Captain America: Civil War (Film Review)

"United We Stand. Divided We Fall."
The Avengers team becomes divided after a mission goes south in the end costing lives and awakening them to the consequences from their past victories. Now Steve Rogers and Tony Stark go head to head over deciding the team's future. Meanwhile, the Winter Soldier resurfaces and is seen to be responsible for a major terror attack. The future of the Avengers is on the line and is being judged on the capture and arrest of Steve's best friend, as if that wasn't complicated enough.
Here's why Captain America: Civil War is a spectacular Marvel must see film.

After the mission in Nigeria in which a familiar enemy from the previous Captain America film appears shortly, the result ends in heavy collateral damage and casualties caused by the team. The Avengers are now warned to co-operate under a new law led by a governing body to overseer the team. But this new status quo, fractures the team into two parts.

Captain America doesn't like to be ordered by people who see him and his friends as "Vigilantes" when they are "Heroes" trying to safeguard humanity.
However Tony Stark feels they should agree to this term under the United Nations to atone for their unfixable mistakes.

Plus with the resurface of Steve's old friend "Bucky" The Winter Soldier, the reunion isn't pleasant since Bucky is seen causing chaos on purpose. Now Steve has a chance to save his friend even if it means going against his code of honour and his friend, Tony.

This story has to be the best out of the Captain America Trilogy (I do feel it matches the same level as The Winter Soldier) but thanks to the character list, it's surpassed TWS for sure.
The film is amazing and it really digs into the ties of friendship which can easily become tangled when misunderstanding lead to distrust between comrades. It felt more like an Avengers film rather than a Captain sequel thanks to the line-up that everyone knew was coming thanks to the trailers, news and spoilers.


I've been turning my head back and forth as to deciding who's side I'm on. I've been on Captain's side due to supporting his oldest friend and agreeing with not agreeing to the superhero terms. But then again, Tony Stark a.k.a Robert Downey, Jr. is an undeniable character to never side against thanks to that charm and humorous personality and selfish ego (things I wish I had) plus Iron Man is too epic.

So when I went into he cinema with Kathy and her friend Clarice and soon discovered Kurt was several seats down the row. I couldn't decide between my Team Captain and Team Spidery T-shirts from Qwertee, in the end I chose Spidey.
I decided to sit on the fence and be a neutral which is what Spider-Man was supposed to be like in the novels, instead he ended up being on Tony's side.

I saw a picture like
this saying
"You're home, now
Spider-Man!"

However, comparing the story to the official Civil War graphic novels which I shared a little bit of information in the Phase Three post and explained my ideas and thoughts, though in reality, the film adaption story stands out different to the 7 graphic novels. Several obvious reasons include the limited character appearances thanks to different companies owning the right to superhero franchises such as (X-Men - 20th Century Fox) and the original and obviously better (The Fantastic Four films belonging to 20th Century Fox) as well.

Also the film is limited to a strict run time so there isn't enough time to include over a realistic brief cameo of maybe over 40 or more characters that haven't even made an appearance in the MCU.

Plus how would you even fit in backstories to characters showing up out of the blue that the audience wouldn't have a clue as to who that person is, not to mention sending he fans into a frenzy as to how that would make sense.
But the film does the series justice in it's own way and I guess you'll be the judge of that.
And praise Marvel for acquiring the right to Spider-Man at last, if he wasn't in it, the whole thing would have been waste of time to even consider watching. Even if he was a little different and the actor wasn't Andrew Garfield anymore, I think Tom Holland did the iconic character justice.

Marvel have been leaving a continuous streak of positive explosions behind after their last load of films including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Ant-Man and a couple months ago with he hilarious and mature rated Deadpool.

Speaking of Deadpool, I saw this picture several months ago on Facebook and had to dig through my phone to find it again where Wade Wilson's film was "excessive" even for Iron Man and left Steve haunted by the amount of "language" used in the film haha.
Anyway the film has turned out to be the tip of the iceberg (pun intended) thanks to the outcome changing the Marvel Cinematic Universe from now on since the first teaser appearance of Thanos.

Henry Jackman returned to continue his epic work from TWS. I got chills from the track "Siberian Overture" thanks to it giving off a thrilling and look over your shoulder atmosphere when the mood changed and reminded us of the haunting screech from Bucky's Theme (which was first played in TWS).
I agree and bring back in everything I said about the music in TWS as it sorta extends into this sequel, obviously.

The action was incredible and I still can't believe that a lot of the actors can do the stunt sh*t for real especially Chris Evans and Sebastian Shaw check out this awesome video of slow-motion behind-the-stunt scenes (contains spoilers). Scarlett Johansson is just as acrobatic and dangerous as always. Her charm and skills make her a force not to never mess with. I'd gladly be a victim of her badass acrobatics haha. In fact, all the character deserve credit for performing epically whether they did stunts or drama, they gave the fans everything they got to make this film really affect everyone as well as the character's future, if I might add.

A really hurtful piece of drama was when Captain had to say goodbye to a very special person from his life, I didn't see it coming.

