Disney and Marvel put CAPTAIN AMERICA 4 into development

Marvel and Disney have put a fourth Captain America film into development. Unlike previous instalments of the series, which saw Chris Evans starring as Steve Rogers in the title role, the new film will focus on Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson taking up the mantle.

Note: Spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier follow.

Malcolm Spellman, who executive produced and showran The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as well as writing the critically-acclaimed fifth episode, is developing the new script with Dalan Musson, a fellow writer on the show.

The TV series saw Sam, who'd been offered the shield and the name by an aged and retired Rogers at the end of Avengers: Endgame (2019), struggling with the idea of taking on the mantle. He initially turns down the role, leading to the US government instead naming another soldier, John Walker, to the position. Walker turns out not to have the "right stuff" to be Captain America, leading Sam to finally accept the position at the end of the series.

To what degree the film will follow up on the TV series is unclear, but the TV series does put a lot of other balls in play, including having Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) back behind bars; Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) pardoned and returned to working for the US government, but having a shadowy agenda of her own; and Walker - having been injected with a milder form of Steve's super-serum - being recruited as a secret agent by the redoubtable Valentine Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Sam has also formed a strong working partnership with Bucky Barnes, the reformed Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).

This marks the first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that the title of one major superhero has passed to another. Marvel will no doubt be assessing the success of such a move to determine how long they can keep the MCU going in the current continuity before they feel they have to reboot.

With development of the film only just starting, it's likely we won't see the film until 2023 at the earliest. and maybe more likely 2024. Between now and then Marvel plans to release Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther II, Captain Marvel 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Fantastic Four and Blade.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Captain America - Civil War

In the aftermath of the fall of SHIELD and the battle against Ultron, which destroyed a large chunk of the nation of Sokovia, trust in superheroes is at an all-time low. The final straw is a battle against Hydra agents in Lagos, in which Scarlet Witch accidentally destroys an office building (whilst trying to prevent a much larger bloodbath). The United Nations sign the Sokovia Accords, placing superheroes under severe restrictions in how they can be deployed and when. Iron Man and Captain America find themselves on different sides of the resulting argument. When Steve Rogers' old comrade (and former brainwashed Hydra agent) Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, is implicated in a fresh atrocity, the Avengers find themselves split and at war among themselves.

Civil War is marketed as a Captain America movie, following on from The First Avenger and The Winter Soldier, but in reality it's more like The Avengers 2.5, picking up on important plot threads from Age of Ultron and setting the scene for Infinity War. As such it's one of the more continuity-heavy movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and one of the (surprising) few where an intimate knowledge of the previous movies in the MCU is a definite asset.

Civil War is very much two movies. On the one hand, it's an all-action, effects-heavy extravaganza with lots of explosions, fights and chases. On the other, it's a surprisingly effective study of the law versus free will, of security versus liberty and of responsibility and consequence. That the same team made The Winter Soldier, possibly the best MCU movie for likewise tackling slightly more serious material than some of the other films, is unsurprising and it's good to see a lot of plot points from that movie picked up and advanced. In particular, the Winter Soldier storyline is arguably more central to Civil War than it was to The Winter Soldier itself.

It was around this point in time that the MCU transformed itself into a well-oiled, purring machine, pumping out reliably entertaining blockbusters three times a year. The Russo Brothers walk a tightrope with this movie, combining crowd-pleasing superhero antics with the opportunity to study the ideas of liberty and responsibility. The problem is that they can't quite explore this theme in as much depth as they want, due to the movie having a lot of other business it needs to get done. This includes introducing both Spider-Man and Black Panther ahead of their respective first solo movies, bringing Ant-Man into the fold of the other characters and resolving the long-standing mystery of the fate of Tony Stark's parents.

Still, if the film can't fully engage with the theme, it at least pays it more than bare lip service, with the disagreement between the two sides being so fundamental that it can't be overcome with a nice chat. In one of the MCU's finest twists, Tony and Steve do eventually come to an understanding, only for a fresh revelation to drop a hand grenade on the situation. In this sense the film doesn't pull its punches, which would have been an easy cop out.

The actors are all on fine form, with Tom Holland particularly impressing as the latest incarnation of Peter Parker, and we even get a good antagonist! Daniel Bruhl is a phenomenally talented actor, and it helps that his character is perhaps less of a standard villain than a catalyst for the already-existing tensions in the Avengers to explode.

