Directed by: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Screenplay by: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Based on: Captain America by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Chadwick Boseman, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Frank Grillo, William Hurt; Daniel Brühl.
With no expectation going in, I was pleasantly surprised by gutsy action and a well-thought out storyline. And yes, I’m just going to say it, Captain America: Civil War was heart-warming.
To be honest, the Captain America character has never appealed to me. As Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) says, ‘Sometimes, I just want to punch you in your perfect teeth’.
However, the film celebrates difference of opinion and differing values and cultures and that’s a definite positive of this film.
Civil War is about friendship and the difficulty in accepting differences between friends. Who’s to say they’re right and who is wrong? People have their reasons whether it be loyalty, the idea of doing the right thing, of looking after the little guy; and then there’s the bad manipulating the good.
The huge number of strong characters could have led to confusion, but the well-paced storyline gave every character their point and time in the spotlight.
I liked the addition of the cat-man, Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman). And the threat of cheesiness was nicely averted with humour; the characters able to make fun of themselves and each other, particularly Iron Man and Ant-Man (Scott Lang) – just hilarious!
I admit I was a little confused at times regarding the history of the characters and how they came to fight together, which means I need to go back and re-watch some of the previous films. And that’s a lot of watching. Civil War is the third in the series of Captain America. And then you have Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Plus there’s all the Iron Man series and of course the films casting all the other characters… So there wasn’t really anything new here, either.
But when I find I’m entertained at the beginning, the middle and the end, I say that’s a good movie.