So a bartender is opening up at like 4PM, so the whole place is dead, and a guy walks in. He’s got a suit that could feed a family of four for a decade, and it’s on a body that would put Michael Phelps to shame, and he’s also got a red balloon for a head.

I think the idea of “Badass Luke” is a consequence of the Legends EU. Where a lot of the pacifist elements of Luke are slowly weeded out to the point where it’s all lightsabers and badass force powers.

Whatever else the movie did wrong, the idea of ‘TLJ ruining Luke’ from ‘hardcore’ fans is the most hilarious misunderstanding of Star Wars characters, lore and philosophy they could muster.

Another vote for The Winter Soldier as the best MCU film.

Ha, yeah there’s definitely a “big superhero action finale,” but I think we’re more forgiving of this one because the directors stage it as eye candy while they focus on the Cap/Bucky conflict. No one was really worried about the guidance chips (or whatever,) we just knew that the rest of the characters needed…

It is so good at the spy-thriller stuff that it makes me forget that it ends with the three giant floating aircraft carriers.

Yeah, what I really appreciate about the Russo films is that they paint Nat as a fully fleshed out person compared to the Whedon Avenger films where she exists surface-deep to be ogled and “The Action Chick” and nothing more. Nat and Steve’s friendship and ease around each other in Winter Soldier (that car scene!),…

Man, I love that knife flip in that street fight EVERY TIME.

I think my only complaint about the fight scenes, and it can be chalked up to the Russos first real go in a movie of this scale (see also: Christopher Nolan/Batman Begins), is that its editing is so insistent with rapid cutting that I wish it would just stay on a shot during a fight and breathe a little more,…

Winter Soldier is my favorite MCU - beginning to end. (Or, you know, “on your left” to “on your left”.) There’s not a wasted moment, the fight scenes are superb, and the dynamics between Cap and Sam, and between Cap and Natasha, are superbly done. Very natural and true to their characters.

Hell, it made “Iron Man 2" a slightly better movie when it revealed that Sen. Stern was Hydra.  That made his motivations to get the Iron Man armor all the more sinister since he was really trying to get it for Hydra.

This is the 3rd time he’s had to write about Winter Soldier in the runner-up spot (“John Wick” got the nod in the 2014 A History Of Violence article, and “Guardians Of The Galaxy” was written up for the 2014 Age Of Heroes article).  And, that’s a damn shame.

One thing I wonder is what it would have been like to have seen this movie not knowing who the Winter Soldier actually was from the comics.  I wonder if the reveal lands as hard as it does for Cap, or if most people were like “oh yeah, I figured that was him.”

Yep - it’s probably Chris Evan’s best performance as Cap and Scarlett Johansson’s best performance as Black Widow, and it is HANDS DOWN the best pure action movie in the MCU. I was really hoping Falcon and the Winter Soldier would ape more of The Winter Soldier, but it really only managed to hits those heights at a…

It always irritated me that the MCU took so much from the Ed Brubaker run, but reduced its female lead to what was effectively a cameo part.

The only thing bad about Winter Soldier was that kneecapped Agents of Shield for almost the complete first season (remember when Marvel was still actively incorporating AOS into main MCU continuity?). AOS was a pretty ho-hum show because they had to keep “Ward is Hydra”  reveal in the can until this movie came out.

Winter Soldier is the absolute crown jewel of the MCU. Breihan's right in that its reputation as a spy thriller is a little overblown. It's very much an action flick with some spy elements, but WHAT an action flick it is! 

To be fair, I’ve been waiting for Frankie to die from the first episode of the first season.

The second he made that tape of him introducing himself with his happy family in the season opener was the big “Uh-oh” moment for me.

Great episode, but man the foreshadowing.  I kept waiting for Frankie to announce he was retiring to sail around the world in his yacht, the Live 4 Ever.