Movie review: ‘Captain America' sequel tops the original

As science fiction sequels go, this one's up there with "Terminator 2" and "Aliens" - a good first film, and a much stronger follow-up. But the title's all wrong. The original film, from 2011, was called "Captain America: The First Avenger." Self explanatory; that's who he is - Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), the scientifically enhanced WWII hero who was frozen in an accident, then awakened all these years later, who is confused about our modern times, but is better than ever as a running-jumping-fighting superhero, now waging war against terrorists instead of Nazis.

The new film, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," isn't about Rogers fighting in snowy Afghanistan or taking a skiing vacation. The name after the colon refers to his newest enemy, the fierce, masked, long-haired bad guy called the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), someone who was in the first film going by, let's just say, another name.

But it takes a while to meet him. Before that, we're privy to all sorts of problems going on at S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret organization that does secret projects involving secret superheroes. There's a pirate attack on one of their mid-ocean freighters (time to send in Captain America, Black Widow and a crew of practically silent, very deadly agents to clean things up), and then, back home, S.H.I.E.L.D. itself is "compromised" over the launch of a (to me, slightly muddled) new program called Project Insight, which involves satellites and big heli-carriers with huge, specialized guns that's all supposed to help stop terrorism.

The good Captain and his boss, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), become enmeshed in this, right along with another government honcho, Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford, playing against type), and all sorts of things start going wrong for the people we're supposed to be rooting for, eventually building to Bondian proportions of villainy.

Because this is based on a Marvel comic, there's also the obligatory measure of angst in our hero, though it's less than the usual dose. Evans is fitting comfortably into the extremely physical role, having also played it in "The Avengers," as a guy who can't quite figure out what he's so uncomfortable about, beyond the fact that he's a 95-year-old man in a 30-something's super body. It's kind of cool that the script has him missing elevator music but digging the Internet. My usual problem with Scarlett Johansson, returning as Black Widow, remains in place: I think she's only a middling actress. This time out, she's just too smooth and slick and hip as the very athletic gun-toting agent. But part of that problem also goes to the weak dialogue that was written for her.

The film features some terrific action, beginning with fist- and gunfights all over that freighter, and later going to a grander scale in a sequence that starts with a car chase attack on Nick Fury by some heavily armed fake cops and ending with the first appearance of the Winter Soldier (you can't miss him; he's got a shiny metal arm). Throughout the film there's no holding back on spectacular stunts, fight choreography, firepower and explosions.

But there are many other sides to it, including references to the earlier film's evil organization (Hydra) and characters (Zola), an exhibit about Captain American and His Howling Commandos at the Smithsonian (where you'll see Marvel main man Stan Lee as a security guard about 90 minutes in), an abundance of folks with secrets (most of them eventually revealed to each other and to viewers), the theory that public displays of affection make people uncomfortable and a shout-out to Marvin Gaye's soundtrack for the movie "Trouble Man."

The film finishes its main story but has an unabashedly open ending for the next installment. Marvel/Captain America geeks should definitely stick around for the credits, as things start up again a minute or two into them, then do so again at the very end. Since I'm not one of those geeks, I'm not sure what was going on, but they were fun to watch.

Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo With Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Sebastian Stan Rated PG-13