Captain America: Civil War (****) is a little bit too overstuffed to be the finest movie in the MCU, but it is up there as one of the stronger entries in the franchise. It's an effective ensemble piece with a twisting, unpredictable storyline, some great set pieces and a surprisingly downbeat ending.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Captain America - The Winter Soldier

Two years have passed since the Battle for New York and the Avengers have scattered back to their own lives. The exception is Captain Steve Rogers, who remains working for the intelligence and security agency SHIELD. Rogers is uneasy with the murky world of espionage and counter-terrorism, preferring the old days of fighting Nazis and HYDRA agents. When a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier tries to kill Fury and SHIELD itself looks like having been compromised, Captain America is forced to go on the run and unearth secrets stretching all the way back to WWII.

The Winter Soldier is the ninth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the second to focus on the character of Captain America. It's also the first since The Avengers to focus on SHIELD, Nick Fury and the bigger plot of what's going on in the world now that the existence of aliens, superheroes and other threats is widely known.

It also takes a different tack to previous MCU films. A formula of sorts has appeared with these films, with a lot of set-up (usually accompanied by humourous dialogue) culminating in a big CGI slug-fest, usually with a couple of fan-pleasing cameos and movie cross-references. The Winter Soldier doesn't have much truck with this formula, instead creating an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia throughout the opening of the film as Rogers realises he doesn't know who he can trust. Even the motivations of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) appear suspect. Much has been made of the film's nods to 1970s thrillers and its preference for real stunts over CGI, and these do add a lot of weight to the film. It's interesting that one of the most impressive action sequences involves a car chase featuring Nick Fury which relies on real effects and stunt-driving with only marginal use of CGI.

The film builds up an atmosphere of murky paranoia and, impressively, shows that whilst Captain America is uncomfortable in this world he is still capable of handling it. A sequence where he, without dialogue, gradually becomes aware of undercover enemies gathering around him is particularly well-handled and gives rise to one of the film's best action beats. The characterisation for Rogers is nicely-handled by the writers and played with charisma by Chris Evans, improving on his straightforward performances in the first Captain America and The Avengers. Scarlett Johansson and, in his biggest role in the MCU movies to date, Samuel L. Jackson also impress. There's also a strong turn from Robert Redford as one of the men in charge of SHIELD's existence. As a veteran of 1970s thrillers, Redford adds gravitas to proceedings.

The story is fairly engrossing, benefiting from being (relatively) based around themes of espionage, technology and surveillance. The "big threat" in the film is fairly straightforward, even mundane, and perfectly understandable (no glowing mystic cubes from beyond time here). There are a few plot twists and surprises that are either predictable or implausible, but for the most part the film stays relatively grounded. There's also a nice line in the bad guys not underestimating Captain America, bringing almost ludicrous amounts of firepower to every attempt to kill him and not believing for a second that he's dead until they see his body. The bad guys are - relatively - fairly smart and more sinister a threat because of that.

The film falters a little bit in several areas. First of all, the "Winter Soldier" storyline is, despite the name of the film, more of a subplot and more of a setup for follow-up movies (such as Civil War and Infinity War) than a strongly-defined storyline in this film itself. Several times it feels incongruous in terms of the narrative. There's also the fact that the movie's final act involves a massive aerial battle involving helicarriers, fighter jets, guys in winged suits (an ordinary soldier puts one on and turns into a superhero almost instantly) and huge explosions, where the CGI overload missing from the rest of the movie comes back with a vengeance. The directors hold it together reasonably well, but it does feel like, after a more twisting and interesting narrative, the ending is much more "standard Marvel" than it could have been.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (****½) is the least Marvel-like of the MCU films and is all the better for it, touching on real-life themes and trying to stay more grounded in (or at least in vague touch with) reality. It's also (arguably, still) the best of the Marvel films to date, and even played a key role in helping the Marvel TV show Agents of SHIELD develop into something more interesting in the last few episodes of its first season. In retrospect, this films marks a major turning point in the MCU as the Russo Brothers turned out to be the collaborators Kevin Feige needed to make his "Infinity Saga" really work, and lifted the quality of the entire series up a notch.

