People all over the world have begun questioning the value of letting mutants and humans with powers become superheroes.
Damage and death surround them, even when saving the planet from fierce foes. The losses, too great to ignore, must be accounted for.
The United Nations proposes to create a plan to reign in the powers of the superheroes, providing accountability. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) agrees to the plan. Captain America (Chris Evan) does not. This divides The Avengers.
We say, “Captain America: Civil War means it, man.”
HOWE: So Mr. Taylor, which side will you be cheering for?
There has been a lot of superhero movies over the last few years, yet I will say this has to be up there with the best of them.
It is packed to the rafters with superheroes, way too many to mention, and a couple of new ones thrown in for good measure. There is the usual comic one-liners, lots of fighting, explosions and gimmicks.
TAYLOR: Civil War does have all the pieces in the right places. It delivers on every front, but I will say that the film is not nearly as light as The Avengers or the Iron Man films. It’s supposed to be serious, epic in fact. I’m not sure it succeeds, but I didn’t hate it, and I’m pretty sick of superhero movies, so that says something.
HOWE: The only downside I found was the opening action scenes were messy, jumpy and out of focus. The fighting shots looked shaky as if filmed on a hand cam, and I felt a little nauseous. After that, someone must have found a tripod to sit the camera on because it didn’t happen again.
TAYLOR: I liked the opening. It reminded me of a Bond-style action sequence, relentless. What I didn’t like was that the movie became exhausting. After a couple hours of action scenes, I was ready for a smoke and a pancake. Then, in the end, it turned out that we didn’t really need to watch the film after all because, as per usual, the consequences of the action undertaken did not push the story very much further than where we were at the beginning.
So there’s that to look forward to.
HOWE: The movie itself is quite light compared to the original Captain America and in truth, you could have called it Avengers 3. Nobody would complain. This is what Age of Ultron should have been and I for one will be watching this fun movie again.
TAYLOR: It’s always the same tale, regardless of whether it’s Marvel or DC now: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
– Taylor gives Captain America: Civil War 3 stars missing out of 5.
– Howe gives it 4.5 Loki’s stone out of 5.
Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon, B.C.