Captain America: Civil War (Part 1 of 3)

Captain America: Civil War (Part 1 of 3)

 Yes, this movie is very entertaining and very sharp. Marvel proves they know their characters better than DC ever could. Civil War does Batman vs. Superman way better than DC ever could hope for and that's sad for DC. Seeing all the character interactions and battles are the best reasons to see this movie. While the movie has some strong dark elements, there is a sense of fun. There is a sense of humor between the characters that you could only get from years of building an universe.

With the focus on a strong story and on characters, you can then get away with some of the political aspects of this movie, which were hinted at in Avengers II. It doesn't feel force-feed or preachy and comes across as natural because they've been setting this up for a while. Somehow, they managed to keep the story going despite all the really neat characters and side characters that join the battle. This is probably something that the current Marvel Comics could learn from the MCU. Don't be preachy without earning it in your story. Strangely enough, the detail to continuity and character interactions reminds me of DC's animated universe. It is strong with this movie.

Captain America does take a bit of a backseat in his own movie to some outstanding new and old characters. Chris Evans does a great job with his character and builds upon what he set up with Avengers II. I like that he is more or less no longer a man out of his element and has gotten use to his new environment. Captain's argument against the oversight committee is something I believe and I actually tended to side with in the movie more so than Tony. He's gone through overreaching governments and armies twice in his life, Hydra and the Nazis.

And, yes, they pay a certain story reveal back in Winter Soldier that has been carried around with Cap since then and it pays off wonderfully tragic here and brings Tony and Cap at odds personally. That is a nice pay off to the grander scale of their views on the world.

The movie does narrow down to Cap and his friends and Stark and that is a smart move.

Tony Stark is written extremely well here with Robert Downey, Jr. taking his character to another level and very much a raw level toward the end of the third act. Stark has a reason to support restrictions on superheroes. And, there is a human moment with Alfre Woodard. (Woodard is playing a different character for the Luke Cage movie.)

Stark has a point to and I can side his angle too. However, some of his government allies are a bit more overzealous with their approach in controlling the superheroes. (Ross) Both sides are fully explored. However, Stark takes it a step further thanks to some news revealed about him. This stuff was dramatic as hell in the third act.

Unlike DC, Marvel seems to really want to take time building these conflicts so it makes sense in later movies. Characters will meet and have minor disputes but explode and explored in later movies such as this one. Stark sees Cap as a golden boy that he could never live up to in his father's eyes and that carried over to the Avengers movie.

By far the strongest and best aspects of this movie are Black Panther, Spider-Man and Ant-Man.