Two in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Iron Man 3 (3rd May 2013) and Thor: The Dark World (8th November 2013).

It will be followed by Guardians of the Galaxy premiering on the 1st August 2014 and concluded by Avengers: Age of Ultron on 1st May 2015.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier stars Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Robert Redford (Alexander Pierce) and Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/The Falcon).

I caught the media screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier just a day before the official opening on Thursday, 27th March 2014 in Singapore. The movie has a running time of 136 minutes, so make sure you empty your bladder before you enter the cinema as you will not want to miss any part of it.

Almost all Marvel’s movies have post-credits scenes. For this movie, there are two post-credits scenes, so make sure you stay till the very end of the credits. Also, see if you can spot Stan Lee cameo in the movie!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Poster
Captain America: The Winter Soldier Poster

Synopsis
After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy—the Winter Soldier.
Trailer

Review
Because the introduction of Captain America has been done in the first movie, this second movie is pretty much straight to the point, which makes it better than the first one in my opinion. It is the same for Thor as well. The movie is set in Washington D.C. which bring back memories when I was visiting the city four months ago.

The first 20 minutes of the movie is pretty slow moving to build up the storyline, but after that, it is action packed almost all the way. There are some good jokes in the dialogues especially from Nick Furry (Samuel L. Jackson). There are a lot of close combat fighting scenes and the Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) in the movie is fantastic! I love those Helicarriers.

Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is one of the lead actress in the show and I hope she will get her spin-off movie because I think she did pretty well in the movie.

I watched the 3D version of the movie, but there are not much 3D effects and hence I think you might be better off just catching the normal 2D movie and save a couple of bucks.

Fun Facts

  • Chris Evans truly had mixed martial arts training for Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” as the fighting techniques he employed in the film were a mixture of Parkour, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, karate and boxing. The filmmakers believed that bringing Steve Rogers into the modern day also meant that he had studied and mastered modern fighting styles and techniques.
  • In battling the Winter Soldier, Captain America needs all the resources he can get, including his iconic shield, which has a lot more uses in the film. The shield is traditionally used mostly as a defensive weapon, but in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” the filmmakers wanted to explore using it more as an offensive weapon. There are two handles on the shield and Steve Rogers can hold onto the handles in order to utilize it in an eastern style of fighting.
  • Shooting in Washington D.C. put Steve Rogers, Black Widow and Falcon in scenes at some of the most prominent national landmarks, including the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, National Air and Space Museum, Capitol Building, National Mall, Occidental Restaurant at The Willard Hotel, DuPont Circle Neighborhood and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, which the production shut down for the first time ever for the filming of a major motion picture.
  • With an acrobatic approach to fighting being featured in the film, Chris Evans willingly engaged in gymnastics training. That training had a big payoff for Evans when it came time to shoot fight sequences like the Elevator Fight.
  • In Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” fans will get to see multiples of the 2.0 version of the helicarrier as well as S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters based in a building called the Triskelion in Washington, D.C. The Triskelion is a newly designed design, state-of- the-art facility that fits seamlessly into the backdrop of Washington.
  • The Winter Soldier character, played by Sebastian Stan in the film, was created for Marvel comics by Ed Brubaker in 2005. Though the character of Bucky Barnes existed previously in the Captain America comic books, he was killed off in WWII and not resurrected until Brubaker brought him back as the Winter Soldier.
  • For the scenes in the film that took place on the ship Lumerian Star, the filmmakers used the Sea Launch Commander, docked in Long Beach, Calif. Although there were space challenges involved to choreograph complex fight sequences in the tight spaces of a real ship, the filmmakers were happy to be able to further ground the film in reality by using an existing vessel.
  • Sebastian Stan, who plays the Winter Soldier, also went through rigorous fight and weapons training. He took a lot of good-natured ribbing from his friends because he would walk around all day practicing his moves with a plastic knife because he wanted his movements to feel natural.
  • Anthony Mackie did quite a bit of wirework flying as Falcon. The stunt coordinators would fly him 70 feet up in the air and land him precisely on a little tape mark so he could walk right out of the wires and into the scene. Luckily for all involved, Mackie is athletic and highly coordinated, which made everyone’s job easier.
  • Anthony Mackie, whose excitement and energy for his character was infectious, liked to say “Cut the check!'” whenever something had gone right or a scene had been completed. It became a contagious phrase that caught on and before long everyone on set was saying it.