Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 10 Ways It Beats Thor 2

4. There's A Genuine Sense Of Tension

Further expanding on points made earlier in this article, The Winter Soldier is successful in its ability to actually create moments of genuine tension - moments where we find ourselves thinking: "Oh, no - is he or she going to die?" In a franchise built around characters who really aren't supposed to die because that defeats the point of a franchise, that's a notable achievement - and one that Thor: The Dark World didn't really muster with its mostly goofy tone. The scene where Nick Fury is ambushed, for example, and must use his automated car - and an awesome machine gun turret - to defend himself against an army of attackers, works as the best action scene in the film because it also manages to create the possibility that Nick Fury might not actually get out of the situation alive. Scenes like this are rare in Marvel movies because we always know that our heroes are going to survive. In the case of the The Winter Soldier, the filmmakers were smart to focus an entire action sequence on Fury alone - we tend to take him for granted because he's always around, and so a moment where it seems like he might not make proves itself to be nail-bating.