I really enjoyed the last Captain America movie. The Winter Soldier was a spy movie and it was breaking the mould of what a superhero movie could be, whilst still having the familiar elements that everyone enjoys. Civil War on the other hand takes it all away and punches you in the face instead. It wants to make you certain that this is a balls to the wall action movie, but for me it didn't stand out against any of the other superhero movies that I've seen recently, which is really disappointing because it has Spiderman in it. Spiderman!
Captain America (Chris Evans) and his team of Avengers are facing public backlash when they accidentally kill a large number of aid workers in Nigeria whilst trying to stop a villain who has stolen a biological weapon. This leads to the United Nations proposing a policy which would bring the Avengers under their umbrella to be used only when they deem it necessary. Endorsing this deal is Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) who urges the other superheroes to sign, as they must do so voluntarily or else their actions are considered illegal. Captain America still refuses to sign, especially because his old buddy Bucky Barnes (AKA The Winter Soldier) is being accused of a variety of crimes that Cap believes he has no involvement in.
I saw somewhere that this movie is basically Avengers 2.5 and that's true. Instead of focusing on the hero of the title, it cuts between both him and Tony Stark, making me think a much better title would be Captain America V Iron Man, but that's too much of a mouthful. There are definitely parallels to be drawn with the latest Superman movie, but they don't drag this film down as much. While there are definitely way too many characters in this movie, they have been set up in other films and that fives us an opportunity to be able to focus on the two new ones. But just because you don't need to introduce every single character that doesn't make the film less confusing. I found it hard to track every character's motivations in the film because they're all important to the plot.
The plot is definitely the weakest part and I know that it's a superhero movie so what am I expecting. Well, Civil War is essentially two movies. On the one hand there's the Avengers being split up and having to fight each other and on the other is a Captain America movie with Bucky being framed for crimes he didn't commit, so he has to clear his name while dealing with someone who wants revenge. I would totally be happy with the latter because you could shuffle some plot points around and drop a lot of the extra characters while still introducing others. But people want to see that shot where the two groups meet each other in the middle of the screen. I wasn't really impressed with the way the final fight between Cap and Iron Man played out. It seemed very out of character for both of them.
Since we've spoken ad nauseam about all the actors who've played these characters before, I'll quickly talk about the new and expanded upon parts. Chadwick Boseman is introduced as Black Panther and I really liked his arc. Boseman's performance was solid considering his character is not that well known to cinema audiences and he's up against characters that have been well known for almost a decade. Tom Holland was absolutely perfect as Spiderman. They nailed his non-stop talking and genius way better than both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield and it's very disappointing that he wasn't in the film for long at all. Daniel Brühl was criminally underused as the movie's bad guy and he really just felt like 'generic German villain'. I really appreciated that Emily VanCamp's Sharon Carter was expanded on because that was sorely lacking from the last movie. Finally, Paul Rudd slipped into the main group with ease and he has great chemistry with everyone else.
I know I've already compared this to Batman V Superman but it's pretty hard not to. Did I enjoy it more than that movie? Yes? Is it the best Marvel movie so far? I don't think so. There were some shining moments which I enjoyed, but I mostly felt ambivalent throughout. I know that it's leading to brighter things in the future though so I'm hopeful.
No comments:
Post a Comment