If you don't want to read it all:
Score: 7/10
Verdict: Just as good as the first one. Very entertaining... and it has Scarlett Johansson in leather. Again :)
Honestly, I disliked the first Thor movie and was quite disappointed with Iron Man 2, so when Captain America: The First Avenger came out, my expectations were as low as the sea level. We might even be talking about submarine depth here. That may be the reason why I actually enjoyed the movie about the very first avenger and his fight against the evil Hydra and Red Skull. That or the fact that I just love stories that happen during World War II. This would be a good time to say that I loved The Avengers... the scene with Loki and Hulk is absolutely legendary and I re-watch it monthly. "Puny god" hahahahahahaha... seriously, that scene is one of the best in the history of movie making!
Back to the more serious matters. Right. The sequel is, in short, on par with the first film. I liked almost all of it... with the exception of Winter Soldier himself. It seems like they included him just so they could show us once again how Captain America (Steve Rogers) is such a good and emotional guy. That's why they chose him, why remind us over and over again? The story is strong enough even without a character with such a pathetic intent.
Okay so I don't like the character of Winter Soldier, but the rest is just fine. As you can see from the cover image, Rogers is accompanied by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie), while Director Fury finally has more than 2 minutes of appearance. Their enemy... I will keep it "secret" just in case you haven't heard the latest news in Marvel universe. Also, it collides with the story of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and forces a new course for the TV show. Check out my review and see how it changed Agents for the best!
So yes, it is good. I really don't want to tell you anything about the story itself because I don't want to spoil any of it. This is one of the best, if not the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far. Still, the best scene is still this one:
Since this is my view of a several season final episodes expect a lot of spoilers. You've been warned!
Quite a lot of shows are coming to an end for this season, and here are my thoughts of those I've mentioned on this blog before. The first one is The Following finale which was aired two weeks ago. And it was bad, just as the rest of that show that managed to trick me once again into watching it. Too many turnovers, captures, escapes... and the lack of true thrill. At least for me. I may have not been objective enough because The Following made me angry too many times before, but I think the ending was quite predictable and shallow. At least Emma is finally dead, even though that happened even before the final episode of Season 2. Too bad Claire is still around...
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continued with a series of great episodes and concluded a successful season with the death of the master villain. To be honest, the episode was a bit underwhelming to me, I probably expected more. I may have expected someone important to die and when that did not happen... But it was far from bad and it set up a good foundation for the next season. I guess the producers weren't sure if they would be greenlighted for season 2 so they rounded up the story with no loose ends at all. Fortunately, Agents will be back for at least one more season and I am looking forward to it. I hope we will finally learn about Skye's past. Oh, and we finally got to see Director Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) again, for the first time since the grand opening episode of the show. And he was awesome, as always!
And finally - Arrow. My favorite weak spot among the TV shows. Oliver and his companions were on the verge of defeat, but if anyone could turn it around it's Arrow! I loved how they gathered just about EVERYONE who ever appeared in this show wearing a mask or had a special skill, and they made them fight Slade's army of superstrong junkies. It was good seeing Nyssa Al Ghul and her Assassins, Deadshot and the other captives, even Malcolm Merlyn, the Dark Archer himself. The finale was a great spectacle and even though it wasn't as good as the last season's destruction of The Glades - it was still great and very satisfying. The overlapping of the past and present conflict between Oliver and Slade was well done and enjoyable to watch.
I am looking forward to CW's new version of The Flash and I hope it will cross with Arrow a lot in the future. It was really cool how they showed us the "creation" of Flash during Arrow's mid-season. I bet Sheldon was super excited watching that!
That's it for now! Enjoy the shows.
This show is a perfect example of a super big-hype, high expectations product gone wrong. Back when it was first announced, we were spammed with dozens of Marvel's superhero movies (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk... concluded with The Avengers) and even though most of them were also super big-hype and all that blah-blah, we still hoped for the best. It was set in a timeline right after the events in The Avengers, it listed Director Fury, Agent Hill and Agent Coulson (??? Didn't he die by Loki in the movie?) and promised a lot due to its setup. But it ended up being a big, big failure.
Or is it?
Now scratch all that and throw it away! Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is actually a very weird show - it really was something we expected a lot from, but it started so slow and bad that I am sure a lot of people gave up on it. If you are one of those who gave it another chance, and I am glad I did - you are up for a treat! I'd mark episode 14 as the turning point - when I saw Lorelei appearing (yay, an Asgardian!) in the show I was hoping they would finally make it fun to watch and follow. They did and I am very glad I believed in it all this time.
I won't write about the story nor the characters much, I don't want to spoil it in case you haven't seen it yet. If you are unfamiliar with the world of Marvel, here's a few lines: it's set on "normal Earth" (so no fantasy cities such as Gotham etc), but is a home to a few superheroes and a super top secret agency called S.H.I.E.L.D (it stands for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division but that is unimportant to be honest). The agents mentioned in the title are brought together into a team by Agent Coulson and are given random assignments all over the globe, protecting us puny humans from all kinds of evil, including the superbad aliens and their artifacts. There are NO superheroes in the team whatsoever, everyone is a regular human with S.H.I.E.L.D. academy in its past and a lot of skills under the belt. These are the true good guys, comic-book type, the kind we all love. The episodes follow up on each other so you cannot skip any and just go back in (it's not CSI).
There's just one more episode left in this season, so it's a total of 22 for season one. I am not sure if season two is confirmed or not (I didn't do my homework, sorry) but I sure hope it is. Well, it will depend on season finale. I don't know what to expect from it, this show has turned around once already. Fortunately, that turn was for the good and lets hope it stays that way.
