As far as the comic book movie genre is concerned, this is the movie that will be seen as the turning point. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is more of a spy thriller than a super hero movie. For quite a bit of it, you could replace Cap with, say, James Bond or Jack Ryan. Plenty of the stunts are unique to Cap, and the overall plot is from the comics and other movies, so it wouldn't be. But one who exclusively likes spy thrillers would also enjoy it. And it was successful.
I guess within the Marvel movie universe, the Thor movies could be seen as movies about Norse mythology. The Hulk films could be seen as monster movies. But those descriptions are stretches. This movie is a spy thriller first, comic book second.
That, I think, allowed for the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is much more of a sci-fi than a superhero movie. This gives me great hope that many of the upcoming announced Marvel movies, such as Dr. Strange and Black Panther, can be of another genre than just super hero movies.
One point I make when writing this blog is that I have to see the movies in the theater. Even though I have a big enough TV, nice enough sound, and a comfortable enough place to sit at home, there's no substitute for watching a movie in the theaters. I was reminded of this a couple days ago when I read a movie review from a fairly minor newspaper. This person rated the movies on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being "Must watch in the big screen." And most of his reviews which received five stars seemed to focus on movies that technologically should be seen on a big screen, such as Gravity.
But that takes away such a key part of watching a movie in the theater. The audience. This is something that's pretty obvious for a comedy. A better crowd laughing in all the right places makes the experience that much better. But it also works in other ways. For example, the really annoying ladies in the audience of Big Eyes, who actually booed and hissed (literally - they hissed) at the screen at points, made me dislike the movie even more.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, has a point in which there's a major reveal. The trailers and the media I saw did a pretty good job of avoiding this spoiler, so I don't think anyone who hadn't read the comic books would have seen it coming. That's also why I'm dancing around it now, just in case you haven't seen it. In the theater where I saw it, at the moment of the reveal, there were several audible GASPS from the audience. I like being in the middle of that. It really adds to the movie going experience. I'm going to talk a little more about that with my number one movie, I think.
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