A step in the right direction

Rating: Null/10 (8 May 2016)

I thought it really was a lot better than I had initially expected. Despite it being swarmed with characters, it never felt overwhelming or bogged down in exposition or anything. The central political conflict was given a lot of weight and significance. The first half of it was simply brilliant, very reminiscent of The Dark Knight. Then some flaws started showing up in its second half. One of the things I've gotten so tired of with Marvel is the insistence of pretty much every film of theirs to be bogged down with comedy. That's something that I appreciated about the previous two Captain America films, even if only the 2nd one was good. Here, I never felt like humor started appearing... until the build-up and the first battle scene between the Avengers in the airport. All of a sudden, all of them started giving funny one-liners and sarcastic quips. Were the lines bad? Not at all, but with everything else going on, and considering they were now in a physical battle with their own friends, it just felt like a complete betrayal to the tone and the heft of the whole thing. I loved Holland as Spiderman, but an article that is floating online said is best- he was great in it and it excites me for his own films, but he had no business being in this film or being introduced at all. He and Ant-man, among a few others, just lighten the whole thing up at the exact moment when it should have gotten even more serious. Luckily, the film goes back on track after this battle scene. The battle scene itself isn't bad at all so I don't think it hurts the film significantly, but it does sort of try to change the tone and I don't think that was the right call.
Overall, as flawed as it is and as someone who is not really a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all, this was really great.