Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Less a superhero film than a conspiracy thriller. Steve Rogers woke up seventy years later and works for an intelligence organisation. During the rescue of a ship he notices that one of his own team has a separate assignment. The organisation is building a new system. Three airborne ships will assess millions of people in advance and kill those judged to be threats. Steve objects. The same day the head of the organisation is attacked in the street. From there Steve becomes a fugitive. The institution he works for is hunting him and he does not know whom to trust. An assassin appears. Metal-armed, masked and silent; who he is sits at the centre of the narrative. What the narrative is interested in is not heroism but institutions: the film finds the real threat inside the organisation rather than outside, and uses the structure of 1970s conspiracy films directly. That choice shows in the casting. An actor identified with the conspiracy films of that period was chosen for the organisation's senior director, and the reference was deliberate. The lift scene is the best constructed section and takes place in one enclosed space. The fights lean lightly on computers; they are close, hard and largely shot with real choreography. It was shot in Cleveland and Washington. Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Redford are in the cast. Anthony and Joe Russo directed; it was their first large-scale work. Who it is for: anyone who wants a genre shift out of a superhero film. Who it is not for: anyone starting here; half the narrative is about an institution set up in earlier films.