"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is a huge improvement over "The First Avenger." While the first film was very cheesy and stylized specifically that way, to varying degrees of success in its execution, the sequel involves a much better plot with Hydra attempting to subvert SHIELD with shadow agents. Great special effects and performances from the cast, it's what I expected from this stage in my MCU journey.

The main gripe I have with it is that I wish the movie would have fleshed out the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) more. This is also a retroactive problem with "The First Avenger"; between both of these films we are never really given enough character bonding scenes between him and Cap (Chris Evans). It's a shame that the movie named after him serves merely as an introduction to the character, though we do get a lot better characterization in the third "Captain America" film.

I love the introduction of the Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson both do great reprising their previous roles in the franchise.

This is overall another fantastic entry into the MCU. Which had really hit its stride by this point and was firing on all cylinders, ramping up the stakes with each new installment and giving us more and more to run with as we awaited payoffs in "Avengers" films. This serves as a nice bridge movie.