Or, Return of the First Avenger, as it's called in my part of the world. In English, I kid you not. At a guess, the change of title is caused by the raging popularity the US currently enjoys over here and the assumptions people tend to make about superheroes called "Captain America". Which is a shame, in a way, because this film happens to be the first addressing the decade-and-more trade off between liberty and "safety", the instrumentalization of fear, the way the various secrent agencies have run completely amuck in their megalomania head on. That's right. This comic hero block buster is a spy thriller worthy of the 1970s classics of the genre, pitch black in its view of what has become of us - and I'm saying "us" because that trade off wasn't limited to the US (while Germany doesn't have a camp in Guantanomo, we outsourced people to be tortured by the CIA; shame on us, and all the power to the one who is currently sueing because of that) - and yet also not cynical; it has a belief in the capacity of humans (and not just those who are in the title credits) for decency that fits its main character, even and especially under pressure. Oh, and it also happens to change the status quo of the cinematic Marvelverse in more than one instance, and in one particular regard breathtakingly so. It's definitely the best of the Phase II films so far (and I'm saying this as someone who loved Iron Man 3 and enjoyed Thor II, and who also thought that Captain America, while enjoyable in its own right, was the weakest of the Phase I origin movies).

Now, considering that it is a thriller with twists and turns (some predictable if you know the genre, some not), I would advise you to watch it unspoiled. Everything below the cut will be spoilery in the extreme because I do want to talk about details. Above cut, let me just add one more thing: pre-movie, one reason why I was looking forward to the film was that the later trailers made it look as if Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff would be an important supporting character. In fact, as it turns out, she's basically the second lead, and until we finally get a Black Widow movie, this is the next best thing, and a very fine thing it is, too. If you're familiar with her comicverse connection to the person mentioned in the original title, this is actually not what her role is about in the movie and not why she's so important in it. The film also settles something fans have been wondering, i.e. whether or not movieverse Natasha would, like her comicverse counterpart, herself be a relic of the Cold War, kept young via serums etc.; we get a definite year of birth for her (1984 - of course it was!), which means her biological age is just what it looks like, which is useful fanfiction information to have. :)

( And now, on to spoilers! )