Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger and following on from The Avengers. It is currently in post production and is the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film finds Captain America and Black Widow going up against the assassin codename The Winter Soldier. It will be released on April 4, 2014. Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, Cobie Smulders, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Dominic Cooper and Samuel L. Jackson return as Steve Rogers, James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Maria Hill, Peggy Carter, Arnim Zola, Howard Stark and Nick Fury. The film will be directed by the Russo Brothers.

Plot
Two years after the Battle of New York, Steve Rogers a.k.a Captain America is out on a jog in Washington D.C. While jogging he is frequently passing by a man who later introduces himself as Samuel Wilson telling him that he used to work in the army but now he works in the debriefing section. After the jog, Sam and Steve have a chat about how Steve is adapting to the new world. Natasha Romanoff then arrives to take Steve with her on a mission. The mission at hand is to rescue the hostages of a pirate-hijacked S.H.I.E.L.D ship. At least that's what Cap thinks. Cap, Agent Rumlow, Romanoff and his men fight the pirates and rescue the hostages. But as it turns out Natasha had gotten a secret mission which was to receive some S.H.I.E.L.D data from the ship, to a USB-stick. This somewhat annoyed Steve.

When back at the Triskelion, Steve is angered with Nick Fury for lying to him. Fury then takes him to the basement where there are several Helicarriers and he introduces Rogers to the Insight Program. He tells Steve that S.H.I.E.L.D takes the world as it is, not as they like it to be. They are going to use the Helicarriers to fight threats before they even happened. Cap then says that, ''This is not freedom. This is fear.''..

Later Steve visits the Captain America museum and also visits Peggy Carter in a retirement home, now past 90 years. He also meets with Samuel Wilson again after watching him during the end of his debriefing session. Meanwhile Fury discovered that the data on the USB was inaccessible. He tells this to Alexander Pierce, who just had a talk with the World Security Council about whether or not to let Fury continue to run S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury is on his way away from the Triskelion when he is attacked by false cops. He defeats them but is stopped when a masked man shoots a magnetic bomb under Fury's car, flipping it over. But before the masked man gets to Fury, he managed to drill a hole in the ground whit a gadget and escape.

Steven arrives to his apartment after talking to his neighbor but gets suspicious when he hears his stereo's still on. He sneaks in through the window and finds Nick Fury sitting in his couch. He tells Rogers that his wife kicked him out and that they might be overheard by someone, before getting shot several times in his back through the wall. He gives the USB to Steven and tells him not to trust anyone, before he falls unconscious. Roger's neighbor smashes in the door reveling herself to be Agent 13. Cap finds the gunman and starts to chase him. He throws the shield at the masked man, but surprisingly the man catches the shield with his cybernetic arm and throws it back. He then jumps of the building and disappears.

Fury is taken to a hospital but his heart stops and he couldn't get revived. He's taken away and Agent Maria Hill asks to take care of the body. Agent Rumlow tells Cap that he is wanted for a hearing. He quickly hides the USB in a vendor machine and leaves. When he arrives at the Triskelion he is questioned by Alexander Pierce who says he is one of Nick's oldest friends and wants to know who killed him. He also says that he and Nick where realists and that to build a new world sometimes meant tearing the old one down. Cap doesn’t trust Pierce and tell him none of what Fury said. He leaves Alexander to go to the hospital. When in the elevator it starts to fill up with people and he soon realizes that they are there to take him down. He asks if anyone wants to get out and then the fight begins. It's hard but Cap manages to knock out all his attackers, before jumping out the elevator to avoid arrest. After surviving the fall he drives away on a motor-cycle. A roadblock is set up for him and also gets stopped by a Quinjet. He does however get past both.

It is later revealed that Pierce is working with the masked man when he shoots his cleaner for seeing him together with the masked man.

He arrives later to the hospital where he notices that the USB is gone. Natasha had taken it and he angrily asks her what she knows about all that has happened. She tells him that the masked man is a spy known as the Winter Soldier and she had encountered him once before. She decides to follow Cap. They go to an internet café to see if there is any valuable information on it. But they, as Fury did, find nothing. However they did find the location where the USB could be unlocked. Rumlow and his team try to find them but fail to do so.

