Marvel continues in style

Rating: 6/10 (1 December 2018)

"Captain America: Civil War" is the third biggest commerical success movie-wise from 2016 and of course this was a new installment to the Marvel Avengers franchise. The title here makes it sound like a Captain American film and while he probably does have more screen time and more significance than pretty much all the other characters, he is not at the very center of it all as much as you could think from the title. But first things first: The directors are brothers Anthony and Joe Russo and they are Emmy winners just like their writers here Chris Markus and Stephen McFeely with whom they collaborated on other occasions too, also on a previous Captain America movie. But back to this one here. With the exception of Hulk and Thor, you have all the Avengers in here basically, some very brief only, but others with more screen time. And Spider Man joins the gang too. Plus Black Panther before his own movie. At 2 hours 30 minutes roughly, it is a really long film, even for a Marvel movie. The main antagonist this time is played by Daniel Brühl, but he is really more of a schemer than a villain. On one occasion towards the end he says something along the lines of the Avengers having defeated much stronger opponents, so his only chance to destroy them is to cause conflict from within, which means provoke the Avengers in going up against one another. And he does come pretty close in fact, for example when showing us how Iron Man's parents were killed. There is a civil war between two groups of Avengers eventually and the original cause of conflict refers to innocent victims during fights between Avengers and super villains. Are they evitable? How much guilt do the Avengers carry with them? These innocent victims also explain Brühl's character's motives, even if somehow this explanation did feel a bit weak to me given the huge uproar it creates with Avengers fighting each other for death and life. Oh well maybe Thor's physical superiority as well as Hulk's muscles would not have fit in there. Then again, they probably won't care too much about human victims either. C.A. could have needed this duo I suppose.
All in all, it was an okay movie I think, not among the best or worst the Avengers have to offer, certainly not as good as Infinity War, but better than Age of Ultron for example. And the story felt pretty creative as well, certainly different for once and the idea of the actual conflict and how it is like a battle from within this time, not the traditional fight against a powerful enemy (Thanos anyone?) made for a nice change. The late Stan Lee has perhaps his funniest cameo in any Avengers film here and I already wondered if I had overlooked him this time because he entered the movie so late. As for the cast list all in all, it is really a star-studded ensemble, but yeah obviously this was going to be another big hit, that much was safe, so it should not come as a surprise to anybody that the likes of Tomei, Freeman, Hurt and Slattery are included in here. For me the last two were really a nice little surprise as I think Hurt is easily among the finest actors from his generation and how can you not love John Slattery, Mad Men fan or not. Shame he was gone so quickly. Yes there are a few aspects I did not like, but these weren't too frequent. One was fairly considerable though, namely how quickly Stark changed his mind eventually and reunited with his old buddies, even if they were criminals now. This left a bit of a sour note overall without a doubt. Also seeing tiny Spider Man being able to stand up against the real superheroes did not feel too realistic, he really seemed like a liability to me with his lack of experience. But for me, the presence of Ant-Man, regardless of him being small, normal-sized or a giant was very welcome. Love Paul Rudd and the character, maybe even my favorite from the whole gang. I probably don't need to make a recommendation here as honestly, if you consider watching this one, you should have seen enough Marvel material already to decide for yourself, but if I had to, it would be a positive recommendation for sure, not an enthusiastic one, but yeah, the good aspects here are far more frequent than the weaker aspects. A bit surprised this one did not get in at the Oscars at all. Go see it nonetheless. Oh well, pretty much everybody already has anyway, right? It's fun, not entirely pointless even, and runs by quickly, does not feel like 150 minutes at all.