Excellent film with some flaws

Rating: 8/10 (4 June 2016)

NOTE: This review contains spoilers. If you haven't seen this movie you may want to before reading this review.
Captain America: Civil War is a great film with minor flaws. The basic premise of the movie is that the government and the United Nations want to regulate The Avengers because of the collateral damage that they cause, particularly when they operate in other nations. Captain America (played by Chris Evans) believes they should be free to act on their own while Iron Man (played by Robert Downey Jr.) endorses the government interference. This eventually leads to Captain America working outside the law with Falcon (played by Anthony Mackie) and Bucky (played by Sebastian Stan) and Iron Man must assemble a team to bring him in.
To begin with, I really liked how they use Iron Man's previous history from the other movies as grounds for his supporting The Avengers being regulated. He feels responsible for the destruction in Sokovia (a fictional country in Eastern Europe) in the previous film as well as the death of a woman's son. I especially liked this scene as the woman who confronted Iron Man spoke with him privately and didn't start some public crusade against superheroes. Black Panther (played by Chadwick Boseman) in his silver screen debut is brilliant here as well. He was given great motivation for wanting to avenge the death of his father after the villain of the film, Helmut Zemo (played by Daniel Bruhl) killed him while impersonating Captain America's close friend, Bucky Barnes (known as the Winter Soldier). Black Panther has some really awesome fight scenes, great dialogue and it was great how in the end he is the one who reprimands and defeats Zemo after he sees how vengeance has consumed Iron Man and Captain America when they are fighting when Iron Man discovers Bucky was the one who killed his parents while being brainwashed many years ago. I looked forward to seeing Boseman as Black Panther again in the 2018 movie. By the end, you could tell that even the writers had a difficult time with who they should side with and to me that is the sign of a great film. I also like how everyone in the film remained true to themselves even in the face of all this tension. I especially enjoyed when Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) says to Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner), "but we're still friends, right?" even though they are on opposite sides. You can also tell all the characters care for each other's well being, like when Falcon asks Iron Man if Rhodey (played by Don Cheadle) is okay after he is shot down during one of the fight scenes.
This movie is not without a minor fault however. Personally I wish that we had more scenes with Helmut Zemo to get a deeper sense of his motivations and his plan to divide the Avengers rather than the big reveal at the end. Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland) was charming, funny and arguably the best on screen Spider-Man to date, but his presence in the movie felt forced and it was clear he was only there to add levity to the film and set him up for a future movie of his own. I feel that this movie could have been better if we had more scenes with Captain America, Black Panther, Iron Man or Zemo in place of the time Spider-Man got on screen.
There is A LOT of content in Captain America: Civil War that you may not understand if you have not seen the previous Marvel movies before so it may be important to keep that in mind, but it is a great film and you get the sense that everyone in here has their moment to shine despite the laundry list of characters here. It's serious when it needs to be and it's funny when it needs to be. My overall rating is 8/10.