They steal a car and drives to the location while talking about the good old days. When they arrive Steve realizes that they are at the old training facility where he trained during WW2. They find a secret storage room full of old computers inside a S.H.I.E.L.D office. There they find a more modern looking USB slot and they put the USB in. The computers power up and someone starts to talk to them. It is Arnim Zola who tells them that he where recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D after WW2 and that he helped to rebuild Hydra, inside S.H.I.E.L.D. But in the 70-ties when he got the news that his body where un-savable. S.H.I.E.L.D, still needing his help, transferred his mind into a software. He had been working on an algoritm that Hydra wanted. He tolled them that some of the deaths of S.H.I.E.L.D leaders had been due to Hydra, showing them a picture of Howard Stark, implying that his death might not have been an accident. He was also involved in the Winter Soldier program. But before Rogers and Romanoff can get any more information out of Zola S.H.I.E.L.D shows up and blows up the place. They survive the explosion and seek refuge with Sam Wilson. Sam tells them that he was part of a military project called Falcon, a testing of a new form of winged Jet-Packs.

They went back D.C to talk to Agent Jasper Sitwell who is working for Hydra. He just had a meeting with Senator Stern, who before saying goodbye whispered Hail Hydra. Sam Wilson called Sitwell and forced him up on the roof of a tall building together with Natasha and Steve they get him to tell them that Zola's algorithm could calculate if a person would be a threat in the future. He also tolled them that Hydra are going to use Project Insight as a weapon to eliminate what they saw as threats against the world, mentioning Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Stephen Strange. This though would also mean that millions of innocent people would die.

The gang leaves but is attacked by the Winter Soldier and his men. A battle breaks out and as Cap and the Winter Soldier fights his mask is broken and it is revealed that he is Bucky Barnes. Cap says Bucky?, but Bucky don't know who that is and Cap, Black Widow and Sam are taken into custody. While in the prison van one of the guards stuns the other one and reveal herself to be Maria Hill. She then uses the drill gadget to escape with the gang.

Agent Hill took them to a secret facility where Nick Fury where resting, revealing that he didn't die, even though he where severely injured. He had taken a anti stress serum, developed by Bruce Banner, that lowered his heartbeat to only one per minute so that he would appear dead. Hill and Fury tolled them that Project Insight where only hours away and that they had to act quickly. The Helicarriers would hover in a triangle, connected, targeting all its targets before firing. The only way to prevent this where to use three special chips that would take away S.H.I.E.L.D's control over the Helicarriers. Cap had lost his suit earlier so he needed to break in to the Captain America museum and steal the one that was on display. And so they went off to save the day.

The Winter Soldier is being prepared for battle but he starts to ask who Bucky is. Hydra decides he knows too much about his past and they brainwash him again. He gets a flashback showing how Hydra's Russian division found him in suspended animation after falling of the train. We then learn that Doctor Zola amputated his destroyed left-arm and changed it with a cybernetic one. He also remembers how he where put in Kryo-tanks between his missions so that he would not get old.

The members of the World Security Council arrive at the Triskelion. They are given one device each to put on their collar that will grant them access to anywhere in the Triskelion. They then all walk up to Alexander Pierce's office. Captain America and Sam a.k.a The Falcon, breaks in and take control of the microphones. They tell the staff that there are traitors in S.H.I.E.L.D and that Alexander Pierce is one of them and that they cannot initiate Project Insight. Rumlow and his men walk in to the control room and threaten to shoot the guy in charge if he doesn't get the Helicarriers in the air. But agent 13 intervenes and a gunfight breaks out, but Rumlow still manages to get the Helicariers in the air.

Pierce pulls a gun at a WSC member but Agent Romanoff, disguised as a WSC member, stops him. She then calls for Fury who is an S.H.I.E.L.D agent of the highest degree, and since two S.H.I.E.L.D agents of the highest degree are needed to stop Project Insight she asks Pierce to help them. Fury states that Pierce probably erased all traces of Fury being the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, but not on the eye scan since, quite recently, Fury changed the eyescan picture from the picture of his working eye to the picture of his damaged eye. But Pierce refuses to help and presses a button that is connected to the devices on the WSC member’s collars that knocks them out. Romanoff threatens to unveil a document with all of her and his secrets. She does and this makes Pierce knock her out too. This gives Fury no other choice then to shoot Pierce, leaving it all up to The Falcon and the Captain.

