By Charly SHELTON

Of all the Captain America stories ever written, this is probably the most famous and most well loved. The Winter Soldier story line by Ed Brubaker, 2005, took the comic world by storm and it is still one of the most talked about arcs ever. Now the story has been adapted from the Marvel (Comics) Universe, Earth-616, to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Earth-199999, and it is a bit different.

Captain America, the man out of time, has been frozen in ice since World War II. A super soldier, his body withstood the accidental freezing and he emerges alive and well in 2012.

He goes to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. as a super agent, and helps form the Avengers for the battle of New York. Now that the Chitauri are gone and things are returning to normal(-ish), Cap is left to adjust to the modern world.

A seemingly ageless soldier of Hydra makes an attempt on director Nick Fury’s life and Cap is unable to stop him. Along with Black Widow, they trace the Winter Soldier’s orders back to the source and what they find is disturbing to their cores. A web of lies and deceit spanning time and space are crashing down around our heroes as they try to discover the secret of the Winter Soldier and who sent him.

I know that is vague, but there are some big twists and turns that cannot be spoiled in this review.

After seeing this movie, I couldn’t figure out what my problem was with it. I liked it okay, but there was just something off that I couldn’t put my finger on. Then my friend said that this was a “Liam Neeson”-type movie. That’s it – it totally makes sense; this is an action movie that is more about a super soldier with a very particular set of skills that makes him a nightmare for some assassin than it is a comic book movie about the development of these characters. Despite some pretty big revelations, Cap doesn’t seem to grow or change as a person. He is just doing what he always does. The reason the Winter Soldier arc was so amazing in comics and the reason it has been remembered so fondly for the last nine years is because you get to see Cap at his core. All the star spangled grit is stripped away and it is just him versus Winter Soldier in the most important moment of his life. This had some really great effects and explosions, cool fight scenes and nice throw away references to other parts of the Marvel Universe, but it just doesn’t capture me like “Iron Man,” “The Avengers” or “Captain America: The First Avenger” did.

For someone who hasn’t read the comic, it is a good movie. Much like “Iron Man 3” did with the Extremis story line, aspects were incorporated in the film from the comic but the story wasn’t done justice. This film, like IM3, is a great retelling; it incorporates a lot of cool stuff and it is nice to see it on the big screen, but if you go back and read the comics you will know how good the story could be.

For what Cap 2 is, it’s not a bad film. I will definitely be going to see it again. Rated PG-13, I give this movie 3.5 out of 5 stars.