Note: The original version of this review was posted in 2014.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: The Avengers

A powerful device called the Tesseract has been studied by the American intelligence organisation SHIELD for the past few decades, who believe it can be used to unlock the secret of creating infinitely renewable energy sources. Loki, a powerful entity from the world of Asgard, steals the cube and plans to use it to open a dimensional portal to allow an alien race to invade the planet. SHIELD calls in its top agents (including Clint "Hawkeye" Barton and Natasha '"Black Widow" Romanoff) and most powerful allies to answer the threat. Leading the fight are the recently-revived Steve Rogers (Captain America), the billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Iron Man) and the mild-mannered Bruce Banner (the Hulk). The Asgardians, aware of the extent of Loki's threat, also dispatch Thor to aid in his containment. The result is mayhem as the two sides clash in the streets of New York City, with the fate of the Earth (and potentially many other worlds) at stake.

The Avengers was the culmination of Marvel's first five-year cinematic masterplan. Scenes establishing SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative were seeded into its earlier movies - The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor, as well as the two Iron Man movies - in preparation for this film, where all the different superheroes get together to fight a massive threat. Aware it would take one heck of a director to keep all the actors, egos and storylines from spiralling out of control, Marvel called in Joss Whedon. Whedon may not have been the most bankable choice - his previous movie, Serenity, barely broke even and he had several failed TV projects in succession by that point - but he was by far the most logical one. With critically-acclaimed runs on several Marvel comics and dialogue work on the original X-Men movie under his belt, not to mention form with handling large, disparate casts from his TV projects Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon proved a good choice.

With only two hours to play with and a dozen notable characters to do justice to, Whedon gets to the point straight away. The action-packed opening few minutes establish the premise (Tom Hiddleston returning as Loki and making even more of an impact than in Thor, though he does get a little lost in the mix later on) and we immediately get to the "getting the team together" sequence. Mark Ruffalo has the hardest task here, as he has to step into the well-worn shoes of the Hulk (replacing Edward Norton who in turn had replaced Eric Bana) and sell a difficult character to the audience. He immediately succeeds, bringing a combination of cynicism, brilliance and humanity to the role of Banner, which is the stand-out performance of the film. The rest of the team is assembled pretty quickly, apart from Thor who is unreachable (thanks to the events of his own film). Needless to say, he gets over that complication fairly quickly (and possibly way too easily) to join in with the mayhem. Unfortunately, he seems to have lost a little of the fun and wit that he displayed in his own movie, but given his personal stake in the action (Loki being his brother, well, adopted) that's unsurprising. Whedon employs his ability to get lots of different characters into a room and spark off one another to the full, with Robert Downey Jnr's Tony Stark running off with many of the best lines. Chris Evans's Captain America is a little passive in the early stages, but his clear-headedness and ability to take command of the situation eventually wins through and earns him the respect of the rest of the team.

More impressive is that Whedon doesn't neglect the large battery of secondary characters. In particular, he promotes Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye to equal billing as the "big four", giving them plenty to do. Johansson walks off with the best scene in the movie (a great confrontation between her and Loki which twists and turns through various tones and different head-games) and is much better-served than many of the female roles in the other Marvel movies (Gwyneth Paltrow has sod all to do, but does get some good lines in her brief appearance as Pepper). Samuel L. Jackson gets more to do as Nick Fury rather than just handing out mission briefings, whilst Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson also gets an amusing subplot where he turns out to be a Captain America fanboy.

However, what makes The Avengers really work is that it's a comic book movie which remembers that it's a comic book movie, featuring guys in ridiculous costumers unleashing ludicrous amounts of violence against CGI monsters, and having fun with that idea. There are genuine comic book moments of awesome throughout the picture, most notably the revelation of the SHIELD Helicarrier. It may be ridiculously impractical as a mode of transport (as rapidly proven in the film) but it's an impressive design. Most of the action sequences are excellent, and Whedon does his best to keep the CGI under control and investing us in the characters and their actions. This falters during the concluding action sequence in New York City, which occasionally teeters on the edge of a Michael Bay-shaped abyss of confusing explosions, but Whedon just about manages to stop it slipping into total anarchy. The characters get moments to show off their heroism and Whedon's typical humour grounds things nicely (a moment between Thor and Loki during the final battle getting the movie's biggest laugh).

The biggest casualty of the film is that the bad guys suffer a little. Their motives for invading Earth are never really explained and it's unclear how exactly Loki was able to win them over (though the post-credits sequence does give a clue). Using the Cosmic Cube/Tesseract as the movie's maguffin is a good idea (since it's been well-established in several previous pictures) although we still don't get any explanation of its origin or purpose...yet.

