Movie review: Captain America: Civil War

The government has had enough collateral damage by the Avengers and wants them reined in under U.N. control. With Iron Man agreeing, and Captain America refusing, the two quickly become foes and the Avengers divided in a less than civil war.

Chris Evans (Steve/Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Tony/Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha/Black Widow), Sebastian Stan (Bucky/Winter Soldier), Anthony Mackie (Sam/Falcon), Don Cheadle (Rhodes/War Machine), Jeremy Renner (Clint/Hawkeye), Chadwick Boseman (T'Challa/Black Panther), Paul Bettany (Vision), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda/Scarlet Witch), Paul Rudd (Scott/Ant-Man).

The Avengers are keeping us safe but some collateral damage has driven the governments of the world to call for them to be controlled by the United Nations. While Tony and a few others agree, Steve and others do not, resulting in a rift that degenerates into a battle between the two factions.

While this sounds good on the surface, the film feels ridiculously rushed and thin on both plot and character development. The premise itself is thin to begin with, followed by some of the Avengers submitting to government control which is hard to believe. The film then continues with some ridiculously large plot holes and timeline issues. Stark mentoring SpiderMan is ridiculous, as are some other contrived plot points. As a result the film feels like a forced drama with a minor focus on CGI.

As usual, acting was very well done from everyone involved which, with a star studded cast like this, requires more space to comment upon than we have here. Suffice to say, acting was top-notch and enjoyable as always.

Camera work, sets, and backgrounds were nicely done but degraded by some lower quality CGI that was absolutely obvious and rough. Surprising since CGI appears to have been a focus of the film. Action scenes were quite good, numerous, and another obvious focus of the film. Dialogue was decent, as was sound and soundtrack.

Overall Captain America: Civil War is a nicely done superhero gang war, but nothing more. CGI is disappointing, the plot is swiss cheese and muddies the timeline, and character development is stalled. Superhero fans may enjoy this one, but Marvel fans may be somewhat disappointed.

With plenty of violence both graphic and intense, and some mild profanity, this should be fine for teens and above.

Released: 2016
Reviewed: 12.14.16
Star rating: 3 out of 5
Genre: Action & Adventure, Comic Book Superheroes, Action Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action Thrillers

copyright ©2016 Dave Riedel