zwolanerd

I don’t do this much, but I can’t talk about this one without talking big plot points, and there’s going to be a little Agents of SHIELD talk, too.  You have until after the picture and then there’s spoilers.

Okay, so, let me just open with this: daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang! This movie is really, really good. Good action, great story, everything. I’m sure if I tried really hard, I could come up with something to nitpick, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. Let’s get into specific things I loved.

First, Marvel is killing it with these “standalone movies that play into the larger picture” things. It’s kind of mind-blowing, really. Sure, sometimes it’s just a little thing that doesn’t mean much (like Tony Stark talking to Bruce Banner after the Iron Man 3 credits – fun, but meaningless), but I love the overall Marvel Universe they’ve created. However, that was also the source of some anger for me. Two thoughts kept occurring to me during this movie:

1. “Man, Black Widow needs her own movie!” – They can pretty much take any character, no matter how minor, and slap them in a movie and make me care about them. How much did I know about Black Widow before Iron Man 2?  For that matter, how much did I know about Iron Man before his movies? In both cases, not much. Now, though, they’ve earned my trust so much that I’m all excited about Guardians of the Galaxy, and one of those dudes is a miniature Ent, for crying out loud.  Keep ’em coming, Marvel. I’d even watch a Dr. Strange movie in this universe at this point.
2. “ARGH! I am SO mad at Marvel for giving away Spider-Man, the X-men, and the Fantastic Four!!” – Yes, I enjoy those franchises in their own rights, but not ever getting a Wolverine/Spider-Man “buddy” movie is a travesty. Like, the more I though about it, the madder it made me!  And then I had to be all, “dude, settle down.” It was weird, but, man, can you imagine??

We knew going into this movie who the Winter Soldier was, and we knew Robert Redford played a bad guy, but neither of those things diminished my enjoyment of the movie even a little. I had no idea Hydra was going to not only be still around but also be completely wrapped up in SHIELD like that. That was awesome, and tearing it all down is going to have huge effects throughout the Marvel Movie Universe. We gotta have our Nick Fury somehow!

Then, of course, it made me think of last week’s episode of Agents of SHIELD, and how everyone was saying “you gotta watch Cap 2 before next week’s episode,” so obviously that’s gotta affect that show, too. Clearly Sitwell and Hand were Hydra, but how many others? I’m guessing there’s no way May is (or we riot!), but Bill Paxton’s character?  Who knows! I’ve been enjoying the show all along, but I am champing at the bit for Tuesday’s episode.

I had to look up who the characters after the credits were. After I did I was like “oh, right” because I knew they were going to be around for Avengers 2. They didn’t affect me much other than that, though, because I don’t know much about either of them. I mean, I know Scarlet Witch had that whole “House of M” thing, but they aren’t going to do that in the movies, so I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Anyway, I loved it.

Tags: Agents of SHIELD, Marvel Movies

Written by: Mark