“If you were at all disappointed in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I implore you to watch this movie…”

Captain America: Civil War is the third instalment of the Captain America series and it is directed by the Russo Brothers. Now technically this film is a Captain America film, both by name and because it focuses on the character of Captain America more than other characters, but it feels like the Avengers movie we have been longing for after the 2012 smash hit. Captain America Civil War finds our friends the Avengers being chastised by the Government after destroying cities and accidentally killing people during their escapades. The Government brings to light a solution which is essentially a contract that the Avengers each have to sign that will make them Government property. This means that they will not take action until the Government gives them the go ahead. Tony Stark agrees with this contract, and Captain America does not. Cue the Civil War.

Captain America: Civil War is almost a perfect Marvel film in my eyes. It accomplished so much in such a short time frame, basically undoing previous faults of Marvel films. There is only one thing that I didn’t like about the movie, but we’ll get to that later. I want to start with what I was most excited by in the movie, Scarlet Witch. More specifically I was ecstatic that the writers seem to realize that her accent was fucking atrocious, so they are starting to wean her off of speaking with it. Honestly, sometimes she just sounded like a regular American (which is a little unrealistic, but if it gets rid of the terrible noises that come out of her mouth when she speaks I’m all for it). On the topic of accents, Martin Freeman was in this film, and it was the strangest thing to hear him speak with an American accent. It wasn’t bad, it was just different and everybody knows that people on the internet hate change. But on a more serious note, Captain America: Civil War did something that I thought could never happen: It made me like the “new Avengers” line-up. At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron we see Captain America address the new Avengers, and when that happened my heart sank. Maybe it was because a lot of the characters were only introduced like one movie prior, but something in my heart instantly said “this is bad”. Again, I have to reiterate that people on the internet really hate change. But Captain America: Civil War allowed me to see all of these characters work together with (or against) one another and it really sold me on their dynamic. Like I said, this movie is a Captain America movie but I felt a good job was done letting the “main” Avengers take a back seat (at least in the first two acts) to the newbies. And this movie made me super hopeful for what Marvel (and more specifically, the Russo Brothers) have in store for the future. The movie also introduced a couple of new characters, and I fell in love with both of them. Black Panther was a character that essentially had a chunk of his origin story in this movie, but it worked. And of course Spider-Man (who everyone seems to universally love) was fantastically introduced without doing a shitty origin story that we have seen at least twice now (probably over a thousand times if you used to watch the old Spider-Man cartoons), and I hope that the next Spider-Man film foregoes the origin story as well. I guess now I’ll discuss the acting in Captain America: Civil War, but as you may have guessed I have no problem with it. In fact, I think it is one of the better Marvel films in terms of acting because the story is a lot darker than previous films which allows for more range from the actors. In my personal opinion, Robert Downey Jr. stole the show as Tony Stark by allowing us to see his character’s true form, while still maintaining his witty humour (when it was appropriate). Following closely would be Chris Evans as Captain America who, much like in Winter Soldier, got to show the vulnerable side of Cap (though the acting/motivation was pretty close to Winter Soldier, but that is not a bad thing). After that, I think every single character is pretty much tied, everyone doing an amazing job at conveying that the characters are getting into something they will regret. The characters of Spider-Man and Ant-Man were much needed as comic relief in what would otherwise be a completely emotionally draining film. Both Tom Holland and Paul Rudd did a great job as playing characters who were just as excited as the audience when they were introduced to the Avengers. Honestly, I don’t know what else to say about this movie because everything would have already been said. I loved this movie and I can’t wait to go and see it again and again. There is however one thing that bothered me. It is a small thing, but to me it is inexcusable. FUCKING IRON MAN WITHOUT HIS HELMET STILL LOOKS LIKE SHIT! I don’t understand why this keeps fucking happening. The can make a fifteen year old wearing spandex look like he is soaring through the air by strings attached to wrists. They can make a woman use magic to throw cars and shit, and it looks good. They can make a man in a robot suit fly around and shoot missile and it looks great. But as soon as that robot man lowers his helmet, we get a shitty Robert Downey Jr. face cutout that looks like a fucking bobble head. I’m not as mad as I am confused. Why would someone sign off on that? Why would someone say “Yeah, that looks good” when it is the only flaw (visuals wise) in an otherwise flawless movie? Why wouldn’t they say “Hey, maybe make that not look like absolute shit?” And if that is so hard, why don’t they just have Robert Downey Jr. Wear the top half of the Iron Man suit? There just seems to be so many solutions, but none of them were used. I just don’t understand.

Overall Captain America: Civil War is a great fucking movie. The story is good, the action is insane, it is well acted, it looks great (aside from fucking Iron Man sans helmet), and most importantly it is fun. If you were at all disappointed in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I implore you to watch this movie to see what the “new” Avengers should look like.

I give Captain America: Civil War an A