Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW – IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FILM, GO SEE THE MOVIE AND THEN READ THIS REVIEW.

Synopsis: Captain America (Chris Evans) faces his most dangerous foe yet, the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) that has so big of ramifications, it affects everyone and everything – especially S.H.I.E.L.D.

Review: After the events of New York, Steve Rogers (Evans) is starting to question everything about S.H.I.E.L.D. and its secrecy. While being sent to free S.H.I.E.L.D. hostages on a pirated ship in Algeria, he notices Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) downloading data from the ship’s computers. He starts to question her and questions Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as well.

Nick Fury also has some doubts about the new Project Insight as well, and looks to Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) for help. However, before he can get too far, he is ambushed and brutally wounded during a high speed chase.

Fury is hiding in Steve’s apartment when he tells him that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been corrupted and to trust no one before he is shot through a window. Steve also finds out during this that his neighbor, Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent assigned to guard him.

Steve is then called a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D. and is on the run, with the help of Natasha and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), who are out to find the Winter Solider who is behind the killing of Nick Fury.

While Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3 were fun films, neither really had a huge impact in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain America: The Winter Soldier not only ties the past and the present together, it leaves huge repercussions for everything else from here on out. Not only will things be vastly different for The Avengers: Age of Ultron, but we already saw the damage on this current week’s episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops and how it will change Tony Stark’s opinions on things as well.

There are very few things that Captain America: The Winter Soldier did wrong. And the only real thing that could be complained about is the lack of depth some of the newer characters got. We really got no information on Sharon Carter through the film, although we got a nice visit from Peggy Carter (relation?) (Hayley Atwell) who apparently is still alive. We got a bit more out of Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), but we still don’t know much other than he was a soldier who came back from war with PTSD. Even then, we don’t know much about him.

The fight scenes and special effects were top notch in The Winter Soldier and kept a nice balance between mystery and action. There were definitely some surprises in the film, and the mid-credits and post-credits scenes definitely arouse excitement for the upcoming films.

While we are in Phase II of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is hands down the best of the three that have been released since The Avengers.

Final Grade: 9.25/10