They manage to put the chips, with some hardship, for two of the Helicarriers in the right place, but when Falcon is going for the last one his jet-pack is damaged by the Winter Soldier and he is forced to skydive down to the Triskelion where he gets caught up in a fistfight with Agent Rumlow. Now it's all on Cap. He is about to put the chip in place before he is confronted by Bucky. They fight and during the fight Cap tries to convince Bucky that he where good once upon a time. As he tries to get the chip in place with only seconds left before Project Insight will initiate he gets shot multiple times by Bucky. He manages though and Agent Hill can take control of the other Helicarriers and shoots down the Project Insight ones. Before Steve passes out he promises Bucky to be with him until the end, a promise Bucky gave Steve decades ago. Then Cap falls into the water beneath and is about to drown when a hand grabs him and drags him out of the water. It is Bucky who then disappears.

One of the Helicarriers crashes into the Triskelion and causes it to collapse. Falcon can jump out and is saved by that much by Fury and Romanoff. Rumlow is berried under rumble but is later seen being taken care of by doctors. Steven wakes up some time later a lot of new stuff has happened. S.H.I.E.L.D have gone trough some major changes. Nick Fury if officially dead and he have destroyed all evidence of being alive, even ditching the eye-patch for sunglasses. And if somebody asked what happened with Fury, he wanted Cap to answer that he was dead. Natasha went to a hearing where they asked why she shouldn't go to jail for what she had done. She said that it was because they still needed her. Now that her secrets where revealed she needed a new identity. And Cap decided to start looking, with the help of The Falcon, for Bucky, so that he can convince him of who he really is.

In the first post credit-scene we see Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in a Hydra base in possession of Loki's spear. He states that though Hydras spies in S.H.I.E.L.D may be gone there are followers all around the world. He then walks over to a pair of cells. He stops infront of them and says, This is the age of Miracles... One of the cells contains a man who is running around at a tremendous speed. The other one contains a woman who levitates a few books, before she lets a beam of energy explode from her hand. Though not menioned by name, one could figure out that this is indeed Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, otherwise known as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

In the second post credit-scene we see Bucky, now in normal clothes, walking around in the Captain America museum. He then stops to read about himself.

Cast

 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
 * Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
 * Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
 * Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
 * Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
 * Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter/Agent 13
 * Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones
 * Toby Jones as Arnim Zola
 * Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
 * Maximiliano Hernández as Jasper Sitwell
 * Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce
 * Callan Mulvey as Jack Rollins
 * Georges St-Pierre as Georges Batroc
 * Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
 * Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark
 * Garry Shandling as Senator Stern
 * Chin Han as a World Security Councilman Yen
 * Jenny Agutter as a World Security Council member
 * Alan Dale as a World Security Council member
 * Bernard White as a World Security Councilman Nagendra Singh
 * Thomas Kretschmann as Baron Wolfgang von Strucker
 * Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch
 * Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver

Production
The film was shot in Los Angeles, CA, Cleveland, Ohio and Washington, D.C.

Continuity and References to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

 * Bucky Barnes returns after seemingly falling to his death in Captain America: The First Avenger.
 * Batroc the Leaper makes an appearance.
 * The Battle of New York is mentioned.
 * Triskelion appears.
 * Several Helicarriers and Quinjets appears.
 * Peggy Carter returns as an old woman.
 * Senator Stern makes an appearance.
 * Stephen Strange is mentioned.
 * Arnim Zola appears as robot A.I. interface.
 * There is mention that HYDRA killed Howard Stark.
 * Bruce Banner is mentioned.
 * Alexander Pierce agrees to do Nick Fury a favor if he gets Iron Man to go to his niece's birthday party.
 * The repaired Stark Tower, now called The Avengers Tower, appears briefly during targeting sequence.
 * The Chitauri Scepter that was wielded by Loki is seen in a post-credits scene.
 * Baron von Strucker makes an appearance during post-credits scene.
 * Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are seen as prisoners of HYDRA in a post-credits scene.

