Lights, camera;--action! and...more action...

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2016)

Civil War was a blast and a hell of a ride, and even though it wasn't masterful film making, it was a beautiful comic book action film, teaming with coolness and jaw-dropping fight-choreography. However, it lacked something that the 2nd movie had, which in my mind, is the best Marvel film since the first Iron Man. The reason why those movies were so great was because they were paced better; had less characters crammed into the plot.
Civil War dragged in the beginning because it treads on a topic that has been way overused in superhero films, and that is, of course, the debate on whether or not Superheroes should operate on their own or with government sanction. The villain in this film was no super villain, and had way too little screen time I thought. I actually thought he was pretty interesting, but seemed to serve as a sub-plot. His motives were unknown for most of the film, but when we found out what they were, I realized that his motives carried a real world gravitas to them, and felt similar to the motives of many of America's real enemies, or more generally speaking, the modern west's enemies, who resort to terrorism usually because their loved ones were killed in wars started by NATO countries;-or in this movie's case, wars started by The Avengers. I wonder how many villains exist out there in the real world, trying to destroy western countries from within. It was pretty frightening to think about.
If you took all the Marvel films and viewed them in order, Civil War would be the filler episode. Yes, Black Panther was introduced, and a new Spider Man, but they only convoluted the story. I can't help but wonder how long this movie might had been if you took away all the action scenes. The entire plot could have been compressed into a single episode of Agents Of Shield. Spider Man was hardly relevant in this film. He was thrown into the movie for comedy only, and if he didn't matter enough for me to like him, despite the levity he brought to what was one of the gloomier Marvel stories as of late.
Black Panther was fantastic, loved his graceful and unique fighting style, but he deserved to be introduced into the MCU with his own movie first. Black Panther's quest for vengeance was so unwarranted, given the fact that we already knew he was fighting the wrong guy the entire film, and in a sense, he also seemed to know it too, but still fought Bucky despite not having evidence that he murdered his father. Same goes for the new Spider Man. He had no motive to fight other than the fact that he was following Tony Stark's orders, and like Black Panther, they did nothing but make this film feel convoluted. I think my favorite co-stars were Vision and Scarlet Witch, who were the only ones who seemed to have a reason to fight in this movie. Paul Bettany was great as the stoic and wise Vision.
Still, a fun film that I may see again. I thought there were way too many jokes during the airport scene, which was beautiful, but lacking in seriousness and tension. Seeing Hawkeye and Black Widow crack jokes as they beat on each other was cringe worthy at times. These are two characters that are so close, that seeing them fight over the reasons they did were just absurd. Nevertheless, the fights were so cool that I just blocked out the audio. On a positive note, the final act fight between Bucky, Cap, and Tony had much more drama, and like I said, was very heart breaking to watch.
7/10