Marvel's Biggest Misstep?

Rating: 1/10 (13 April 2018)

In the same year of the well constructed Deadpool and the horrid Suicide Squad this movie nestles within competent and moronic. Joe and Anthony Russo two phenomenal directors who brought the thrilling Winter Soldier film in 2014 lost all of their style and interest in favour of a bombastic light show with little substance and minor moments of actual content worth the price of admission. It is comparable to the likes of pro wrestling. You come for the commercialization, colorful costumes, special moves, and decent one liners. These flicks are not known for there fascinating and ideology challenging plots. But with our titular characters coming to blows in what was hyped up as the battle that would tear the avengers apart, it feels shallow. The traits of Tony and Steve are entirely stripped in favor of orchestrating a conflict that will get our heroes into their suits to crack more jokes and make light of a terrorist manipulating a war victim into commiting atrocities. If you wanted a movie filled with silly jokes for kids, then make it that. The tone of this film feels as inconsistent as teenaged emotions (which is to say that is 50% of the demographic) and that is not a good thing. Not a single hero acts like themselves or what they were built up to be. Tony's guilt is actively the only sensible thing that propels the conflict. Caps motivations are so out of left field to me that it feels so coporate you can see the shadow of disney executives in some frames. Furthermore for a movie with such a large budget you could make it look as if your actors are in their suits and not rendered onto a PS2 era graphic. Not to mention the colour palette (dark grey or light grey), cinematography, shot composition, acting, and a million other factors that make this high budget hollywood flick feel like it was made by an Indie film stuido (many of whom could do far better.). For a film hyped up to have insurmountable stakes it feels like all of our favourites are made of rubber and only get hurt when the plot demands it. Say when Colonel James Rhodes falls from a height that would kill a normal man with or without a super suit becomes only paralyzed and not oh I don't know, dead? Another example of this is when Scarlet Johansson's Natasha Romanoff lays off the nigh invulnerable Black Panther with a small tazer. I understand it is a fictional universe with giant men but they could retain some level of consistency with their own take on logic. But to some up and quit my annoyed rambling, Captain America: Civil War is a bad movie in a year of horrible duds. The fights are shallow and obviously made to sell toys. The "adult" moments are forced and scarcely placed. The tension is nonexistent and our focal heroes are so out of character you cannot remember a single moment when they were actually likeable. The film is an example of seeing the success of a character and going the opposite direction of why people adored and related to them in the first place.