*SPOLIER ALERT*
Captain America: Civil War released on May 5th of this year. This was actually one of my highest anticipated movies of this year, and because of that, I wanted to go to the premiere. I got the chance to do so the Thursday night it came to theaters around the globe. Fun fact, I was at the IMAX experience for this movie and I have to point out that if you see it in IMAX, there is a scene in which the aspect ratio of the screen will expand to fill up the screen. I’m not sure if this applies to all IMAX locations because I saw this in digital IMAX at an AMC which is actually not as clear as other IMAX theaters, so that’s saying something. Anyways, just a little tidbit for you. The overall story of the movie is reflecting upon the events of the previous Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. It basically takes moments where civilians are affected during big fights that we saw throughout the movies. Now these aren’t shown as movie shots from those movies that were just moved into this movie for the sake of reflection, these actually had camera footage that looked less fancy, and a bit shaky, and it shows that the folks behind this movie knew what to do during that scene and avoid laziness. Captain America and Iron Man had different opinions on this particular matter so they get into some discussions and we have one side of the movie’s plot.
Another side of the plot has to do with what happened to the last movie’s antagonist, Bucky, or the Winter Soldier if you prefer to call him that. Now I will remind you, I have only seen the second Captain America movie once, so I apologize if I get some of the facts wrong. At the end of the second movie, Captain America is saved by Bucky from being harmed in a river, and they meet in a museum together in an end credits scene. Now in the third movie, they are labeled as friends. Sure, they disagreed with each other throughout the movie, but they were still companions, as suggested at an important hint of dialogue which I won’t state. There’s more to Bucky than this but I don’t want to get into too many spoilers.
Now one thing this movie does very well is introduce certain characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For example, Black Panther is introduced in this movie. T’Challa, the man behind the mask, had a motivation to join Tony Stark’s side that was shown pretty clearly in the movie to become this hero that once again, would probably get some people mad because of spoilers. The first scene with this guy in action was not the best action scene in the movie, but it definitely did give me some thrills.
Now we get to my favorite part of this movie, for fanboy reasons and criticism reasons, the introduction of Peter Parker. As you may or may not know, Spider Man was brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2015. He wasn’t in any movies that year, after all, it would have been a struggle to put him in based on how production works, but he was in this movie, and I am at a loss for words. THIS is Spider-Man. Spider-Man was played by Tom Holland, and when he took on this role, he was in his teen years, which totally worked considering Parker himself is a teenage boy. If you have seen or heard about the other Spider-Man live action interpretations, you may notice that Spider-Man was played by an adult. I personally don’t have a problem with it because of how they did it. As matter of fact, Spider-Man 2 is my favorite movie of all time so I can’t say anything negative about it. Although when I was watching the movie, I suddenly got the vibe that Spider-Man was a nerdy teenage boy. Spider-Man was actually asked by Tony Stark to join in on the fight, and he says “I can’t, I’ve got… homework.” That is ME in a nutshell, a nerd who always tries to put homework before anything else (except family). Also another thing about him, apparently Spider-Man has been around for a few months, which was something I saw coming when going to see this movie, and when the video of him flying around on the streets is shown, you get a glimpse of Spidey’s suit, it looked horrible. Now, I for one don’t have a problem with this. Why? Because this guy is a teenager. Looking at Spider-Man’s suit here is like looking at a movie made for a high school class. It’s very junky compared to what someone around the age of adulthood could possibly make. Although Spider Man wears a better looking suit in this movie, which I can see considering there’s more people to help him now.
You know that fight you may have seen in the final shot of the trailer to this movie? The one where all the heroes are coming up to each other and about to throwdown? Yeah, that one. This may be one of the greatest throwdowns in movie history. It shows what the heroes can do to each other, and what some of the newer heroes can do. Also when it comes to unleashing everyone’s personality, it’s done pretty well, especially with Spider-Man. If you’ve read the comics you probably remember Spider-Man always ranted during battles. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some of the things Spidey says. Some examples include (after Captain America uses his shield) “That thing doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all!” (stands on top of vehicle with Captain America’s shield in hand) “Hey Cap (points), big fan.” (holds Bucky’s hand in self defense) “You have a metal arm? That is awesome!” There are more than just what I stated, but I don’t want to reveal every little detail about this magnificent character. Am I overstating myself and going on for too long about Spider-Man? Personally, I don’t think so. This is a guy that you should your eyes and ears towards throughout the film.
Before going into this movie, there were two teams that fans of Marvel, and this upcoming movie joined in particular. The teams were: Team Cap (short for Team Captain America), and Team Iron Man. I can’t back myself up with much evidence here so I’ll speak for myself. I was on Team Iron Man for the hero in general, in fact, just to show that off, for the two times I saw this movie, I wore an Iron Man t-shirt. Although when watching this movie, and when walking out of it for the first time, I was able to root for both heroes. I stand by my statement that Iron Man is the better hero, but Captain America in this movie, had a more likable motivation. Also, the last half-hour of this film, I have to say, it started out dull, then it got nitty-gritty real fast for a big reason. The change in tone made me really pumped and the dialogue sugarcoats it. The CGI in this film is some of the best I’ve seen in a movie. Everything moved so fast and it is not used to fill up the screen. It’s kind of like the film’s darker moments, the film is not R, but the film uses certain tones at the correct times, and I personally don’t see how they can be changed.
In the end, Captain America: Civil War is the best Captain America movie I’ve seen to date, one of the best Marvel movies I’ve seen to date, and also one of the best movies I’ve seen in general. I give Captain America: Civil War a 10/10. As of right now, I consider the Captain America movies to be Marvel’s answer to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. I don’t have enough data to say whether each trilogy is exactly the same in terms of ratings of each movie in rank, but audiences seem to have liked Batman Begins, disliked The First Avenger, liked the sequels to those movies better than the original, and the movie after that according to most people for the Batman trilogy wasn’t as great as the second but better than the first. For what I know, Civil War was better than The First Avenger according to most people, but do audiences like it more or less than The Winter Soldier? I don’t know, something to think about. I really enjoyed this movie, I highly recommend it to big action lovers, and anyone who is looking for a good movie that they’ll remember for a long time. Stay tuned for more reviews. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!
Scene Before 