A wonderful piece of cinematic choreography

Rating: Null/10 (30 April 2016)

It's always fun to see super-heroes ranged against each other - somehow it makes it more of a fair fight than creating some arch-villain who ultimately doesn't really stand a chance. In the X-Men movies, we've always had this conflict with the mutants led by Professor X constantly opposed by those following Magneto. In the DC Comics universe, we have very recently seen Batman versus Superman in "Dawn Of Justice".
Now we have the mother of all civil wars with a team led by Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) battling it out with a squad alongside Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) which presents the largest collection of superheroes ever assembled on the screen. The Winter Soldier, Falcon, Hawkeye, War Machine, Ant-Man, Spider- Man, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Vision - they're all there. Plus newcomer Black Panther.
The great success of this immensely enjoyable movie is that all these superheroes have a decent amount of screen time with good lines and exciting action. When the two tribes go to war, the result is a wonderful piece of cinematic choreography. So what's the argument between them? Well, as in "Dawn Of Justice", it's dawned on politicians that, when superheroes smash up cities, there is collateral damage - innocent people are killed.
So 117 nations come together to draft the Sokovia Accord which requires them all to operate under the ultimate control of the United Nations. Both "Dawn Of Justice" and "Civil War" can be seen as metaphors for contemporary debates in our own world: should our security services and our global corporations be subjected to more regulation and restraint?
As with all the superhero franchises, there are many allusions to previous films, so here it helps if you've seen all the earlier movies in the Marvel cinematic universe and can remember exactly what happened (I have and I don't).
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have scripted all three "Captain America" movies and Anthony and Joe Russo have directed the last two and they have set a high bar for the promised "Avengers: Infinity War - Part I" (2018) and "Avengers: Infinity War - Part II" (2019) by which time I'll have forgotten even more but no doubt be just as excited and welcoming.