The first Captain America movie strived to feel retro with a simplistic, deliberately hammy tone, but Winter Soldier feels old in a darker, smarter way: It owes so much to the great paranoid thrillers of the 1970s that the presence of Robert Redford, as Cap's new boss, points a neon arrow at the film's hopes of being a super-powered riff on Three Days of the Condor. But playing with real-world fears in a superhero blockbuster is a tricky balancing act—and I'm not sure Winter Soldier, for all its enthusiasm, quite pulls it off. It's still a hell of a lot of fun, though: Directors Anthony and Joe Russo put their comic skills, honed at Community and Arrested Development, to excellent use, and show off some unexpectedly impressive action chops. by Erik Henriksen