Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

City Paper grade: B-

Captain America: kicking ass, getting chicks … and voicing thoughtful concerns about our civil liberties? Letting go of the page-turn-y super-camp present in 2011’s The First Avenger, the Russo brothers’ sequel shelves the greatest-generation massaging in favor of fresher Stateside stresses. But it’s still a yay-freedom blow-’em-up of the most cracking caliber, never skimping on dumb fun but stumbling in duller places. Living the government life in D.C., stiff-jawed Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) struggles to settle into 21st-century existence, flummoxed by future-person topics like Nirvana and Thai food. He’s equally skeptical of his employer, S.H.I.E.L.D., and its plan to launch what’s basically a drone program to preemptively zap targets — a necessary measure “after New York,” the unsubtle post-9/11 phrasing Marvel uses to thread The Avengers through everything. Cap’s suspicions, of course, turn out to be accurate, forcing him to recruit snappy/lethal co-worker Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and high-flying combat-vet buddy Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to rip open the conspiracy. Beyond the vaguely contemporary issue authorizing the action, The Winter Soldier is a protein-rich comic-book property, strongest every time His Shieldness clashes with the titular masked assassin. (The opening sequence, with brawling from MMA icon Georges St-Pierre, makes for a better-than-good start.) It lags most — and it’s noticeable, given the XL run time — when the chatter stretches beyond banter and into attempts to make the big guy more emotionally available. If there’s any superhero that’s earned exemption from the share-your-feelings workshop, it’s Captain America. He literally wears what he’s all about on his chest. Now let him get back to beating up people who hate it here.