Everything is awesome. We get the speech. Cap lives and everyone gets arrested, gets fucked or dies. Spidey skews young and brillant. Winter Soldier is responsible for something bad in the past. Yet, no responsible for much else. Ross is still a dick. Black Panther is kind of the villain. The hero fight is beyond amazing.
Civil War starts off with a flashback of a hit done by the Winter Soldier, set in 1991. We then move on to Lagos, Nigeria where Cap's Avengers are tracking down Crossbones yet in the end stuff goes bad. This leads to the creation of the Sokovia Accords. The U.N. will govern the Avengers. This leads to disagreements within the team. At the signing things go bad. The Winter Soldier is seen and stuff explodes, leading to Black Panther showing up. Cap doesn't believe his pal Bucky would do it and chases him down. Eventually they are both taken by an anti-terrorism force. In the mean time a mysterious guy is doing mysterious things, including finding out how to control TWS. Stuff leads to other stuff and we end up with two teams at an abbandoned airport. Get ready for a big and amazing battle. There's action, excitement and comedy. Amazing stuff. This is where Spidey AND Ant-man shine.
We go a bit more serious again after this as Cap & Bucky (now no longer mindwiped) chase the bad guy to Siberia. Stark shows up too and we get a big show down. The end is interesting as it changes the status quo of the Avengers a LOT. Cap and his team are fugitives.
There is a mid-credits scene that wraps up a part of the story and then shows you what you'll see in another one. Post-credits scene is a cute little Peter Parker scene that delivers some jokes and OMG! HOMECOMING!
Panther is NOT a villain in my opinion btw. He does however have his own agenda.
More thoughts: It's NOT the comic book Civil War, not by a long shot. But like the books both sides have a good point which gets more blurred as the story advances. I am basically on Cap's side as far as the accords go, but his personal choices to aid Bucky can be questioned (but make sense for the character)
-There's several moments of good character development. And semi-romance too, between Vision and Wanda (cooool! Then again, this comes into play later and leads to a tragic accident) - Spider-man is awesome and completely fits in. He is the way he should be, makes jokes to hide his nerves being there with these big guns but hold his ground in the actual fight because he's Spider-man, damnit. - More of Winter Soldier background including one thing you can see coming from a mile away but still hurts when it actually plays out. - Black Panther's introduction is well done. You see very little of Wakanda but it's easy to read between the lines and realize BP and Wakanda are about to make an impact. - The end actually doesn't follow the standard "let's gear up for the huge battle scene" scenario for once.
If there's one thing I can see people being disappointed in, it's the villain. Zemo is not Hydra, not a super villain at all. He's just a dude with a personal vendetta. But my response to that is that he's more believable for not being the usual impossible-to-beat-until-the-end type of guy. His motivations also make sense and it's interesting to see how the Avengers (both sides) fail to understand what he's after because they look at the big picture/ramifications only and not the personal ones.
There's one thing that made my geeky heart go nuts. Bucky briefly fights Black Widow and she says (while he kicks her ass) he could've at least recognized her. Now I want to believe that's a hint at a shared past (like in Brubaker's WS run) but in hindsight maybe she just refers to when he put a bullet through her (as she mentions in CA:TWS) Damnit I want it to be the first scenario!
Let's give it up for Ant-Man, the comic superstar of the movie. Paul Rudd almost steals the whole thing in 20 lines or less.
George Michael weighed his options. Maeby had chastised him for not taking risks, and what would be a bigger risk than perpetuating a lie about software just to ignite the passions of a woman? Of course it would be a lie, and since Maeby wouldn't know it was a lie, he wouldn't appear to be taking a risk. Perhaps the bigger risk was to tell his father he was lying, that he came up with it because he wanted his father to leave so he could enjoy what remained of his senior year. After all, he wondered, wouldn't that be the course of action taken by an overtly sexual man, a man who owns a pair of matador pants? He had not responded now for 41 seconds according to his unfailing internal clock, and it was time to come clean.
I'm still geeking out over Spider Man finally being a part of this universe of characters. It just seemed like it was never going to happen for so long.
Plus, Ant-Man goes big. I'm so glad that was never revealed in any trailers, because that was such a moment.
The way they wove in all the various characters and their plotlines and motivations was brilliant.
My only complaint was the really big gap in the middle where there was no action.
I didn't see ASM2, but that may have been the best cinematic representation of Spider-Man yet, and I kinda feel bad for Sam Raimi wasting like five years of everyone's lives now. Those Spider-Man movies were good at the time (well, except for 3), but in like 30 minutes, Marvel has proven that they have the best grasp on Spidey all along. Young Spider-man was awesome even if Aunt May looks super hot (and kudos to whoever had Stark riff on the fact that Aunt May is so young!). It will be interesting to see how they decide to start weaving his rogue's gallery into the MCU with Homecoming. Can't. Wait.
My only complaint is how he was so obviously shoehorned into the plot. Stark just runs out to get him, and then he gets to play his role in the big melee. At least Black Panther, also introduced this movie, had a role much more central to the plot. Spider-Man felt like a last minute addition. It would have been nice he could have been as integral overall as T'Challa (who was handled very well.)
