Why Civil War is the Greatest Comic Book Movie Ever

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2016)

The Super Hero movie is a genre (note: CBM is not) which all of us have come to cherish and criticize for our own reasons and through our own lens. We talk ad nauseam about which one is the best, which ones are superior/inferior to others, and all the other nuanced opinion- based, fact-backed, rationales for why A is good/best/worst/better.
I posit that Civil War IS the greatest of the genre. To explain why, first we have to look at what we want out of these movies.
A TRUE HERO. Captain America, without a doubt the fastest rising fictional icon today. I can't be the only one seeing Cap T-shirts everywhere I go? How did we get here? Prior to CW, 2 starring roles in excellent films (Winter Soldier is TOPS) and supporting roles in the flashy and wondrous Avengers flicks. We KNOW Steve Rogers now. We do. He's not a prototype, or an archetype, or a symbol, he's a guy from Brooklyn named Steve who has suffered heartbreak and loss and through his backbone of unwavering morality has persevered. We believe in his moral code, and Civil War brings that trust to the forefront of this film by forcing us to view it through not just our lens but other characters we've come to appreciate like Iron Man, as well as through the eyes of our fictional counterparts, the typical citizen of MCU's Earth.
A SPECTACULAR FIGHT. AIRPORT AIRPORT AIRPORT. Holy Sh!t! I was riveted for 20 minutes straight by that set piece. It combined scores of characters we love with different and nuanced power-sets clashing together with kinetic and jarring results. Never has there been a better fight in CINEMA than this one here. Civil War is an embarrassment of riches in this department as the climactic battle between Bucky, Cap and Steve is core-cutting, pulpy, madness. The Romania escape scene, with the stairwell battle -> rooftop Buck v Panther was f'ing SICK. Never has a CBM had this much glorious, character-motivated, plot-driving action before.
A SURPRISE. Spider-Man. Yes, we saw his costume design in a trailer. Personally, I knew nothing more than that eye squinting image and the actor playing him's filmography. Of Spider-Man I know much more, and on the big screen have seen him 4.5 times (turned of ASM2). The surprise that was the delightful, fulfilling Spider-Man on screen, wise-cracking, web-shooting, wall-crawling and heartfelt as we've never seen before.
A CONTINUING STORY. Super-Hero genre is derived from the Comic Book, and the comic book is a serial. To pay true homage to its roots, you can do a number of things, like rip the cover page off the book you're adapting and throw it up on screen for an extra beat (which they did in this) or name check creators, etc. But the truest way to homage the medium is to create an evolving story that lays story seeds that are nurtured into central conflicts in later films. That's what we got here with the revelation that Bucky killed Tony's parents. Bucky himself as a character is also a perfect realization of the continuing story as the Cap Trilogy (GOAT!) creates this saga of Bucky throughout. The ending of this movie is satisfying, and yet... we NEED to see more!
A WORTHY FOE. Iron Man and Zemo and Black Panther and Self-Doubt and all the other antagonistic forces that challenge our heroes in this film are perfectly pitched and create a harmony of conflict throughout that the audience can do nothing but root root root for the home team. Crazy thing is, with Iron Man, our allegiances are tested and at times we sympathize with our antagonists. This is a mark of a great film.
In conclusion, in Captain America: Civil War we have the truest, the most rewarding, the most riveting, emotional, suspenseful Super Hero movie that has ever been created. Wonderful movies in the genre have come before. Some with excellent villains like Ledger's Joker, some realizing moments on screen that most never dreamed we'd see (The Avengers) and others that offered us a taught thrill-ride (Spider- Man 2, Days of Future Past). NEVER, and I mean never, have we gotten a movie that delivered EVERYTHING we could hope for in a single offering like we got with CIVIL WAR. It has NO weak spots, indeed this movie is all STRENGTH and that is why it's the Greatest of All Time.