Having two children under the age of four means that cinema trips are like bigfoot sightings for me. Rare, stressful and place my family in imminent danger.
Please allow me to live vicariously through those of you lucky enough to watch Civil War over the weekend. How was it?
I’m hearing mostly good things. My only concern: is this another Marvel movie that moves down that dark path of sacrificing the quality of singular movies for the whole “OH MY GOD THAT UNRESOLVED PLOTLINE IS ABOUT [insert comic book story casual fans have never heard of].”
Because yeah, I don’t read comic books. I’m as casual as they come.
What were your thoughts?
Comments
42 responses to “Community Review: Captain America: Civil War”
It was good, but Iron Man’s mother should have been called Martha.
This was the best of both worlds. Not only did they reunite the cast of Only You, but also Heart and Souls.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Did they lift footage from heart and souls for the first bit there? Because youngified Downey Jr looked perfect!
This movie was all kinds of my jam. It took the best parts of Winter Soldier and Avengers and did everything pretty much the way it needed to be done.
I now have full confidence that the vast pantheon of superheros that are going to be in Infinity War will be done right.
There is a kind of stupid plot hole and I had an issue with the ending but I enjoyed the shit out of this movie.
It definitely leaves some underlying themes unresolved, which presumably will carry over to later films, but it’s actually the other end that makes it less of a singular movie. You care about these characters, and the central conflict, because we’ve gotten to know them through 2 Captain America, 3 Iron Man and 2 Avengers movies. And it feels more like a culmination of the series than any Avengers has so far.
Couple of niggles aside, I absolutely loved it.
I liked it. Obviously you’ll get more out of it if you’ve seen past marvel movies, but I don’t think you need to have read any comic associated with the characters or event to enjoy it.
Went and saw it 2 days ago. Absolutely loved it. Choreography was top-notch as the fight scenes came across as believably brutal when it came to fisticuffs.
I’ve never read the Civil War comic this movie is referencing and only know OF it. But form what I’ve been told, while the comic had a much larger scale conflict, the movie has done a better job of each character’s thoughts and motivations for choosing their corresponding sides.
It’s the most enjoyable superhero film released since this current, almost decade long superhero trend started. DC could learn a lot of things watching this, for example, how to make a superhero film with a compelling story while making the film accessible to the masses, rather than just moving from action set piece to action set piece with little in the way of plot and character development. Two gormless characters hitting each other does not make a superhero film.
I saw it on Saturday and thought it was fantastic! You’ll get the most out of it if you’ve seen and remember all the other movies, but you don’t NEED to have seen them to enjoy it either.
Went camping down the tweed this weekend and it pissed with rain, so the wife & I watched it on a whim. It was ok, more of the same. If you’ve seen any of the marvel movies lately, you’ve pretty much seen this one. Spider-Man was cool though. Story for me was pretty weak, just kind of setting up the next fight scene. Overall I would give it 6.5/10. There are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon.
My only niggle is that the fight choreography was cut into teeny tiny bites to cover the hilarious lack of continuity.
After being spoilt by daredevil, watching black widow defy physics in several double takedowns in a row is painfully obvious.
And the hyperactive camera shake and jump cuts made my wife a bit nauseous at a couple points.
But the story was good for a comic, the characters more believable in their motivations, and every single character (even the “lame” ones) got to kick ass.
Good film.
They literally go to war over a grainy cctv mugshot, you cant make this stuff up.
Batman was the better movie
Pretty sure it was the whole killing innocent civilians thing and the Sokovia Accords that started it more than anything.
They literally stop warring over their mothers name, you cant make this stuff up.
Yeah, I loved the way that movie had them decide to fight.
… Um, hang on. It’ll come to me.
They were both arseholes, I remember that… and Luthor knew their identities from going on the Kryptonian ship and getting mind-controlled by inter-dimensional aliens who have nothing to do with Krypton. So he was able to manipulate them into fighting… before he ever went on the Kryptonian ship. There was also grainy cctv gifs of the Justice League, all looking more powerful and threatening than Batman to Luthor’s evil scheme to make a Senator drink his piss, but he focused on Batman; since he’s more recognisable to casual viewers. Maybe he knew Bruce would gain the power of psychic fever dreams about the Flash.
