I enjoyed Captain America: Civil War quite a bit. However, that’s not to say that the movie lived up to its full potential.

If you can here looking for an on-screen adaptation of the comic book line, you’ll be hugely disappointed. The basic plot is the same: people die, the government wants superheroes to be licensed, bang-bang fight stuff. Besides that, there’s my major qualm with my movie, it shouldn’t have been made. Or at least not yet. Civil War lacks the roster that made the comic line worth reading. While the fight scene at the airport was one of the best scenes of the last 5 years, it is a bit comical that roughly 10 people dressed in tights thought they could have an epic confrontation

Avengers, jog!

There was also a lot of build up. It takes about an hour and a half before the team becomes truly split. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. At some points, it felt like the footage was just there to make trailers that would throw people off of the plot.Especially the Bucky plotline.Without spoiling anything, the motivation for hunting him kind of changes abruptly at the end of the film.

There is one glaring, irredeemable flaw in this movie, though, and that is the editing in the first act. How any screening team could allow that many jump cuts, confusing angles, and non-sequiturs is bewildering. Maybe it’s these damned sharp eyes and total physical attractiveness that made me notice something so small. Or maybe just the time spent studying film. If you’ve got a critical eye, you’ll notice.

Now that the ugly is out of the way:

I love this movie. No, it doesn’t live up to its potential. But this movie has a glass ceiling; you’ve got the fanboys that want unwavering loyalty to the comics, and the average joe that would have no fucking clue what was going on if that were the case. This is an issue that Marvel will sooner or later have to face. That or just release a shit ton of movies to explain everything, which seems to be the actual plan.

Characters also have a certain drive, even if that drive is layered or unclear sometimes.  Bucky wants to be free of his demons, Cap wants to do what he thinks is right, Spider-Man…. wants to be there? Quick note about Spidey, he’s good. It’s when he’s out of the suit that he sucks. Aunt May got hot though, which was weird. Now, dick compass aside (or pointing dead ahead) I’m excited for the standalone Spider-Man movie.

One last thing about characters, Perhaps it’s not a great idea to put 1 million “snarky” characters into one film. It quickly became a scrum of who could make the most jokes during fights. Every B lister tried overly hard to be the funniest one there. It began to feel like an open mic night at a bar for Mormons.

All in all, Civil war was good. Not great but good. As someone pointed out to me, nothing actually happens. It’s a 2 and a half hour vessel for action, which is absolutely fine. Could it be better? Yes, but the comics weren’t that great either and I’m glad they strayed from the source material. (Minor spoiler warning) I kind of wish they actually had the balls to kill someone. See, I was hoping for a miniature Hunger Games where you died if your standalone movie didn’t perform well. But I guess the background characters may be useful someday when they need extras for the Canadian Avengers.

8.0/10