When you are a super-soldier who has World War II-era American values but now has to deal with modern-day life in 2014, who can you really trust?

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” tries to answer this main question as it thrusts Captain America Steve Rogers, once again played by hunky Chris Evans, back into action. While the first movie, “Captain America: The First Avenger,” gave us the history of Captain America and “The Avengers” showed us how he was beginning to adjust to present day, “The Winter Soldier” reveals how Steve Rogers struggles with the world as we know it, where people are more secretive and much harder to trust.

Rogers now lives in Washington, D.C., and still works for S.H.I.E.L.D. When he is sent on a mission to recover a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship from Algerian pirates, he is reunited with Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). While he is focused on the mission he was given—to save the hostages—he soon realizes that Romanoff has a separate mission: to recover data from the ship’s electronic files. Upon arrival back at S.H.I.E.L.D., Rogers confronts director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) about the separate missions and demands to be briefed on all matters. Unable to access the data from the ship, Fury then introduces Rogers to Project Insight, a secret project that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been working on which will send into space three huge “Helicarriers” that have the capabilities to preemptively destroy threats. That afternoon, Fury is attacked by supposed police officers while driving and flees to Rogers’ home, where he gives Rogers the flash drive with the encrypted data from the ship and tells him to trust no one. When Fury is then gunned down and Rogers’ supposedly innocent and flirtatious neighbor reveals she’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the movie really takes off.

From then on, the audience ducks and bobs as Rogers learns S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised and huge secrets have been kept. Over the course of the next two hours, Rogers attempts to figure out who has been telling the truth, who knows the secrets, who he can trust and who is the Winter Soldier.

To be honest, I never saw the first “Captain America.” But to be even more honest, I didn’t need to. This movie was action-packed and engaging, and as long as you know the basic story of Captain America—normal guy turned superhero/super-soldier during WWII—you’ll be pulled right along. While you’re just as confused as Rogers as he struggles to keep up with who is the true threat, as a modern-day person, you will be certainly more alert to the fact that anyone could be “the bad guy.” Within the first few minutes of the movie, I saw a certain person have some shifty eyes and thought, “This could go badly.” The world isn’t black and white between good and bad, as we all know, and “The Winter Soldier” seems determined to teach that to Captain America and remind its audience of that fact. Even Romanoff, who has been a spy for the KGB, the former Russian secret police and intelligence agency, as well as the U.S., has a moment of confusion over the difference between right and wrong. Who has S.H.I.E.L.D. been all along?

Aside from that, “The Winter Soldier” brings in some great new characters. Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), a veteran Rogers befriends who has some secrets of his own, and Kate (Revenge’s Emily VanCamp), Rogers’ neighbor who turns out to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, both add to the movie by giving Rogers support and stability in different ways, even if we are unsure about them at first.

While not as mind-blowingly incredible as “The Avengers,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” holds its own as the ninth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and will keep you rooting for Captain America as he struggles to understand the confusing world he, as well as we, live in.