Reylin

Plot

The twist of the film is that the villain (Helmut Zemo) sets up the Avengers to fight amongst themselves, as revenge for what happened to his family.

It seems like reaching when a guy from a mere village can mess with the Avengers like that. It feels like scapegoating to keep the Marvel Characters™ polished and beautiful, with as little blame towards them as possible. In order to be a fully weighted drama, they needed to have more consequences between the characters.

I understand and appreciate Marvel’s intentions: they’re a corporation, and in order to increase their revenue to the stockholders they need to keep these characters in top condition and mainstream them. With the little leeway the writers had, in my book they still passed. 6/10

Characters

We’re dealing with some awesome superheroes; they needed to be portrayed correctly. Captain America and the cast were great in their roles, portraying the characters brilliantly, with emotions and chemistry between them.

The smaller roles added a great foundation to the film. Having all the different Avengers in it really makes the Marvel Universe complete: Ant Man, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Black Panther, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Winter Soldier, Falcon, War Machine, and Hawkeye. I love all of them being in the film.

The Steve and Bucky friendship went a long way, and I feel it was brilliantly portrayed in this film. Sam being Steve’s current (modern) friend and not liking Bucky was also hilarious and perfect. The trio’s dynamic made that side of the Civil War very relatable, and worth rooting for.

Tony Stark was brilliant in this one. His relationship with Steve was stressed in dramatic ways that really had emotion. He also had great sense of comedic timing and the birth of a new relationship between Spider-Man and Iron Man. Tony’s friendship with Rhodey was great and added drama when Rhodey became hurt. The stakes were high in that last fight between Tony and Bucky/Steve.

Black Panther’s introduction was terrific, and I can’t wait for that character’s solo movie. I loved the mystery to him at first; they really locked onto that before fleshing out his character. He also brought stability to the chaos at the end, when he had words of wisdom to give to the villain (and the audience).

The Characters Category is not a 10/10 though, because of the romance between Captain America and his ex-sweetheart’s granddaughter, which felt forced. There was no buildup, just the end result. I didn’t feel any connection between them in that relationship. It didn’t need to be in the film, as they could’ve just taken out the involvement entirely. It’s also creepy; going out with your ex-sweetheart’s granddaughter… what are you doing Steve? 9/10

Emotions

Excitement: Booming with excitement, that’s always the central emotion in a superhero movie. There were lots of cool fights and an amazing chase scene. It was one of the most exciting films of 2016 (after Rogue One, of course).

Hilarity: Marvel movies are always funny. I am always satisfied in the theater when going to an MCU release. The one-liners and jokes added in are funny.

Fear:  There was some fear of loss in this film, especially the conflict about severing the Avengers team in half. When Rhodey was down and possibly died, there was a fear of loss of the friendship between Iron Man and Captain America, which had the possibility of turning into hate. They did a decent job of conveying fear in a family-friendly way, bringing extra drama to the storyline.

Sadness: There could have been more sadness in the film, as there was no heavy loss, which is disappointing since it’s a movie about a conflict between friends.
Rhodey didn’t die, Tony and Steve are not enemies - they’re “kind of” friends? It was weird at the end. But there were enough of the other emotions to bring it up to 9/10.

Color

Gray tones were conveyed with mainly streets and cement. The overall colors of the movie are boring, other than the colors of the super-suits. Marvel needs to add a better color palette into their MCU movies, like they did with Guardians of the Galaxy. Color always adds to film.

There is also a lack of racial diversity in the Avengers. Besides Scarlet Witch being from the fictional country of Sokovia, there are 3 black men and all the other heroes are white. With only 2 women in the Avengers, the racial diversity is at the least better than that, with 4/10

Nostalgia Factor

Classic Super Heroes = +12
Civil War comic source = +3
Good Spider-Man Introduction (finally) = +3
Total = +18