10 Best Action Scenes From The Marvel Cinematic Universe

5. The Freighter: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Batroc Cap
Marvel Studios

Captain America: The Winter Soldier marked Marvel Studios' most 'mature' movie to date (well, about as mature as you can get for the family-friendly studio), providing a more realistic and subversive thriller than The First Avenger's upbeat, old-fashioned adventure. The attack on the freighter both set the tone for the rest of the movie and provided one hell of an opening set-piece to boot.

The sequence positions Captain America as more of an operative, compared to the soldier he had been painted as previously. Silently taking out guards on the ship, the clean-cut American hero even impales somebody's hand with a knife! Of course, this is a SHIELD operation so Black Widow is also along for the ride, getting to kick some ass of her own as well as trading plenty of banter with the title hero.

As well as showcasing Cap's nifty new fighting style thanks to an expertly-choreographed scrap with George St. Pierre's Batroc, the entire sequence also delivers character-building in amongst the hand-to-hand combat; it both demonstrates Cap's new role in the world and his disillusionment at SHIELD's methods, and serves to both set the plot in motion and kick the movie off with a bang.

In this post: 
Iron Man
 
Posted On: 
Contributor

I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.