Movie Review - Captain America: Civil War


For some reason, Civil War felt more like an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie - the gang was all there, minus the Hulk, and the film focused only slightly on Captain America. The big difference, though, is that this film was more serious, and didn't have as many laughs as an Avengers film usually has.

In this movie, the Avengers are informed that the United Nations plans to curtail their work because they've caused too much death and destruction, even when the goal is to save people, so the Avengers need to be regulated. Some of the Avengers are all for this - Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) agrees to sign, as does Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), but Captain America (Chris Evans) and some of the others are against it. At the same time, the Captain's friend the Winter Soldier, aka Bucky (Sebastian Stan), is having problems, as a long time ago he was programmed by the Soviet Union/Russia to be used as a soldier, and that programming keeps resurfacing; Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) has an agenda, to harm the Avengers, and wants to use Bucky in order to do it.

This was not a short movie - it clocks in around two and a half hours, and then make sure you stay through the credits for two additional scenes. However, as most Avengers and Captain America movies go, it was action-packed. I saw the film in 3D and a few of the scenes made my eyes hurt - they're very "stylized," for lack of a better word, and with the 3D it's almost overwhelming; I will say that the 3D was done exceptionally well overall, though. We're also introduced and re-introduced to other Marvel characters here, including a young Spider-Man (Tom Holland), who was great (and Marisa Tomei as his Aunt May) - Holland will be starring in his own Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming, that's tentatively due in July 2017, as well. We also have cameos from an Avenger and a non-Avenger; I won't list them here, as to not spoil them, but they're listed on IMDb if you want to know.

Yes, see this movie. If you get nauseous easily, I would say skip the 3D, as it was dizzying at times, but otherwise it's worth seeing in 3D. We get a little more backstory here about Bucky (Stan) and Iron Man (Downey Jr.) here, too, which was interesting, and it turns out that their pasts are connected. The Civil War part of the title comes from the fact that the Avengers are warring against each other, divided over the issue of signing the accord which will regulate them, but at the same time this movie still had a "big bad" (Bruhl) also. If you've liked the previous films in the series, you will like Civil War, and I'm actually rating it higher compared to the other two movies in the Captain America series.

Captain America: Civil War is in theaters today, May 6th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 146 minutes. 4 stars out of 5.

Previous movies in the series:
Captain America: The First Avenger (review, purchase)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (review, purchase)

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