In a break of tradition from the normal superhero movies, where one man carried the whole plot all by himself, Captain America Civil War brought in almost the full force of the Avengers. Except for Thor, who had gone back to defend his kingdom, and The Hulk, who had decided to retire from the force, the rest of the heroes we had come to love in the latest Avengers movie have come back in this installment.
Even more interestingly, they took side and were pitched against each other this time. And while seeing your beloved heroes battle against each other may make you feel uncomfortable, the superpower competition is always something to look forward to. It’s like when you saw the X-men fighting each other some time ago. Uncomfortable, but really exhilirating.
It was proven before, and it’s proven again that loyalty is Captain America’s Achilles heel. In The Winter Soldier, he has faced in, and now he is facing it again. The choice between your lifetime friendship and your sense of right and wrong is never easy. But he has made his choice, and it seems to have led to a devastating effect.
The team was torn up. The alliance broken. The strongest superpowers against each other. The heroes became villains and fugitives. All in the name of friendship. It seems to be a too high price tag to pay.
Luckily, when all seem to have been lost, a silver lining suddenly sparkled at the end of the tunnel. It’s not a well rounded ending as we have seen in the past movies of the series, but at least it gave us some hope, and I felt a sense of relief. It’s definitely not a dead end, and there is a fair chance our beloved heroes will be back again.
Another redeeming factor is that Roger was right after all. The whole world stood against his friend, and the whole world was wrong about him. Roger staked everything he got, in a bet that looked totally hopeless from the very beginning, but he made it and he proved all wrong. Well, not really, but at least he knew the truth, and he knew that he was right. Proving it to the world will be another thing, but he will have a chance to do it. That can wait for now, at least until his friend can regain full control of himself and not being turned back into a killing machine one more time.
A solid storyline, with lots of actions and a few surprising twists, Captain America Civil War had all the necessary elements of the successful blockbuster. Moreover, with a big group of superheroes like that, there are more than enough reasons to draw people to the cinemas and fill them up to the first rows.
Robert Downey Jr. was back again as the mighty and proud Iron Man. It’s really surprising to see the once rebellious billionaire become a proponent for Government’s control of the Avengers. Maybe he has gone through enough battles to see the danger of unhinged power steered the wrong way.
The rest of the cast are also back, and there are a few interesting additions. For the first time ever, we got to meet Black Panther, a man with a great drive for revenge. We also saw the reboot version of the teenage Spider Man. Powerful, flexible, strong and agile, yet young, enthusiastic and sometimes still unstable, he has a lot of potential, and it’s understandable if he features more prominently in future movies and takes on bigger responsibilities in the Avengers team, just like Flash in X-Men trilogy.
The girls are also back, and with the introduction of Scarlet Witch, Black Widow finally has a companion. Just that this time, they are not on the same side of the fence. And more notable still, it’s Black Widow against Captain America, who all the while seemed to be her role model and a figure that she looked up to, and also against Hawk Eye, her teammate and long time companion. An interesting twist that is.
Elizabeth Olsen returned as the mighty but emotional Scarlet Witch. She was very powerful, even more than the last time we saw her, but she seemed to get confused and lost in the battle between Roger and Tony. She took side, eventually, like all the others, but her choice was quite surprising, given her background and the tragic loss of her dear brother. She is still as beautiful and mystical as ever, but she seemed to fade more into the background this time, and did not play a very important part in the development of the story.
Captain America Civil War is a good action movie. That’s an indisputable truth. However, if you ask me whether it’s a great action movie, then I will need to ponder. It has all the necessary elements of a successful blockbuster, but I still feel that something is lacking. Or probably something was too much. Maybe too many focal points until there was no real focus. Maybe there were too many heroes until nobody had enough time to shine. I am not really sure. Or maybe a lack of charisma, even in the often over the top Tony Stark. Something that I always see in Hugh Jackman every time he appeared in X-Men, no matter how briefly.
To cap it off, let’s take another look at the beautiful Olsen sister, who seems to be even more famous then her twin sisters nowadays.
My World 