The Captain America series started off on the wrong foot with me. While I liked the first one, I found myself to be largely bored with the movie for some reason that I still can’t quite put my finger on. Then The Winter Soldier came out and I fell in love with that movie. Everything from the story to the action and the characters in that movie hit me like a truck and I was totally on board with wherever the series went. Once Civil War was announced I just knew that the movie was going to surpass The Winter Soldier, and it didn’t disappoint at all. In fact, it exceeded all of my expectations for the movie. Captain America: Civil War is the best movie in the trilogy, and the best movie Marvel has made yet.
The premise behind this movie is fairly simple. During a mission that the Avengers are undertaking, things go wrong and innocent people are harmed. This incident causes the U.N. to draft a bill called the Sokovia Accords that seeks to apply some oversight to the Avengers to keep this from happening again since they’ve been operating independently for some time now and have caused major death and destruction every time.
Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is behind the Accords as he feels that the team needs to be watched over after everything they’ve done. On the other side of the argument is Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) who feels that the Avengers are the only people they can really trust to keep the world safe, since the governments of the world could use them for whatever purpose they please if they sign the bill. Sides are chosen and people that were once friends are now enemies. Things are only complicated with the inclusion of Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Cap’s best friend who also just so happens to be a Russian assassin who’s trying to reform himself.
With all the Avengers in this movie (minus Hulk and Thor), plus new additions Black Panther and Spider-Man (played by Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland respectively), it would be fair to think that the movie would have tough time juggling everyone as well as having a plot that makes sense and doesn’t crumble under the weight of everything that’s happening. Surprisingly that doesn’t even come close to happening, so if you’re worried that the Russo brothers are going to have a hard time with Infinity War you can worry a little less. Everyone in the movie is fully developed and treated with care, and the plot makes total sense. The movie moves along at a nice pace, never slowing down too much to become boring and never going so fast that you can’t keep up with anything.
The core issue of whether or not the team needs oversight or not is one that the Russo brothers handled very well throughout the movie. It’s a question that has no clear right or wrong answer, so it’s hard to say that either Tony or Steve are wrong given the explanations that they give for their positions. Not giving the issue a clear right or wrong answer was definitely the way to go as it avoids making either of the protagonists a villain as they both believe that they’re doing what’s right for the team and the rest of the world. It also adds another layer of depth to each of the characters and makes us understand who they really are some more.
As for the characters, everyone that’s here is fantastic with the standouts being Black Panther and Spider-Man (more on them in a bit). In addition, the behind the scenes villain of the movie, Helmutt Zemo (played by Daniel Brühl), is definitely one of the most intriguing and interesting villains in the MCU. He’s not just an ordinary cookie cutter villain with no real or interesting motivation. This puts him up there with Ultron and Loki as one of the best villains the film side of the MCU has seen.
Going back to Black Panther and Spider-Man, when both of these characters are on screen they steal whatever scene they’re in and command your attention. Speaking on Black Panther, his character has his own complete arc that he goes through so that by the end of the movie he’s a different person, setting him up perfectly for his own solo movie coming in 2018. Not to mention he’s a total badass in his own right with the way that he fights. When it comes to Spider-Man, I can’t stress enough how amazing he is in the movie. This is definitely the Spider-Man that fans have been waiting to see on the big screen. He’s funny, awkward, dorky, and a great fighter as well. By the time I left the theater, I totally wanted to see more of both of these guys and am definitely anticipating their upcoming solo movies.
If you loved the action in The Winter Soldier, then you’ll love the action here in Civil War. The action in the movie is great, with every hit being visceral and raw. You can just feel the impact of every punch, kick, and repulsor beam. The big standout action moment of the movie is definitely the much hyped superhero battle in the second act of the movie, and it delivers on all fronts. It’s a 17-minute battle royale that is something that needs to be seen on the big screen, preferably in IMAX if you can see it that way. To say anything more about this as well would be a spoiler, but I will say that everyone involved gets a moment to stand out in one way or another.
Captain America: Civil War is the best Marvel movie to be released so far, and will probably be the best superhero movie of the year. It takes everything that was great about The Winter Soldier and makes it ten times better, something that I thought would be a pretty difficult thing to do two years ago. Somehow they pulled it off though, giving us an amazing film that lives up to, and exceeds the hype.
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