Trivia

 * Anna Kendrick, Felicity Jones, Imogen Poots, Teresa Palmer, Alison Brie, Emilia Clarke, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elizabeth Olsen and Jessica Brown Findlay were considered to play Sharon Carter. Jones would later be cast in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Brown Findlay later appeared in "Iron Man 3" as the film used footage of her from "Downton Abbey". Olsen will portray the Scarlet Witch in the upcoming film, "Avengers: Age of Ultron "
 * According to Chris Evans Steve Rogers continues his adjustment to the modern world, which began in The Avengers: "It's not so much about his shock with technology... It's more about the societal differences. He's gone from the 1940s to today; he comes from a world where people were a little more trusting, the threats not as deep. Now, it's harder to tell who's right and wrong. Actions you take to protect people from threats could compromise liberties and privacy. That's tough for Steve to swallow."
 * Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Kevin Durand and Josh Holloway screen-tested for the role of the Winter Soldier.
 * Marks the fourth time Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson have worked together, both starring in "The Perfect Score", "The Nanny Diaries" and "The Avengers" prior to filming.
 * Unlike the other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "The Winter Soldier" minimizes the use of visual effects as much as possible. Anthony Mackie, elaborated: "The Russos, what they did that was so great was, they wanted to stay with live action, which is a dying art form...If they could build it, they built it. If we could do it, we did it. They wanted to do as little CGI as possible. That's why the movie looks so great."
 * To prepare for the role of the Winter Solder, Sebastian Stan went through five months of physical training and historical research: "I dove into the whole Cold War history: I looked at the KGB. I looked at all kinds of spy movies, and all kinds of documentaries about that time, and what it was about. I grabbed anything from that time period and anything about brainwashing."
 * Robert Redford was cast in part as a homage to his roles in 1970s thrillers like "Three Days of the Condor".
 * Kevin Feige described the film as "a 1970s political thriller masquerading as a big superhero movie."
 * Georges St-Pierre, who plays Batroc the Leaper, is the UFC Welterweight Champion (2008-present), having successfully defended his belt on the 16th Nov 2013.
 * Anthony Mackie was unhappy with the modern take on his costume as Falcon. He wanted the red spandex look from the comics.
 * The scene where Captain America jumps out of a plane without bothering to use a parachute is a homage to a similar scene from the first issue of "The Ultimates" comic.
 * Anthony Mackie described the film as "The Avengers: Part 1.5".
 * Cap's new costume takes cues from the "Super-Soldier" outfit he wore when he served as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comics.
 * A deleted scene in "The Avengers", of Steve learning what happened to his commandos, and to Peggy Carter ended up being cut out from that film, but is included in this film.
 * Ed Brubaker was as surprised as the fans were when Marvel announced the title "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," which directly references his work on the title - including the return of Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier. Brubaker laughed, saying. "I got to go out to Marvel Studios and read one of the later drafts of the script. I went out to dinner with directors Joe and Anthony Russo and talked about the project and gave them feedback on what I liked or didn't like or what parts didn't work. I mean, the script I read was [frick]ing fantastic. It was the best Marvel movie." He further elaborated saying, "The tone of it and the Bucky stuff is so perfect and the way I'd want it to be, I was so thrilled to see that."
 * Samuel L. Jackson describes Nick Fury as facing a crisis: "Almost everything that comes out of Nick Fury's mouth is a lie in some sense. He has to ask if he is even lying to himself?"
 * The Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) is able to match Captain America (Steve Rogers) move by move, even to the point of catching Rogers' shield. This foreshadows Barnes taking over as Captain America (which happened in the comics).
 * Alexander Pierce is based on his appearance in the Marvel Comics (a SHIELD agent), but incorporates Aleksander Lukin (an agent under the Winter Soldier, possessed by Arnim Zola in the film when it was the Red Skull in the comics).
 * This is composer Henry Jackman's first work with Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not his first film with characters from Marvel Comics. He previously composed the score for X-Men: First Class.
 * On Nick Fury's grave is written "The path of the righteous man. Ezekiel 25:17.". This is reference to the "Pulp Fiction". Samuel L. Jackson played both characters Nick Fury and Jules Winnfield, character from Pulp Fiction that was reading in one scene part of "Book of Ezekiel".
 * On Steve Rogers list there is many pop culture things that he missed sleeping for 70 years like: "I Love Lucy", moon landing, building and fall of Berlin Wall, Steve Jobs, Apple, Disco, thai food, "Star Wars", "Star Trek", Nirvana band, "Rocky", "Rocky II" and soundtrack from "Trouble Man".