With that in mind, I feel that Captain America: The Winter Soldier somehow managed to be both one of Marvel's best works at constructing a story that fits in the universe it lives in as well as one of the stories that also feels the most restricted by being based in a comic book universe. I'll explain further.
The sequel to the first Captain America movie (the modern one, in 2011, not the older ones that apparently only I remember at all fondly for how ridiculous they are), this one takes place a couple of years after The Avengers, with Captain America settling in his life in modern times doing what he does best: being a soldier. This time, however, instead of fighting Nazis because Nazis are evil, he finds himself wandering further and further into gray areas as he continues his employment with S.H.I.E.L.D. He has no other real purpose in his life, and there are multiple moments in the story where the matter of him having a life outside of being a soldier (dating, catching up on historical events) are brought up. In fact, the only real friends he seems to have are people like him: veterans. Even then, he seems to have a stronger connection with a group of soldiers dealing with PTSD issues than to people he's actively fighting alongside.
Along for the ride is Natasha Romanov (the Black Widow), newcomer Sam Wilson (The Falcon, though I don't think they call him that in the movie), and Nick Fury (Nick Fury). All four wind up involved in a massive political plot taking place in Washington, D.C. with repercussions that could cause what I can only downplay as "massive problems" to the rest of the world.
Something I found quite interesting in the plot was the fact that I know for a fact international audiences aren't always ready to spend money on a story line that involves America being the "best at solving any kind of problem and is better than you in every way." This is especially true in this age of NSA/CIA spying, covert mission ops, Guantanamo Bay, and a lot of our international politics following the turn of the millennium. However, this is almost subverted completely in the telling of this movie, as Captain America's old-fashioned ideals and beliefs not only make him a defender of America, but also a protector of the rest of the world from an America that could, quite easily, wield its power oppressively against other nations.
However, there's a moment in the plot that bothered me. A cameo from a character I truly did not expect or recognize until about ten seconds before his face appeared involved a lengthy monologue speech that seemed to indicate that many of the big political, social, and other incidents that left the world shaken were all manipulations of one massive entity in their attempts to bring their rule over the world. I actually felt it would have been much stronger if they had simply been waiting in the wings, rebuilding their power structure, and just taking advantage of the chaos humanity already brought upon themselves.
I think it would have fit much more into the rest of how Marvel has laid out their cinematic universe, considering how the Thor films regularly reference the youth of humanity compared to Asgardians and how their squabbling now is much like children. There's a moment where another character simply explains to Cap how the world has simply just changed in so many ways since World War II, and the thought that everything that brought our society to where it is now (possibly for better or ill) was all the manipulations of some shadow power in the background just takes away from the impact of the story because it proves Cap was right to feel disconnected from everybody else because he's right, we should all still be where we were in the 1940s. Just, you know, with civil rights and all that still happening. However, it is a comic book universe, and it wouldn't be a comic book universe if there wasn't a huge evil that everything bad could be blamed on.
It might be a spoiler, but I also think that the only way the movie's inclusion of Robert Redford into the film would have been a surprise would be if he hadn't wound up being evil. The problem with a big name in a film like this is that unless we see his name listed on IMDB next to an established heroic character, it's a pretty safe bet that this will be his only appearance and that if that's true, he's probably evil. Considering how political thrillers love their plot twists (and trust me, there are plenty in this movie), not doing anything other than "the only other guy who could be evil is OBVIOUSLY EVIL" feels like a disappointment.
This isn't to say that Redford does a bad job. On the contrary, he's the type of villain I really love to see, because he doesn't see anything he's doing as evil. There's a speech he gives about how much in common he has with the heroes, and how they both have the same enemies, it's just that Redford's side is willing to take a completely different approach to getting things under control. He also completely downplays any sense of being evil even when he's killing people in cold blood, even expressing remorse as he does it.
The supporting cast in the film is truly superb, and I feel the need to point out that among the heroes there are three strong women and two strong black men, but race nor gender even seems to be an issue. The Black Widow is a superhero, not simply eye candy or someone for Cap to place his sexual attentions toward. Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson might be the best breakout character Marvel has so far, managing to be both completely grounded and fully prepared to accept everything that happens once things start to need superheroes. Cobie Smulders grows on me as Maria Hill, which is impressive since I personally cannot stand the Maria Hill in the comics. Nick Fury is Samuel L. Jackson, and attempting to make him seem like anything less than Samuel L. Jackson is a disservice to him as an actor.
Every character gets a real moment to shine and many of them prove that they would be capable of holding a movie by themselves with no real problem.
The action sequences are great (though until there are fight scenes with The Winter Soldier himself, the end result is never really in question since you have people with regular human strength punching a man who can run through door frames without stopping), though they all seem to be edited to do their best to be a mix of the Jason Bourne film school being run over with a lawn mower. It adds to the tension and how frantic things are, but can leave you a little turned around at times. I will say that they seem to be the best of any Marvel movie I've seen so far, if just because they tended to be more than just green screens and CGI.
The movie really does feel like it cements the Marvel Universe as a living, breathing, universe, with acknowledgements towards things that happened in past movies (Tony Stark never managed to get that building of his fixed since The Avengers, I noticed), as well as setting up future films with simple name-dropping and side references.
However, there is one thing I want to comment on. Remember how I said before that movies need to be "new viewer" friendly? There are two post-credit sequences (as per the usual for movies like this) that left me puzzled. One is great if you happen to be a fan of the comics and follow the news announcements and introduce characters that will be important in future films, but unless you know those characters you're really left with a sense of "...wait, what? Who wer- why- what was- huh?" The other, however, just felt redundant and completely predictable (honestly, I'm surprised a fight scene didn't happen in that location considering how symbolic the place was to multiple characters), leaving me disappointed. My actual words when the lights came up were "...did the music really need to be that dramatic for what just happened?"
Is Captain America: The Winter Soldier a great movie? Yes. However, I hope that Marvel manages to find ways to make it just a bit more accessible to their ever-increasing audiences without requiring people to need to go home and hit up Wikipedia to learn why the things that happened happened or who that side character was.
Also, I really hope that comic book movies manage to find a way to not make themselves feel like they're always a comic book movie. Considering how space action films, historical action films, spy thrillers, and other genres of movies rise and fall as peoples interests grow and wane, I'd like to see these films go from being "a superhero movie done as a political thriller" or "a superhero movie as a science fiction epic" and become "a political thriller that happens to have superheroes" or "a space opera that happens to have superheroes."
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