The newest Captain America movie has made nearly $500 million in its first ten days at the box office. This is unsurprising, given the popularity of the superhero genre today such as “The Avengers,” “Iron Man 3” and “Thor 2: The Dark World.”

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers doubles as Captain America (played by Chris Evans) as he tries to adjust to modern day after the nearly seventy years he missed in the ice. As a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Rogers runs the occasional mission with Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. However, after Nick Fury is murdered by the Winter Soldier, Steve discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D has been compromised and begins to doubt whether it can be trusted to protect the people with its surveillance and practically unlimited power.

Captain America is often dismissed as a goody-two shoes without much depth beyond the perfect exterior, but I see him as an anchor, as a paragon of the American ideal that we so often fall short of.  Captain America might be pretty and tall and strongly-muscled, but it has always been more important that he be a good man than a great soldier.  Steve Rogers has always stood up when things were wrong, even when the odds were stacked against his favor, and in the Winter Soldier, he stands against his own place of employment, saying, “This isn’t freedom, this is fear.”

In terms of execution, the film is well-done, for the most part.  The film is more violent than previous Marvel films, and the fight scenes are often shaky and disorienting.  Evans’ jaw is as strong as ever, and when he gives an earnest speech to rally the people, it is uplifting rather than cloying. Scarlett Johansson cleverly plays Romanoff with multiple layers, inscrutable depth and a vulnerability normally reserved only for brooding male antiheroes with complicated pasts. However, the Black Widow gets more character development after being fully established as an integral force. Anthony Mackie joins the good-guy ensemble cast as Sam Wilson, the Falcon, who may be a sidekick, but is always the most enjoyable to watch on screen.

Sebastian Stan reprises his role as Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ childhood best friend, who has been taken by the Soviets as the Winter Soldier, brainwashed into a lethal killing machine who has been in and out of action for the past sixty years.  The Winter Soldier arc serves as a bridge from the past to the present, as Bucky parallels Steve and both find each other in the present, inexplicably on opposite sides of conflict.  Both Steve and Bucky fell, both were resurrected, and while Steve still represents wholesome morality, Bucky has been twisted into the empty and ideal soldier, the inverted image of Captain America.  Steve Rogers chose to be Captain America of his own free will, but Bucky has been brainwashed into being the Winter Soldier.  You might go into this movie thinking it’s about surveillance and a supervillain with a metal arm, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but the real emotional current of the movie comes from the connection between Steve and Bucky.  The title suggests it all; it literally says “Steve Rogers: Bucky Barnes.”