Review of Captain America: Civil War (2016) by Ashley M — 23 Jul 2017

The very best and worst of the cinematic universe pay off in this ensemble piece, Marvel's usual quality entertainment remains in full force and builds on the last Captain America film's trajectory; putting serious, morally grey issues even more to the forefront to produce something very different to what the studio has done before.

For the vast majority of the time this is successful, raising questions which have no right or wrong answer and balancing sympathy on both sides. To get this depth out of characters and their conflicts is exactly why the shared universe model was worth pursuing.

It doesn't work flawlessly, however, the problem being that this is very personal tale, which is really about three men and (to a lesser extent) a couple of women, but has to serve as an epic event; the war in the title means other players have to be brought in.

Runtime has to used to set up more things; by checking in on the large returning cast and establishing new characters for the ever growing cinematic universe, rather than digging deeper pacing and focus are lost as a result.

These extras are peripheral to the plot, the heroes number a dozen and this should have been cut in half. It's still as well made as it could have been given what was required of it and it one of the most emotionally involving superhero movies (the extraneous elements are enjoyable in their own right), but they mean it falls just short of being the among the very greatest in the genre.