On almost every other level, Whedon pulled it off. The film has massive action set pieces but also moments of humour, characterisation and humanity. It does a good job handling the major heroes but it doesn't neglect the side-players. The effects are impressive but don't overwhelm the picture (though coming close on occasion). Most notably, he managed to combine these crazy characters and their different realities and tones into one story successfully.

The Avengers (****½) is, simply put, a ridiculously entertaining and fun movie.

Note: the original version of this review was posted in 2012.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Captain America

Norway, 1942. A Nazi special weapons division commanded by Johann Schmidt secures an ancient artifact of unknown origin but incredible power, which they hope to use to power a new, more advanced war machine. At the same time, in New York City, Steve Rogers is rejected from joining the US Army due to a significant number of health issues. Frustrated, he tries to falsify documents in order to enlist. Impressed by his tenacity, Dr. Abraham Erskine instead recruits him for a top-secret programme, designed to create the ultimate soldier using technology. Rogers becomes Captain America, just as Schmidt (adopting the alias, 'the Red Skull') breaks away from his Nazi masters to undertake his own mission of destruction and world domination.

Captain America: The First Avenger was yet another foundational piece in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of tying together different characters into a single coherent universe. This plan - which also incorporated Thor, The Incredible Hulk and the two Iron Man movies before culminating in The Avengers - has of course become more epic over time, with more than twenty moves now forming part of the MCU canon.

With Captain America, Marvel resist the urge to bring the character immediately into the present, instead giving him a full origin story set in WWII. This sets the film apart from its contemporaries and allows Rogers' patriotism to be established in full at a time of good vs. evil before bringing him into the murkier present.

The film is anchored on Chris Evans's performance as Rogers/Captain America (Evans previously played the Human Torch in the two Fantastic Four movies), which is decent. A problem with the Captain America character is that unabashed American patriotism isn't a concept that travels well abroad. However, taking a nod from the comics where the same issue has come up a few times over the years, Evans plays the character as a good man who wants to do his part and isn't a blind follower of American policy. Later in the film the character becomes based in London and leads an international team of agents in taking the fight to the Red Skull, mixing things up in a more interesting manner. A combination of Evans's performance and impressive CGI also totally sells the illusion of the puny, short and unhealthy Rogers in the opening sequences of the film before his transformation into the buff Captain America.

Other performances are good, with director Joe Johnston opting for safe and reliable actors in many of the roles: Tommy Lee Jones plays a brash US general who gets the best lines in the movie (as may be expected), with Stanley Tucci bringing eccentricity and humanity to the role of Erskine. Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull and Toby Jones as his sidekick Dr. Zola also form a solid double-act (though Weaving occasionally slips into "auto-pilot evil", this being a role he could do in is sleep). Hayley Atwell provides solid support as British agent Peggy Carter. The potential for saying something interesting as a British female agent working alongside square-jawed American soldiers in wartime is squandered, however, with Carter characterised as a 'plucky British gal' and not developed much further beyond punching out a solider who makes a sexist comment before she falls for the hero. The ever-reliable Neal McDonough also appears as one of Rogers's international team of agents, though aside from a truly outrageous moustache he is not very distinguishable from the very similar roles he's played before on Band of Brothers and Minority Report.

The film adopts a cool retrofuturistic (or "Americanapunk") tone at times, with Johnston clearly tapping the same well as his entertaining early-career picture, The Rocketeer. There's a playful sense of humour at times, and Captain America deserves some plaudits for being the first contemporary superhero movie to transform into a musical for ten minutes halfway through (rationalised in the storyline). However, its musings on patriotism, warfare and heroism rarely rise above the predictable. The plot is pretty straightforward, although well-paced with some good action sequences. The links to the rest of the Marvel cinematic universe are downplayed to a few appearances by Tony Stark's father and the now-traditional appearance of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the movie's closing moments (interestingly, in the actual finale of the movie rather than a post-credits sequence). This allows the movie to stand alone as an independent piece of entertainment.

The film's biggest problem is a total lack of surprise or tension. It's a solidly-made piece of entertainment which relies on its period setting as its sole distinguishing feature from its contemporaries, which to be fair does give it some of its own flair. The actors and director all do good work and it certainly passes the time enjoyably enough, but it lacks enough originality to make it a classic.

Captain America: The First Avenger (***½) is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2012.

