One of the biggest questions following The Avengers, after who that big purple guy is, was how moving forward the stand-alone movies would make it so the lone hero couldn't just speed-dial some super-powered help. Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World skirted around the issue, but Captain America: The Winter Soldier tackled it head-on; you destroy the overarching fabric of the franchise. S.H.I.E.L.D., the organisation who brought the super-team together in the first place, has been secretly controlled by the nefarious HYDRA the whole, giving the Marvel Cinematic Universe one of its best twists and an event that shakes up everything, from Avengers: Age Of Ultron to TV's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now this is how you do shared universes. All this conspiracy fog is one of the film's most interesting elements, not only parallels villain Robert Redford's Three Days Of The Condor, but also the real world NSA leaks. Sure, that's something that broke after the movie was in production, but increases its thematic impact no end. But what really makes the Cap sequel stand out in the MCU, however, is the action. Marvel movies often find themselves lambasted for their over-use of CGI in the big set pieces, but the Russo brothers managed to side-step that for much of the run-time. The stand-out action beats - Nick Fury's car chase and a street showdown with the titular villain-cum-antihero - are shot Bourne style and cook up more adrenaline than most blockbuster fight scenes this year.