But it also revealed an important fact about another character who I adore and hope she and him become a thing as they are adorable together. But I know that she is important thanks to my friends spoiling how she will be "responsible" for something, someday.

The Airport fight is the highlight of the film thanks to the two sides going head to head. Plus a certain and most anticipated "Web Head" made his appearance at last. The choreography was amazing for all this perfect combat to have gone on against one another instead of working as a team as they have done in past films. And it was good to see Ant-Man again who even surprised us all with his neat little gimmick which turned the tides of the playing field.

I wonder if that fight sequence had been happening in real life, would an announcement have gone through saying "We regret to inform you, but all flights have been cancelled due to an unexpected and epic fight going on between the Avengers. We're so sorry for the delay and we will keep you updated!"
Deep down, I was really hoping for a glimpse or cameo appearance of Deadpool sitting on the roof somewhere just chowing down on some popcorn, what a camera that would have been. Even Stan Lee's cameo was hilarious for now creating the famous and never letting it down nickname Tony Stank haha.

As for the bad guy of our film, I honestly failed to keep up with him at first. Our antagonist, Helmut Zero has a devious plan in store for our heroes which also ties into the manipulations of some to begin the division. But I seriously misheard his name and throughout the film, just kept going along and reminding myself that "he's the bad guy". But by the end, it's made clear for all his work and hatred towards our heroes and I felt silly for not understanding or paying attention so easily. One of my friend from work took his son to see it and I'm surprised and proud that his son has read the novels and knew the character's appearance from the novels much better and questioned why the MCU version was far different haha. But my friend did mention that his son said that the baddy is known more from the Black Panther series which gives me a nice thought as to maybe more will be released when Black Panther get's his own film next year?

Aside from the plot, character and fighting, I think I speak for everyone when saying that everyone was looking forward to when pictures and footage of Spider-Man were finally going to be released before the film came out.

And when that trailer was released, the Internet went into a meltdown after only hearing the nicest introduction from a superhero, "Hey everyone!". Loads of fans were praising and loads were surprised by the costume design but more accurately, the eye shades being able to change (which has never happened before in a Spider-Man film).

I think it was neat and creative for the visual effects to finally show that like Deadpool, Spider-Man's eye shades actually change shape to give off a more realistic facial expression compared to looking like he's always wide awake. I bet they used CGI or green screen's on the mask to give off this effect, however they did it... Well Done!

I admit that the backstory and introduction was short but it was funny to see how Mr Stark recruited the newbie to the team. Plus his personality was hilarious since he was too honest with his words during the serious fight which helped break the ice and added some good comedy to the film.
It's a shame that he didn't really play the "Sitting on the Fence" character as I try to be or act all neutral when it comes to arguments between two of my friends unless one of them is clearly incorrect from my point of view. He was more of a "Devil's Advocate" and acting all "dialectic" for this version, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
I bet some fans were over-hyped like this exaggerated video once the teaser Spider-Man appearance finally came in the 2nd trailer haha.

Besides Spidey, everyone has been waiting for Black Panther to make his feline appearance. I don't mean to brag, but before he even put on his suit, I guessed correctly (as I'm sure everyone else did) as to who his alter-ego was during the conference. But once "Bagheera" appeared at last, he did some fancy acrobatic work along with some fast paced speed with ferocious paws... I mean claws.

The chase was great and I was surprised but then again not surprised at how fast Bucky, Steve and BP could all run past and on top of the cars. Those guys provided a great scene before any of the serious fighting took place. And I can't wait to see the story behind the "black puddy tat" and how everything will lead up to or after Civil War *sigh* I love it when things are all explained and all come together neatly.

The hype has been unreal and it's also interesting when you look at how popular Marvel and DC have become to the world besides general comic-book lovers. Facebook has been sharing endless Meme's of Civil War jokes on how the Civil War began. But once Spider-Man was revealed, even more came out. I like it that people have time and skill to make pictures like this to share with the world when most of the time, we can agree on their point-of-view or praise their work and skill.

Alas, Tony unexpectedly got his answers which led to the final fight when his answers unlocked the darkest rage within him and led to the conflict between Bucky, Steve and himself. It's also where Cap and Bucky did their epic choreographed tag fight against the overwhelmed Iron Man from the main trailer. It was an emotional fight that despite being ferocious, it was sad to see comrades turn against each other when no reasoning was going to settle this one.
And by the end, everything will have changed forever.

So as you can see, Captain America: Civil War holds a huge load of excitement, action and drama from a Marvel film. I loved it all and intend to see it a few more time (so I can get the value of money out of my Cineworld Unlimited card).
I have a feeling that despite the outcome, theirs plenty more to be explored in a couple main characters during their films set to be released (thanks to the 2 secrets in the credits).
We might even see Star-Lord and his Guardians unveil some secrets in their sequel next year.
Plus, everyone will have to eventually come together again for Infinity War (Part 1 & 2)... right?

Oh and before I forget, "Happy Star Wars Day and May the Fourth be with you, Always!