So after an insane amount of buildup and hype, the start of Marvel’s Phase 3 has arrived,
Captain America: Civil War.
One of the most anticipated superhero movies ever.
Marvel’s last two movies, while certainly very enjoyable, weren’t exactly the best
of the best, at least for me.
So hopefully this movie gets Marvel back to where they were back in 2014.
Let’s get into this.
*clip* Also, as usual, I’m going no spoilers to
start off with, and then with a very specific warning I’ll get into the spoilers.
So don’t worry, you’re safe, nothing will be ruined.
Full disclosure, I don’t think I’ve been this hyped for a movie since the first Avengers.
I mean, everything was pointing to this being a total win, trailers looked great, the team
behind it’s solid, early reviews said it was awesome.
And so did Civil War live up to my totally unrealistic expectations.
Pretty much….yeah.
It isn’t a perfect movie, but it gets a hell of a lot of things right.
Firstly, this film has a massive all star cast, so let’s just go through these (relatively
briefly).
Chris Evans is still great as Captain America, always has been and will continue to be I
think.
The one in the cast I was really impressed with was Robert Downey Jr..
Like, we know what he does, he makes jokes, he talks fast, he’s funny, he wears cool
suits.
But the performance here actually added something new to the character that I don’t think
we’ve really seen since the first Iron Man.
And Downy Jr. actually pulls off some fairly emotional scenes.
Now let’s talk about the two new additions, Black Panther and of course Spider-Man.
Chadwick Boseman nails it as Black Panther, and I am now beyond pumped to see him and
Ryan Coogler take on this character.
He’s really interesting, and I feel like there’s a lot to explore with his character.
And I’ve been hearing a bunch of critics saying, Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man
ever.
And actually, they’re right.
I think this might be my favorite Peter Parker/Spider-Man combo ever.
I’ve liked the other two, but this one just feels very much like Spider-Man.
His costume is really cool, maybe still slightly too sleek and CG, but it definitely works.
His web swinging is great, his personality is great, I’m just really excited for his
solo movie now, especially if we can get some Michael Keaton in there.
And as far as the rest of the cast here, everyone else is really solid.
And they managed to do what I didn’t think was possible, they had about a dozen and a
half big characters in this and it didn’t feel crowded.
None of them really took away the spotlight but they were all given interesting things
to do.
Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul
Bettany, they all do great jobs.
The rest of the supporting cast, they also do well, but they aren’t really in it enough
to comment on (Marisa Tomei, Martin Freeman, Emily VanCamp, General Ross).
The two of this extended supporting cast that really stood out to me were, 1) Paul Rudd
as Ant-Man.
The movie is really funny, don’t get me wrong, but those actual laughing out loud
moments nearly all came from Paul Rudd for me.
And 2) I know this’ll sound weird, but Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.
He doesn’t have a big part in this, but I think they’re finally learning how to
use Hawkeye in these movies.
He’s funny, he’s self aware, and he’s actually pretty cool.
I’m just liking his character more and more in these movies.
Now let’s talk about the action.
Because this movie may have the best action of any Marvel film ever.
There’s the great hand to hand Russoe stuff that everyone loves, that stuff’s awesome.
And then there’s the epic Avengers type fighting which is amazing.
And this really gives me more hope for the Russos directing Infinity War.
I’m gonna miss Joss Whedon, but seeing the awesome large-scale action in here, I think
the Russos got this.
There’s one scene in particular that might be the best Marvel action scene of all time.
This is what I think these superhero blockbusters should be like.
Lighthearted and fun for the most, but also with some darker themes underneath, because
without spoiling anything, there are some darker things that the Avengers have to deal
with here, and I thought that was really interesting, and it actually added some depth to this movie.
As far as other things, thankfully the trailers didn’t spoil anything.
There are a lot of key plot points that I’m glad I didn’t know going in.
Also, in terms of the #TeamCap #TeamIronMan thing, I went into this movie Team Cap.
And this movie actually made me consider both sides, which is awesome.
I went back and forth on the two sides a few times in this movie.
In terms of my wishes that I made for this movie a while back, some of them they did
actually do in this movie, and the ones they didn’t they did it better than I could’ve
wishes for, so props to that.