Wow, 3 films worth of build-up and story and you try and make that comment?
Haha go sink on that BvS ship.
Spiderman made the movie. It was awesome.
Actually it was written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo.
That’s just what they want you to think. Spiderman never gets the credit he deserves – how did you think they managed the fancy camera work?
I thought it was pretty great. Saw it on Friday night and had a blast. Was worried they’d either make it ALL about Steve and Bucky, or not at all. Turns out they balanced it really well.
Also, I got a lot more Wanda Maximoff. =D
EDIT: Also, T’challa was fucking rad. Was not expecting that.
T’challa was soooo good! Wasn’t expecting that either.
Why weren’t you expecting Black Panther to be good? You racist against Wakandans?
I just wanted to add how awesome it was to see Spider-Man in a movie and NOT HAVE TO SIT THOUGH ANOTHER ORIGIN STORY! \o/
I did it all here: http://www.theouterhaven.net/2016/04/captain-america-civil-war-review/
TL;DR: Good movie, needs more focus in mid-tier characters
Absolutely phenomenal!
From a long time Marvel reader, it was a blast to see SpiderMan done like that!
The fight scenes were spectacular and handled with finesse, excellent character development, the way they introduce T’challa was great.
Can’t wait to see it again!
You’ll be happy to hear Mark, that this movie breaks that superhero fatigue. Such a fantastic film. It was the film that had the most superhero characters to date, yet none of them felt to big or clashed if that makes sense. The introduction of Spider-Man and black panther was perfect, making me really hyped for those two movies. The story was different from the typical superhero storyline we’ve seen in just about every movie, and the clever subversion of that at the end got me. Bloody good movie.
PS for those who haven’t seen it yet: 2 END CREDIT SCENES. No spoilers, but don’t walk out after the first one 😉 learnt that from ant man haha
It’ll be interesting to see how new spidey works in a standalone movie. Granted they did a good job introducing him without bogging down the movie, but Spidey felt very much like a background character and could have been easily left out without much detriment. At best he was a side kick.
I’m willing to bet it’ll show him grown from that kid on the streets doing the right thing to a full fledged hero, facing a real bad guy and “growing up”.
I enjoyed Winter Soldier more but this was still a fun ride. I’m glad we can have a slower Marvel movie with a still respectable amount of action but without the contanst quips of the Wheedon scripted films.
I’m probably an outlier; but pathetically made story driven together by mediocre action pieces.
I’ve seen better.
I concur good sir. Thought I was the only outlier but apparently not…
***SPOILERS AHEAD BEWARE***
Personally thought the story was overall pretty boring and was undermined entirely by the ending. Too many cliched motivations for the character’s opinions, which would have been fine if the outrageous shaky cam didn’t try to hide the fact that the action sequences in general were silly and inconsistent. They are trying way too hard to make Blackwidow/Hawkeye/etc relevant when they clearly aren’t. The only scene that was done well was the scene spoiled by all the trailers, which, btw, killed the end even more. There couldnt have been an amazing battle with the main antagonist of the film because you had to sit through the trailer fight since it wasnt anywhere else in the movie.
Vision was a waste of time considering his power compared to the other Avengers. Ant-man’s motivation boiled down to “Oh hey, its Captain America, he’s cool”. Spiderman was a great addition and was definitely value for money. Everyone else played their role pretty much as expected. Also, why, was the governments giving them a choice to comply, considering the choice was comply or go away? Why wouldnt they just sign the accords and be done with it? The Avengers either fall into line or they get labelled criminals. The Avengers dont just stop doing what they are doing, because you cant stop them, so why is this even a thing? This just smacked of having to include an actual story just because the movie couldnt be about the bro-love between Cap and Bucky.