The Avengers: Infinity War

The Titan Thanos has begun his plan to unite the Infinity Stones and wipe out half of the life the universe. His plan involves seizing the Stones from remote planets, the Collector of Knowhere and from Xandar, and the several Stones that have come to rest on Earth. In deep space the Guardians of the Galaxy join forces with Thor to defeat Thanos, whilst on Earth the fractured Avengers have to overcome their differences and unite again to fight his armies.

It's entirely possible that no movie in history has had a build-up like Infinity War. Almost every one of the eighteen preceding movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been laying pipe and groundwork for this film, from introducing the Infinity Stones one-by-one to brief appearances by Thanos to the introduction of both the extravagant space opera and mystical sides of the universe through Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange. Marvel and Disney have shown tremendous restraint and forbearance in not pulling the triggers on those stories too early and making sure they have their ducks lined up in just the right row before finally committing.

Infinity War is an insanely massive movie. Starting as it means to go on - with a massacre which leaves several established characters dead and one MIA (which weirdly goes unmentioned for the whole movie) - the film barely lets up. Characters big and small going right back to the start of the MCU ten years ago (including some you thought you'd never see again) show up, some with large roles to play, some for an extended cameo. Despite the weight of the massive cast, directors Anthony and Joe Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely somehow create a very coherent film with four distinct acts and the kind of tension filled, multi-pronged final battle on two separate fronts that we haven't seen since Return of the Jedi.

It also helps that although the movie is filled to the brim with heroes and big personalities, the film keeps its focus firmly on a central quintet. Thanos himself dominates proceedings, Josh Brolin (somehow) investing this big purple dude with some real pathos in scenes where we learn more about his backstory, his family and his homeworld. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) also has a major role to play, her family issues with both Thanos and Nebula proving a key emotional motivation for the film. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) also has a lot of screentime, clearly having feeling annoyed after the events of Thor: Ragnarok and determined to kick someone's backside. Scenes pairing him and Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon (or "Rabbit" as Thor insists) are excellent, and then get better when they join forces with a giant space dwarf played by Peter Dinklage. Dinklage's screentime is limited but extraordinarily effective (he also gets arguably the best line of the movie, but it's a really tough choice). Rounding off the central focus is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), two extremely different people who prove to be an effective team.

Lots of other characters get their moments in the sun (although Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner seems to be reduced to a harbinger of doom whilst he's dealing with, er, "performance" problems as Hulk), although the role of Captain America (Chris Evans) in the movie is surprisingly small. The directors know how to deliver a great superhero arrival scene just as all hope seems lost and also how to frame an action sequence. There's a lot of explosions, CG people being flung around and strange creatures and it all flows mostly well, with only a couple of moments where CG fatigue threatens to set in. Infinity War is not a movie any sane person can call restrained, but it's a movie that knows when and where to deploy its monstrous resources (adjusted for inflation, Infinity War is the most expensive movie ever made) to maximum effect.

It's also a surprisingly emotional movie. The weakness of films - and the reason we've seen television explode in comparison recently - is that it's very hard to introduce characters, establish motivation, emotionally invest the audience and then deliver a payoff in under two hours. Infinity War is instead able to draw on almost forty hours of previous character development in the MCU, so even when a fairly minor character bites the dust it hurts a little. When more major characters bite it, things get real (and at least some of these characters aren't coming back).

When the movie runs aground is in its ending, which is impossible to talk about without major spoilers. Suffice to say that the Chekhov's Gun maxim is employed by full force in the film and when you walk out of the cinema - especially if you know the significance of the post-credit sequence and what movie will immediately precede Infinity War II next year - you'll probably be able to immediately pen a fairly close outline of what happens. I mean, if they completely wrong-foot us, fair enough, but some of the choices made in the ending are completely nonsensical if you have any knowledge of what's coming and what's not coming down the Marvel production pipe later on.

Another major weakness is that the film undersells its new team of villains, the Black Order (servants of Thanos). Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw and Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight are particularly excellent, but both get limited screen time (especially Carrie Coon, one of the best actresses on TV, who is almost unrecognisable).

Finally, Marvel has gone to some lengths to say that Infinity War is a stand-alone movie and it's as-yet untitled sequel next year (which has already been shot) is a movie in its own right and not just the second half of one bigger story. That's quite frankly untrue, and a lot of the more dramatic and emotional moments from Infinity War will live or die depending on what happens in the sequel.

If you can step out of the meta-knowledge, The Avengers: Infinity War (****) is a very effective action movie with lots of solid action scenes, some real dramatic moments of power and a refreshingly ruthless attitude to its cast of massive stars. It lacks the pacing, focus and character interplay of, say, Guardians of the Galaxy or Black Panther (or even the first Avengers), but's in the upper tier of Marvel Cinematic Universe films and in balancing an unprecedentedly vast cast with solid storytelling, it's almost achieves the impossible.

The film is on general release worldwide from today.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Two years have passed since the Battle for New York and the Avengers have scattered back to their own lives. The exception is Captain Steve Rogers, who remains working for the intelligence and security agency SHIELD. Rogers is uneasy with the murky world of espionage and counter-terrorism, preferring the old days of fighting Nazis and HYDRA agents. When a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier tries to kill Fury and SHIELD itself looks like having been compromised, Captain America is forced to go on the run and unearth secrets stretching all the way back to WWII.

The Winter Soldier is the ninth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the second to focus on the character of Captain America. It's also the first since The Avengers to focus on SHIELD, Fury and the bigger plot of what's going on in the world now that the existence of aliens, superheroes and other threats is widely known.

It also takes a different tack to previous MCU films. A formula of sorts has appeared with these films, with a lot of set-up (usually accompanied by humourous dialogue) culminating in a big CGI slug-fest, usually with a couple of fan-pleasing cameos and movie cross-references. The Winter Soldier doesn't have much truck with this formula, instead creating an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia throughout the opening of the film as Rogers realises he doesn't know who he can trust. Even the motivations of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) appear suspect. Much has been made of the film's nods to 1970s thrillers and its preference for real stunts over CGI, and these do add a lot of weight to the film. It's interesting that one of the most impressive action sequences involves a car chase featuring Nick Fury which relies on real effects and stunt-driving with only marginal use of CGI.

The film builds up an atmosphere of murky paranoia and, impressively, shows that whilst Captain America is uncomfortable in this world he is still capable of handling it. A sequence where he, without dialogue, he gradually becomes aware of undercover enemies gathering around him is particularly well-handled in this respect. The characterisation for Rogers is nicely-handled by the writers and played with charisma by Chris Evans, improving on his straightforward performances in the first Captain America and The Avengers. Scarlett Johansson and, in his biggest role in the MCU movies to date, Samuel L. Jackson also impress. There's also a strong turn from Robert Redford as one of the men in charge of SHIELD's existence.

The story is fairly engrossing, benefiting from being (relatively) based around themes of espionage, technology and surveillance. The 'big threat' in the film is fairly straightforward, even mundane, and perfectly understandable (no glowing mystic cubes from beyond time here). There are a few plot twists and surprises that are either predictable or implausible, but for the most part the film stays relatively grounded. There's also a nice line in the bad guys not underestimating Captain America, bringing almost ludicrous amounts of firepower to every attempt to kill him and not believing for a second that he's dead until they see his body. The bad guys are - relatively - fairly smart and more sinister a threat because of that.

The film falters a little bit in several areas. First of all, the 'Winter Soldier' storyline is, despite the name of the film, more of a subplot and more of a setup for a sequel than a strongly-defined storyline in this film itself. Several times it feels incongruous in terms of the narrative. There's also the fact that the movie's final act involves a massive aerial battle involving helicarriers, fighter jets, guys in winged suits (an ordinary soldier puts one on and turns into a superhero almost instantly) and huge explosions, where the CGI overload missing from the rest of the movie comes back with a vengeance. The directors hold it together reasonably well, but it does feel like, after a more twisting and interesting narrative, the ending is much more straightforward than it could have been.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (****½) is the least Marvel-like of the MCU films to date and is all the better for it, touching on real-life themes and trying to stay more grounded in (or at least in vague touch with) reality. It's also the best of the Marvel films to date, and even plays a key role in helping the Marvel TV show Agents of SHIELD develop into something more interesting in the last few episodes of its first season. The film is on general release now.

The Avengers

A powerful device called the Tesseract has been studied by the American intelligence organisation SHIELD for the past few decades, who believe it can be used to unlock the secret of creating infinitely renewable energy sources. Loki, a powerful entity from the world of Asgard, steals the cube and plans to use it to open a dimensional portal to allow an alien race to invade the planet. SHIELD calls in its top agents (including Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton and Natasha 'Black Widow' Romanoff) and most powerful allies to answer the threat. Leading the fight are the recently-revived Steve Rogers (Captain America), the billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Iron Man) and the mild-mannered Bruce Banner (the Hulk). The Asgardians, aware of the extent of Loki's threat, also dispatch Thor to aid in his containment. The result is mayhem as the two sides clash in the streets of New York City, with the fate of the Earth (and potentially many other worlds) at stake.