And in terms of my predictions I made for this movie, I think I did...alright.
There are some things I got really right and there are some things I got really wrong though.
Now as far as the negatives, there are only very few things here.The pacing in the movie
is good, but it is a tad bit slow in the first half.
I enjoyed it because I thought all of this conflict was interesting, but I think younger
viewers might be a bit bored here, there isn’t a ton of action in that first half.
In the second half though it really picks up.
There is also a plot line that I’ll get into in the spoilers section that I didn’t
really love.
I feel like that could’ve been taken out and the movie would’ve been just as good.
Also, I have to mention here.
I don’t know if it was just me, but one or two shots in this movie looked really bad
in terms of the CGI to me.
LIke, nothing major, but one or two shots in particular, I’ll just tell you it’s
really just this shot of Iron Man at the airport, that just looks unfinished to me.
Especially compared to all the other great CGI in the movie, that just didn’t look
that great to me.
But most of the special effects are great in the movie.
Overall, Captain America: Civil War is an extremely enjoyable movie.
There are some things that I wasn’t the biggest fan of, and I do think I’ll enjoy
it more the second time when I know more of what I’m really in for, but I still had
a great time with this movie.
It’s funny, it’s exciting, it’s tense, it deals with some deeper themes and ideas
than a lot of superhero films, and I’m giving Captain America: Civil War a 9.6/10.
Ok, now let’s talk some spoilers.
If you haven’t seen the film yet, click off from this video now.
Just come back when you have seen it.
Firstly, can we talk about that awesome airport action scene.
As a comic book fan, that might have been the coolest fight scene I’ve ever seen in
a superhero movie ever.
It was exciting, it was huge, it was really funny, and Ant-Man went giant, which was amazing.
It was like one of those epic Marvel splash pages, everyone’s fighting everyone in this
epic way and it is just very entertaining to watch.
Also, seeing Spider-Man fighting Captain America was just fantastic.
Having him in this MCU at all is awesome, and having him be this good really seals the
deal.
As far as the other spoiler-y things go, Crossbones didn’t do much.
That’s fine by me, his whole section at the start was pretty awesome, I just went
in thinking he was gonna be more of a main player.
The end credits scenes were pretty cool.
I guess there are now two Avengers, Iron Man’s Avengers in New York and Captain America/Black
Panther’s Avengers in Wakanda.
Also, I guess Bucky is now frozen in a cryotank until further notice.
Also, the Spider-Man tease at the end was pretty cool too.
Something else I want to mention is that like most Marvel movies, there are some tonal inconsistencies
here.
And while I feel like this movie (for the most part) did well by having some light stuff
with darker themes underneath, at points I felt like the tones didn’t mesh very well.
Like, we go from a fun scene of a giant superhero fighting an android who shoots lasers out
of his head to Tony Stark’s dad being beaten to death.
There were just a couple of times where I felt it didn’t fit together super well tonally.
That whole twist that the Winter Soldier killed Tony’s parents by the way, that was pretty
good too.
Although I’m just saying, I did kind of see it coming, especially after putting together
the fact that they showed that opening scene and then later they showed Tony Stark’s
parents so you’d know what they look like.
Now, my main complaint with this movie is the whole Baron Zemo storyline.
Look, it’s not terrible or anything.
And Daniel Bruhl did a pretty good job as the character.
But I just didn’t really feel invested in that storyline too much.
When it cut away from the Avengers Civil War stuff, which I personally thought was more
interesting, to the Zemo stuff, those were the only moments where I wasn’t super into
the movie.
The whole Winter Soldier stuff was interesting enough, but Zemo never really did anything
that really blew me away.
I feel like there could’ve been some other plot point that motivated the Avengers to
get to where they got to without him, just saying.
Also, I thought his motivation was a bit weak and cliche, he was there when the Avengers
were fighting bad guys and his family got killed in the process and now he’s out for
revenge.
He wasn’t bad, it was just nothing special in an otherwise pretty outstanding movie.
So those were my thoughts on Captain America: Civil War.
What did you think of it?
Let me know down below in the comments.
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.