I thought it was utterly brilliant. I do think Winter Soldier was superior, but the Russo brothers still did an excellent job.
Zack Snyder should take note – this is how you make a movie with conflict between superheroes and commentary on the collateral damage they cause.
The airport fight scene was probably the best “fun” fight scene in a Marvel movie so far. Similarly, the final fight scene between
Cap, Bucky and Tonywas the best “serious” fight scene they’ve done. The emotion, the build up, the drama was just right. It really was the culmination of the three characters across three Iron man movies, two Avengers and now three Captain Americas.Overall very impressed. A definite upward tick from Age of Ultron in terms of the “big” Marvel movies.
It was actually quite good. Personally, I have felt a little bit of Marvel fatigue but quite honestly with this movie releasing along side Batman V Superman, this was much better quality in all aspects (even though Batman is still my favourite superhero).
Plus I like the new Spiderman, he shows a lot of promise.Overall, good action and interesting climax and character development. Highly reccommended.
9/10 I reckon I would give it?!
It’s a fun and entertaining film. However really it is characters you like and some good action. Story wise, and motivation wise it was more coherent than BvS but just as badly done if not worse. Where as BvS had lots of things that weren’t explained, a muddled mess. This was like it had all the same problems with story but it wasn’t as a result of them not being explained. That stuff just wasn’t there. It was set up and they fight and were on which ever sight and the plot moved forward because it had to.
Good film, go see.
It was long.
Did anyone else have a problem with Zemo’s entire plot line?
Frames Bucky so he can get to Bucky and find out the location of the psychotic assassins. Goes to the assassins but they’re already dead. Claims his entire plan all along was to get the Avengers to kill each other, which he achieved simply by framing Bucky. The entire assassin thing was just killing time.Not to mention that his whole plan seemed predicated on having cap, bucky and Stark in the secret bunker in the end.If you give his plan a large grain of salt though, it does make some sense in getting their attention whilst at the same time splitting the team up. Plus if I remember correctly, he needed to get to the secret facility to get the secret footage of Bucky killing Stark’s parents hence the attempts to extract the information from the ex-hydra officer initially and then framing Bucky to get to him.
I’m also just wondering how he managed to have the resources to pull the whole thing off. Yes he was supposedly in some sort of special forces but who or what bankrolled the whole scheme?
I though Zemo was a great villain. Up there with Loki. My understanding of Zemo’s plan:
He is out for revenge against the Avengers for creating Ultron which lead to the death of his family. From his position in Sokovian (who are potentially a part of the old soviet union) intelligence he had knowledge of the winter soldier program. And from the the Shield/Hydra info dump in Cap 2 he learns that the murder of Tony’s parents was a winter soldier hit and potentially (from the Hydra files) even that Bucky was a winter soldier. From there he frames Bucky to get to bring him out of hiding to learn the location of the soviet base where evidence of Bucky killing the Starks is located. He then draws Cap/Bucky there under the pretense of creating a super soldier squad and IM there by revealing he framed Bucky for the bombing, though I don’t know how he could be sure IM would come alone. The empire he wanted to topple was the Avengers and he uses Bucky as the wedge to drive Cap and IM (being the main two founding members) apart.Also
The soldiers are on ice when he gets there and Zemo kills them because he doesn’t want any more super soldiers.Overall really great movie. Especially Black Panthers role
Thanks for the explanation, there’s so much going on in this two and a half hours, it definitely requires a second viewing.
The only downside to your explanation is in bringing Iron Man to the facility he actually made Iron Man sympathetic to Cap, he proved Cap was right the entire time. So they would never fight at the facilty…
Too long ! Got bored. Best parts were when Spiderman and Black Panther were on screen.
The first act definitely needed trimming, but once the second act begins the movie is awesome to the very end. Loved it.
Black Panther was a big highlight of the film, the actor who plays him is unreasonably attractive (but also, good character). You’ll have a good time if you at no point let yourself think “wait, why did Captain America just do that?” because if you think that then everything he does stops making sense and he’s just fighting for enjoyment.