Minute for minute this is the best Marvel movie yet. At its best it's right up there with Iron Man 1 and The Avengers, but while Iron Man faltered a bit at the end and The Avengers required some amount of indulgence, this one is rock solid from start to finish and even a comic book cynic could enjoy it. The pacing is perfect, the action has a bit of everything and is seriously impressive, and there's hardly a line of cheesy dialog to be heard.

If you had to nitpick you could say the grand scheme doesn't quite live up to the intrigue that precedes it (granted there's a LOT of early intrigue) and, well, the makeup artist goes overboard on Chris Evans in a couple scenes. Yeah, that's the worst of it. As far as action movie go it's about as good as it gets.

4 1/2 stars

Funny you should say that... I really liked Iron Man but I too thought it faltered near the end.

Yeah Iron Man got a bit too comic book'y around the end, especially the final battle with all the bad guy monologuing. Still one of my favorites though.

Fits in nicely if you're a fan of watching the Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tv show too.

I really don't like the character, but man, those trailers DO look very tasty.

I dug it a lot; it's certainly one of the more grounded yet thrilling entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe line of films.  I was a big fan of The First Avenger, but I admit it had its shortcomings when it came to its conceptualization (that weird juxtaposition of 1940s period piece with less-than-convincing sci-fi elements) and uneven pacing.  None of that is evident here.  Love the political intrigue, the gritty action beats, and the fact that they followed through with just about every story thread that was introduced in the first film.  The plot resolutions, too, should bring some fascinating progression to the MCU movies going forward.

I suppose if there's any flaw I could level against it (which really isn't a flaw at all), it's that I saw The Raid 2: Berandel a week before this hit.  Compared to the gloriously visceral masterpieces that are The Raid flicks, the action in Cap 2 seems almost tame by comparison. (Though to be fair, most action films pale when compared to The Raid.)  I won't let that take away from The Winter Soldier, though; on its own merits, it's one hell of a dynamo.  The hand to hand fights, in particular, are incredible highlights.

My favorite film in the MCU thus far, then?  Not quite.  That honor still firmly belongs to Iron Man 3.

"On your left!"

I found the action scenes on the whole pretty exciting.  A couple had me almost literally on the edge of my seat and all of them were well shot.  I haven't seen either of the Raid films for comparison though; judging by the trailer the action certainly does look vicious.

Holy cow... that is THE EXACT reason why I was at odds with the ending. If it wasn't for that fight I wouldn't have believed I was watching a comic book movie.

Well then I guess we're on to something.

I enjoyed it, mostly because I've been watching Agents of Shield and the plot of this movie was closely tied into the show's. As for the movie itself, the plot is ridiculous nonsense, but it was action packed, exciting, and fun. I especially liked how they added more humor to offset Cap's dry do-gooder personality which can get tiresome. One of the better Marvel movies, for sure.

Watchable but extremely predictable, imho Spider-Man 2 is far better..