This wasn't the best Marvel movie. TWS, GoG, and Ant-Man were way better. AoU felt a bit flat but has gotten better on multiple viewings. Joss tried to weave and fit alot of stuff into that movie, and its not until like the third or fourth viewing that you can appreciate the craftsmanship of the tapestry. Conversely, GoG was superfun the first go round but the rough edges become a bit more apparent with each rewatch. TWS has held-up and I need to happen to catch Ant-Man several more times.
That said, they could have had Steve Rogers and Tony Stark playing paddycake for an hour to kick off the movie, because that brawl - which is what we all came to see - was worth the price of admission. Whatever plot they shoehorned around it was kind of irrelevant. From the time that Cap walks out to the tarmac alone until Stark kneels over Rhodey and says there's a heartbeat, I just sat there with my hand over my mouth in a joyful state of amazement. GiAnt-Man was awesome. Spider-Man talking too much was awesome. War Machine getting a fuel tanker thrown on him was awesome. Nat vs. Hawkeye, Vision getting distracted by Wanda (well, except for the outcome), just about everything in that sequence was awesome awesome awesome. If Avengers was the movie that took four years to make, that fight scene was the fight scene that took nine years to make, and it was EARNED. If you love Marvel superheroes, I don't see how you couldn't love that fight. Worth the price of admission to this and every other Marvel movie so far. I can't wait to watch it again and again on the various movie channels.
The Falcon-Bucky interactions were gold. I don't know where Marvel could fit in a Falcon-Winter Soldier buddy-cop style movie with their packed schedule, but I'd love them to get an eight episode mini-series during one of SHIELD's gaps on ABC.
Its kinda sad that the New-Look Avengers that debuted at the end of AoU didn't even make it through two movies. And now we've got a new roster again. Is Ant-Man one of them now since he was Team Cap? (By the way, loved the "Pym said never trust a Stark" line!) Or is he just free of the Raft and a straight up fugitive?
OH MAN POOR TONY STARK! They did a great job of explaining Tony's role in AoU after Iron Man 3 when he seemingly quit the super-hero biz. And then they show just what its cost him - and it costs him EVERYTHING. The fact that this all happens in a Captain America movie feels a bit like the old days where the writer on one book just shits all over the work of a writer on another book. Pepper? Gone. Tony suddenly having to deal with the death of his parents again? Yup. (And I felt so dumb not seeing that reveal coming given how blatantly it was set up in the first act. But in a movie with a 40-foot tall Paul Rudd, the SFX team REALLY outdid themselves with young RDJ. If I didn't know any better I would swear that they sent John Slattery back in time to film that sequence, because young RDJ looked AMAZING.) He even suffers the only real casualty of the fight, with his friend taking the friendly fire shot and getting paralyzed. (Although, given that we've seen the Iron Man suit function empty, I don't see why paraplegic Rhodes can't continue to be War Machine.) They DESTROYED Tony Stark in this movie. I recently watched Iron Man 3 again, and I loved how it capped off his saga and truly felt like a closing chapter for that character. He should not have come back. I can see why RDJ has talked about being willing to do Iron Man 4 (aside from wanting tons of money.) Tony needs to be redeemed. Hopefully, that can happen in Infinity War.
Its a shame that the next movie is Doctor Strange. I want to know where the main MCU story goes from here. Maybe we'll get a Falcon-in-Ant-Man style cameo to tie everything together, but I feel like we won't get any idea what's happening with the Avengers until Black Panther in 2018 at the earliest. The next few years are going to be fun.
Isn't the Panther scheduled for 2017? Ouch, fuck, you're right. Early 2018.. So I assume the fall-out will be brought up in Spidey. But wow..you know how Marvel always said they have it all planned out? It showed in this one.
I have no problem with Dr.Strange being next in line since they can/will explore an entire different part of the universe. Then followed by Thor:Ragnarok which is also skirting the supernatural obviously. And then we get GotG 2. Damn, they are making sure we'll be away from earth while they set up the pieces for the next chapter, right?
I've seen better movies, but I have a really hard time pointing out anything that Civil War did wrong. It's a top 5 Marvel movie, for sure. I liked Giant Man, I liked young Tony Stark (that is seriously an achievement in special effects), I liked that Tom Holland looks like a de-aged Toby Maguire, but I really liked how every character (and boy, were there a lot of them) had believable motivation, and everything they did made sense. When I saw early on that Black Widow was somehow on Iron Man's side, despite obviously being Cap's best friend (eat it, Falcon and Bucky!), I was really worried. But everything she did made perfect sense and was true to the character. Everything felt fair, which is a hell of a thing to pull off. As far as I'm concerned, this is the make-good for AoU. All the characters behaved in-character, the action beats were clean and clear and fun, and the end actually payed off the story while still setting up the next phase of stuff. I was super happy with this film.
Oh, and btw? Marisa Tomei is 51, same as RDJ. Hollywood magic, everybody!
The airport scene completely lived up to the hype.
At then end of the movie I was thinking:
More Ant Man, Winter Soldier and Black Panther.
Get me some Hulk!
Take a long long hibernation Captain America, Iron Man and Black Widow. I don't want to see any of you in a main role for a few years. Let me miss you before I start to hate you.
Welcome back Spider Man. I anxiously await your movie.
Giant Man was the best part of any Marvel movie, right up there with "I'm always angry" in the first Avengers.
Life is hilariously cruel.
It ain't the six minutes... it's what happens in that six minutes.
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