Imagine if there was no sewer under Fury's SUV when he tried to escape and that when the WS ripped off the door he found Fury sitting in a five foot deep hole in the ground. That would have been really awkward.
If Winter had shot him right in the face we'd have a lot of very traumatised 10 year olds on our hands now.
I can stomach the action cliches that are unrealistic of real combat by viewing this as a movie primarily targeted at young adults. It's prime priority clearly isn't realism, but to be badass. Same with THE street action scene where Cap fights the gunners. The guys just keep shooting his shield it's completely retarded when you think about it, they see their fellow gunmen being shot down by reflecting bullets, any guy with a brain would aim for Cap's legs, but they consistently aim exactly to his chest where his shield is, just so he can walk up to one and put him down in a cool way. In that entire time Winter Soldier could've constantly shot him in the back, tick two bullets, lungs and brain, done. The way he conveniently almost always gets his shield back to him again, same deal: it's being cool over being realistic. Which is fine, it's a stylistic choice, but isn't in any way impressively realistic.
Because of the way people engage this film and many talk about it, I mean, I'm not sure which of the major action franchises hold up against it when you start counting, but overall I'm inclined to say people are a bit overstating it in praising this film as a general adult action film (which are sadly often worse than this one, that I will say). Honestly, in terms of action realism the Bourne films are all three better than this one imo. It's a great movie especially for young audiences, but this is not like 'the best action movie ever' in any objective sense. That it's a lot of people's new favourite action film, like my favourite action film is still the matrix, even though the matrix is also a lot of style over realism, that I fully understand and respect. But on a critical level you can't really say this film is a realistic action film. And I personally would've loved it if it had been (more so).
I'm also kinda at a point where I find Steve Rogers, the man from the past, awesome, and yet I still find captain america cheesy. I wish he would've just kept the shield and continued on as SHIELD Agent Steve Rogers, I really don't care for the guy being called captain america or wearing that suit, but not being american probably has a lot to do with that. Clearly it serves the fans that he still does, which is fine. But I kinda just see him in my mind as Agent Rogers.
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