Captain America Civil War

Captain America: Civil War

Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. & Sebastian Stan…

Directed: the Russo Brothers

Grade: A

This one was so much better than Age of Ultron!

This film is pretty straight forward. The destruction from the last several movies lead into the governments of the world wanting to basically have the Avengers work for the UN. This leads to a split between Tony and Steve. Unfortunately at the same time Bucky Barnes reappears which leads to a much bigger split and a whole lot of people making some really questionable emotionally based decisions.

And a really enjoyable movie.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers so I’ll try to keep this simple.

The Russo’s do a much better job here of juggling both the cast and the political issue. I never felt like I was being preached to. You could see both sides of the accord. You could see both sides of everything that was going on with the whole Bucky thing. And I thought for the most part where the other Avengers came down on the issue was true to character.

The action was very good. The villain did tie into the story nicely. I really enjoyed the introduction of the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman). Honestly at this point with the Marvel movies I’m tending to think no more characters! But he fit in very well, the actor was engaging and believable and I really liked what they did with him.

But for me most everyone is overshadowed by Robert Downey Jr. and Sebastian Stan. They were as they needed to be, excellent.

My more Marvel comics inclined friend tells me that a lot of people hate Tony in this story but I just couldn’t. I understood where both of them were coming from and the reasons they did what they did even when I didn’t agree with them and certain parts of their story lines were really heartbreaking.

I did have some nitpicks watching this. Spiderman did nothing for me. Not the fault of the actor (Tom Holland) but he felt out of place in the movie and the stuff with him went on to long especially all the joking throughout what should have really been a more dramatic bit. I kind of wish if they had to go to the Spiderman well again we at least got out of high school this time. And the fact that he was so young made me seriously question the decision making of the person who brought him there.

Also, Scott… I love Paul Rudd but him joining the fray to possibly become a wanted man and being like, “Yeah, whatever! I’m in!” All I could think was didn’t I just watch a whole movie about how you wanted to go straight and be around for your daughter? It was more understandable with Hawkeye, who was often away from his kids and these were personal friends and co-workers he was watching destroy themselves, but it seemed weird for Scott’s character.

Lastly, they tried a little harder with Sharon Carter this time but she’s still a pretty useless character for me. She could have been left out. Chris Evans has more chemistry with Sebastian Stan than he does with her. (Seriously, there’s more than one part with Bucky where I was like, “This I could ship…” with Sharon it was like, “Why are you here again?”)

Recommend: Yes. Nitpicks aside I really enjoyed this one. It was on the long side but never felt it. I was very interested in most of the characters and never bored and the acting was pretty much on-point to excellent. At this point at the end of Civil Wars I’m excited to see where most of the characters are going.