The Avengers is the culmination of Marvel's five-year cinematic masterplan. Scenes establishing SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative were seeded into its earlier movies - The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor, as well as the two Iron Man movies - in preparation for this film, where all the different superheroes get together to fight a massive threat. Aware it would take one heck of a director to keep all the actors, egos and storylines from spiralling out of control, Marvel called in Joss Whedon. Whedon may not have been the most bankable choice - his previous movie, Serenity, barely broke even and he's had several failed TV projects in succession - but he was by far the most logical one. With critically-acclaimed runs on several Marvel comics and dialogue work on the original X-Men movie under his belt, not to mention form with handling large, disparate casts, Whedon proved a good choice.

With only two hours to play with and a dozen notable characters to do justice to, Whedon gets to the point straight away. The action-packed opening few minutes establish the premise (Tom Hiddleston returning as Loki and making even more of an impact than in Thor, though he does get a little lost in the mix later on) and we immediately get to the 'getting the team together' sequence. Mark Ruffalo has the hardest task here, as he has to step into the well-worn shoes of the Hulk (replacing Edward Norton who in turn had replaced Eric Bana) and sell a difficult character to the audience. He immediately succeeds, bringing a combination of cynicism, brilliance and humanity to the role of Banner, which is the stand-out performance of the film. The rest of the team is assembled pretty quickly, apart from Thor who is unreachable (thanks to the events of his own film). Needless to say, he gets over that complication fairly quickly (and possibly way too easily) to join in with the mayhem. Unfortunately, he seems to have lost a little of the fun and wit that he displayed in his own movie, but given his personal stake in the action (Loki being his brother) that's unsurprising. Whedon employs his ability to get lots of different characters into a room and spark off one another to the full, with Robert Downey Jnr's Tony Stark running off with many of the best lines. Chris Evans's Captain America is a little passive in the early stages, but his clear-headedness and ability to take command of the situation eventually wins through and earns him the respect of the rest of the team.

More impressive is that Whedon doesn't neglect the large battery of secondary characters. In particular, he promotes Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye to equal billing as the 'big four', giving them plenty to do. Johansson walks off with the best scene in the movie (a great confrontation between her and Loki which twists and turns through various tones and different head-games) and is much better-served than many of the female roles in the other Marvel movies (Gwyneth Paltrow also gets some excellent lines in her brief appearance as Pepper). Samuel L. Jackson gets more to do as Nick Fury rather than just handing out mission briefings, whilst Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson also gets an amusing subplot where he turns out to be a Captain America fanboy.

However, what makes The Avengers really work is that it's a comic book movie which remembers that it's a comic book movie, featuring guys in ridiculous costumers unleashing ludicrous amounts of violence against CGI monsters, and having fun with that idea. There are genuine comic book moments of awesome throughout the picture, most notably the revelation of the SHIELD Helicarrier. It may be ridiculously impractical as a mode of transport (as rapidly proven in the film) but it's an impressive design. Most of the action sequences are impressive, and Whedon does his best to keep the CGI under control and investing us in the characters and their actions. This falters during the concluding action sequence in New York City, which occasionally teeters on the edge of a Michael Bay-shaped abyss of confusing explosions, but Whedon just about manages to stop it slipping into total anarchy. The characters get moments to show off their heroism and Whedon's typical humour grounds things nicely (a moment between Thor and Hulk during the final battle getting the movie's biggest laugh).

The biggest casualty of the film is that the bad guys suffer a little. Their motives for invading Earth are never really explained and it's unclear how exactly Loki was able to win them over (though the post-credits sequence does give a clue). Using the Cosmic Cube/Tesseract as the movie's maguffin is a good idea (since it's been well-established in several previous pictures) although we still don't get any explanation of its origin or purpose.

On almost every other level, Whedon has pulled it off. The film has massive action set pieces but also moments of humour, characterisation and humanity. It does a good job handling the major heroes but it doesn't neglect the side-players. The effects are impressive but don't overwhelm the picture (though coming close on occasion). Most notably, he manages to combine these crazy characters and their different realities and tones into one story successfully.

The Avengers (****½) is a ridiculously entertaining and fun movie. It's in the cinemas right now.