Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: Civil War – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 06 May 2016
The Marvel Cinematic Universe gets wider and deeper in the third Captain American movie. It’s also the second for directors Anthony and Joe Russo after Captain America: The Winter Soldier with the two planned to direct the two part Avengers sequels. It’s not surprising then that Captain America: Civil War feels like an Avengers movie in all but name. Most of the key characters are here, and the events seem to be building toward the inevitable movies to come – particularly the third and fourth Avengers movies.
Civil War is not the twist on genre that made The Winter Soldier interesting. Returning to more of the action movie format of the Avengers films works well and we get to have a little more fun with this large, great cast before the storm to come looms on the horizon. While this is Captain America’s (Chris Evans) movie, his opposition from Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and the rest of the characters is built with enough care and emotion that you can see both sides of the argument. Why that argument has to be settled in punching is why this is a comic book movie and not a courtroom drama.
There is a little sense that Cap got shorted a movie or that this could just as easily have been called Captain America v Iron Man: Dawn of Thanos, but not so it’s bothersome. We get more time with the Avengers added from Age of Ultron and a few that make their first appearances. Black Panther has the largest of these new roles and is central to the story’s first act. He’s a very serious character which makes the second act’s action scene where the two Avenger factions face off so much fun. New characters who themselves are just so excited to be there, never mind that they’re fighting some very powerful adversaries.
Fans of the comics will be sure to find plenty of little breadcrumbs to enjoy that make no sense to the rest of us, but fear not: the movie makes sense even though a couple of winking lines or scenes may seem more important than they are. I enjoyed Civil War and recommend it to action movie and comic book movie fans alike.
Shawnee, Nolan, Amber, Matthew and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car:
