Everything has been leading to this, ever since Chris Evans said to Robert Downey Jnr, “Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds” it’s been all building to this. After destroying a good cross-section of New York, taking out the University of Greenwich, a massive shootout over Washington DC and dropping a European city out of the sky it’s all resulted in The Avengers being made accountable for their actions. However when a 90 year old virgin and a billionaire narcissist with a hard-on for shiny metal can’t see eye to eye, the big question is, which side will you choose?
When Captain America’s new team of Avengers cause an international incident that results in a lot of collateral damage, it becomes the political straw that breaks the camels’ back and all superheroes need to become accountable to a new government initiative. But when the team can’t see eye to eye about how to move forward, the team fractures and some of the best actions scenes ever committed to film ensue. However whilst all of this is happening, the Avengers may not realise that they are being manipulated behind the scenes.
Continuing the story and stellar work of Captain America The Winter Soldier, The Russo Brothers keep the storytelling tight and well-paced with some nail-biting action sequences and organic humour that was noticeably absent from the marketing of the film. One of the big concerns that a lot of people had, was that this film would not be a Captain America film but rather Avengers 2.5, or as Anthony Mackie once referred to it, Avengers 3.8. It’s understandable considering that Joss Whedon struggled to balance so many characters in Avengers Age Of Ultron, plus shoe-horn in the set-up for all the solo movies, thankfully The Russo Brothers have managed to balance all of the characters and give each one their own moment in the film. Most importantly, the film still focuses on Chris Evans’ star-spangled Avenger and his relationship with life-long friend Bucky along with his love/hate relationship with Tony Stark.
Some real highlights of the film is the inclusion of some of the new characters such as Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther who’s presence is energetic and exciting plus makes you all the more eager for his standalone film. We also have the return of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man who brings the humour and has some awesome scenes ripped straight from the comics and every fanboys wet-dreams. Of course the “elephant-spider” in the room is the inclusion of Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It will probably surprise many people just how much screen time Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has, this is not a quick glorified cameo, he has nearly thirty minutes of interaction with the rest of the Marvel characters both in and out of costume. This is a version of Spider-Man that we’ve sorely needed for quite some time, gone is the mopey angst-ridden versions of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, and instead we get a teenager who enjoys having his powers and acts like a kid. To see Spidey finally interact with members of the Marvel Universe genuinely brought a tear to my eye. There’s some great interactions between him and Stark, whilst his fights with other members of The Avengers is everything my nerdy inner-child could have wanted.
Going back to existing characters though, The Russo’s really know how to reach the heart of these characters, with Black Widow being given some more kick ass scenes like she had in The Winter Soldier, to really fleshing out newer characters such as Scarlet Witch and Vision. The most impressive feat though, is that they have given us not only the best version of Spider-Man, but the best version of Tony Stark, with Robert Downey Jnr just giving his all in this film between being justified in his actions, but totally torn apart by his choices. He nails so many lines throughout the film that shows Iron Man to be more than just a quippy smart-ass.
As always, the villains are short-changed because unless your name is Loki, Marvel are not really committed to giving villains much development. However, in this case, the film really excels because the focus is on the heroes and their conflict. Instead of the team quipping whilst fighting an otherwise faceless army, we have hero pitted against hero, we know their backstory, we have an emotional connection with these characters which makes the battles a much more invested experience.
Now before the DC fanboys get up in arms, it is inevitable that every review is going to compare Captain America: Civil War to Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice and honestly, let’s face it, it’s a fair comparison. They are both two films released within a short space of time that features superheroes fighting one another instead of the villains, it’s the same way that we would compare Armageddon to Deep Impact, or Dante’s Peak to Volcano, it’s just a thing you have to do. Now there’s a hundred and one different ways we can compare these two films: fun versus grim, payoffs versus letdowns, heroic versus, well whatever the f*ck was going on in Batman V Superman. The one thing I will choose to focus on is the fact that the characters in Civil War take the time to talk to one another before throwing punches, and this is such an important thing because instead of just pontificating, it paints the reasons for why these characters come to such loggerheads and that makes us as an audience feel so much more invested in what happens in this film.
Finally, when we are at a stage with the Marvel films where we could justifiably say that they run the risk of getting stale, The Russo Brothers change up the Marvel formula. They go huge in the middle with an airport fight sequence that’s been teased in all the trailers, but no amount of fanboy drooling and jabbering can truely express just how cool it is, then in the final act, they go dark and intimate. The final act almost plays out like a horror movie and the stakes are at the highest they have ever been to the point where you don’t know if these characters are really going to kill each other. In a cinematic world where “bigger” is always consider “better”, The Russo Brothers just proved that when you make it just about the characters, you can have a truely emotional response to seeing heroes going at one another.
Overall, with great pacing, genuine character interactions that justify the fights that occur throughout the film and one of the most nail-biting hand-to-hand fight sequences between two of the biggest characters in the Marvel Universe, you get more than your money’s worth when you buy your ticket for this film. Please don’t download a sh*tty video camera copy of this film, it really needs to be seen on the big screen. Keeping the film focused on Captain America but still introducing us to a whole host of exciting new characters, Phase 3 has never looked more exciting.
Captain America Civil War gets Four and Three Quarter Stars out of Five (or Four and Three Quarter jaws, that I was constantly picking up off the floor.)
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