High-Flying, Dark, and Delicious

Rating: 9/10 (29 May 2016)

This is the best Avengers movie as of yet.
Yes, yes, I know it's not officially an Avengers movie, but it feels like one. It's chocked full of Avengers, amazing action sequences, hero on hero conflict, a lot of quips, and some good character development sprinkled here and there.
However, it also feels like a sequel to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It works off a lot of those same themes, and it was directed by the same guys: the extremely talented Russo Brothers.
I'm kinda glad Whedon is done directing these movies. He's a talented man, don't get me wrong, but his talents are much better suited for Buffy and its ilk. It's pretty clear that he's a TV guy through and through. There's a lot of overwriting going on in Avengers 1 and 2, causing the scenes to take too long and the plot to not advance as fast as a movie plot should advance. It's all right for a good director to be self-indulgent, but while the Russo are self-indulgent in an upward direction, Whedon is self-indulgent to the side, which is good in TV but not so much in film. Yes, I know the Russos have done a lot of TV work too, but they don't feel like 'TV directors' to the extent that Whedon does.
There are less quips here, and a lot of the ones they do include feel like they benefit the story more than the quips of Avengers 1 and especially Avengers 2. A good chunk of them are delivered by or about Spiderman, who I am glad to see in this film. He's the best movie Spiderman by a good margin. What a lot of people forget is that Spiderman is supposed to be a dorky teenager. His invention was a way of saying, "Yeah, all you awkward comic-book reading teens, you can be superheroes too." I don't know how I feel about watching a whole movie based around this kid, but I love watching him and Iron Man play off each other. There's a 30 year age difference between Tom Holland and Downey and it shows. I also love his interactions with Captain America. I can see Cap being like an older brother to him if all this fighting stops.
And it is an if. The story, of course, is that the Avengers are divided by an act that would requite superheroes to basically put themselves under the control of the UN. Over a hundred nations are in favor of it, as are Stark and most of the Avengers. Captain America is the outlier, but he refuses to move, and we're in for a Civil War. The UN wants to neutralize Bucky, especially after he supposedly attacks the conference in Vienna where the Act was signed, killing the king of Watanga in the process. Cap wants to help out is friend and free him from his mind control. By the end of the story, a lot of the mess has been resolved, but the deep ideological differences that started up the whole conflict in the first place are still there. I have all the respect in the world for the Russos for doing this. It makes it feel like what happens in this film really matters, a problem that Avengers 2 had a hard time trying to solve.
Of course, when Thanos comes to town, the heroes are gonna have to band together, but I hope what that time comes, it's done well. The Russos are still directing, so I don't really worry about that, but it is a legitimate concern. The war this film most resembles is not the American Civil War, but World War I. And how did that end? In the Treaty of Versailles, which directly led to World War II. While I hope the Avengers don't end up in a World War II, I also hope not everything gets nearly resolved.
The best parts of these movies are the Avengers themselves, and this film seems to get that, as it has its villain stay out of the spotlight and put the focus on the Avengers, and said villain's scheme has a lot to do with watching the Avengers fight. It's more than enough, particularly when the conflict between Avengers is made interesting and complex. The addition of Black Panther adds another wrinkle to the fray, as he really isn't on Cap's or Stark's side. It's complex, interesting, and completely entertaining.