When I left the theatre on Saturday night, I didn’t think I’d ever be defending “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” to anyone. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for “the feels”, and would much rather re-watch Eternal Sunshine or Before Sunrise for the hundredth time than watch chisel-chinned demigods bowl through an endless sea of cartoon villains. Especially when the film, like this one, opts for “gritty” over “corny”. I can’t shake the feeling I’ll call Lone Survivor’s guilt: regardless of what the swelling music and generic foreign villains try to convince me, the protagonist still just valued his life over about a hundred others’. It takes a big suspension of disbelief for me to laugh and cheer.

Ethics aside, this movie was still far from great. But grading on the curve of dumb popcorn flicks, I thought it was at least as fun as the Avengers or the Iron Man sequels, and plotwise it fell a bit right of the superhero bell curve. It doesn’t quite deserve the high Rotten Tomatoes score, but if you like this sort of thing I have a hard time thinking you’d have a bad time here. Especially in IMAX 3D, late at night and mildly buzzed.

Chris, Carson, and I discuss on this week’s ep: