Bringing Captain America to the big screen in a believable way had to be one of the most daunting parts of Marvel’s current film initiative.

 Iron Man is a super rich guy with a cool suit, and Thor is basically just an alien. Cap, however, is a steroid-injected, World War II super soldier who sleeps in a glacier for 70 years before waking up in modern times. He also has by far the silliest costume out of all the Marvel characters.

Cap’s first solo Marvel movie, released in 2011, was probably the low bar for quality in Marvel’s current lineup, but it was entertaining enough. Its sequel, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” is ludicrous in a good way — explosive and never boring. It’s not a work of fine art by any means, but it’s at or near the top of the range of quality Marvel has established in the past few years.

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” actually has one of the more intriguing stories in a Marvel movie, perhaps only because it is so ridiculous. As the trailers implied, a mysterious gunman called The Winter Soldier (who looks like a member of an emo band with a bionic arm) is trying to kill Cap.

However, his motivations and benefactors end up being much more interesting than anything he says or does. Without spoiling too much, the movie features things like Neo-Nazi conspiracies and painfully obvious drone metaphors. Yeah, it’s pretty silly.

Its absurdity works in its favor, though. Those who try to think too hard about it will end up ruining the movie for themselves, but probably shouldn’t have been watching it in the first place.

The excellent action scenes never get bogged down in exposition. The film moves at an efficient pace, doing a decent job of balancing story and action throughout.

The writing is appropriately snappy for a Marvel movie, and the performances are up to par with the other films in the series. Chris Evans embodies the role of Captain America as well as anyone could, playing him as a stereotypical square-jawed bearer of old-fashioned values who isn’t afraid to let a goofy one-liner out every now and then.

The most memorable supporting character is Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie. He’s a good sidekick for Cap, and his wingsuit heroics lead to some legitimately cool scenes late in the film.

The one major flaw with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is the complete lack of consequence in parts of the story. This is certainly nothing new for the series or genre, but as the intensity is ratcheted up from film to film, it becomes more glaring.

It’s easy to believe that Captain America can survive big hits and falls because of his physical traits, but, without saying too much, there is at least one major character that illogically survives what happens to them. Suspension of disbelief is already required for comic book movies, but they really test the limits of that here in a few spots.

Still, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is way more enjoyable than the first, and is just below “The Avengers” in terms of overall quality. By making the story absurd, it manages to level out with the goofy qualities of the character of Captain America. Anyone who has enjoyed the other recent Marvel movies should have a good time with this one.

The writing is appropriately snappy for a Marvel movie, and the performances are up to par with the other films in the series. Chris Evans embodies the role of Captain America as well as anyone could, playing him as a stereotypical square-jawed bearer of old-fashioned values who isn’t afraid to let a goofy one-liner out every now and then.

The most memorable supporting character is Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie. He’s a good sidekick for Cap, and his wingsuit heroics lead to some legitimately cool scenes late in the film.

The one major flaw with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is the complete lack of consequence in parts of the story. This is certainly nothing new for the series or genre, but as the intensity is ratcheted up from film to film, it becomes more glaring.

It’s easy to believe that Captain America can survive big hits and falls because of his physical traits, but, without saying too much, there is at least one major character that illogically survives what happens to them. Suspension of disbelief is already required for comic book movies, but they really test the limits of that here in a few spots.

Still, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is way more enjoyable than the first, and is just below “The Avengers” in terms of overall quality. By making the story absurd, it manages to level out with the goofy qualities of the character of Captain America. Anyone who has enjoyed the other recent Marvel movies should have a good time with this one.