A good script saves a flatly filmed punch-a-thon (spoilers)

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2016)

For a film that is basically a kid shaking a box of toys and going "pew pew pew", Captain America: Civil War (CA: CW) is really boring to look at. Marvel has a trademark "flat" visual style and it really takes away a lot of the punch from this film. There is only one really epic "comic" style moment that stuck in my memory: Captain America and Iron Man tussling at the end was taken directly out of the Civil War comic ... and it looked great.
There are zero stakes in this film regarding the fight scenes. You know nobody will die. Everyone character has to be capable of at least holding there own. So there really didn't need to be that many of them outside of the huge battle royale and the final three-way fight between Cap, Bucky and Tony.
Honestly, Batman vs Superman (BvS) is a better-looking film with way more style and visual flair. It's literally the single area it beats CA:CW.
The music is also totally non-memorable. I remember going "whoa" in Captain America: The Winter Soldier when Bucky attacks Cap on the freeway, and his creepy Winter Soldier theme song kicks in. There is none of that here.
IMO, they should have trimmed down the Crossbones terrorist attack, removed the Captain America / Bucky vs the police SWAT team fight entirely, and also trimmed down Bucky's Zemo-assisted escape scene.
Honestly, the only thing which really stood out for me in this film was the script. I hated Age of Ultron (AoU) and BvS ... too many setups for future films and jumpy editing ... but Captain America: Civil War juggles a lot of plot-line and characters really well.
The Black Panther and Spider-Man are introduced in a way that feels organic to the storyline ... they don't feel shoe-horned in like Wanda and Pietro in AoU. The most neglected characters (Black Widow, War Machine, Falcon, Hawkeye, Agent 13) get their moments. The movie is a little short on Captain America and heavy on Tony Stark, but not in a way that harms the film ... it just means Captain America gets less character development and is more of a stock "ultimate hero" guy.
The bad guys are so subtle as to be almost non-existent. Conventional baddie Crossbones is killed after a single tussle with Captain America and Zemo is more of a James Bond bad guy than a Marvel super-villain. It's pretty ballsy and reminds me of the subversive way Shane Black used his villains in Iron Man 3.
Also, the Howard and Maria Stark murder scene ... wow. They could have left it at Winter Soldier merely forcing them into a fatal car crash, but showing him beating Howard to death and then strangling Maria was an effective way to ratchet up the tension and evoke sympathy for Iron Man.
The only downside is that you NEED to watch Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron (bummer) to understand MOST of CA: CW. Watching Iron Man 3, Ant-Man and Incredible Hulk would also help.
That is a LOT of referencing just to understand a single comic book film.