Saturday, 30 April 2016

Captain America: Civil War

As I have mentioned in my previous post, I've been working my way towards a deadline this week. That deadline was at 13:40 today as I entered the cinema to watch Captain America: Civil War. I've been catching up on the Captain's last two films to make sure I had all of my Steve Rogers facts straight. With a solid base of knowledge from these films and The Avengers films, I became increasingly more excited about Civil War's release. Other than this knowledge and the new film's trailer - I had no other information about Civil War or its contents. I avoided pre-release spoilers and only watched the film's first trailer.


So as it turns out, Captain America: Civil War is about a new law that changes the way superheroes are viewed, treated and accepted in society. As a result, a rift between The Avengers and their extended friends is made. With Captain America at the head of one side and Tony Stark/Iron Man at the head of the other, the disagreement is heated and becomes personal. The Captain believes that superheroes should be able to continue their work without restraint but Stark agrees with the government in that there was an oversight and that The Avengers should be held more accountable for their actions. Released internationally on the 27th of April, the film was released here in the UK today - April 29th. So I cannot comment on the film's success on opening weekend or it's initial feedback from critics and general audiences. Although, I'm pretty sure fan's will enjoy this one and wont be disappointed.

I've said before that I enjoy the crossover within the Marvel Universe. I feel that the constant appearance of other Marvel characters adds cohesion and helps reinforce the idea that they are all in the same Universe. So I thoroughly enjoyed the inclusion of Black Widow, Falcon, Iron Man, Hawkeye and Ant-Man among many others. The most notable guest in this film was the first appearance of Marvel's Spiderman. I've been waiting patiently to see how Spiderman would be represented in this new Universe and how they (the big bosses down at Disney) would handle his crossover. It's weird to me that they've just 'bought' Spiderman, but hey! it's Disney - they can do whatever they want! However, Spiderman in this film, played by Tom Holland, provided a huge portion of this film's comedy gold moments. His time on screen was limited to one of the major fight scenes between the divided Avenger team. He's an adorable character who has lots of questions. Regularly interrupting the flow of action to praise his opposition. 

This film will clearly go down in the Marvel Universe as very important in the progression of many storylines. In fact, before the next Avengers film is released, many will have to go back and view this film if they haven't already. With the Sokovia Accords and the current status of Captain America and Iron Man's relationship this film has pushed several character storylines forward immensely. The film ends with hints towards a Spiderman film and perhaps a Black Panther one too. I look forward to the former but the latter doesn't interest me. In fact, when the Black Panther first appeared on screen (to fight Bucky whom he believed killed his father during the Sokovia Accords signing), I thought it was Cat Woman. Yes, I realise Cat Woman is DC not Marvel but there was a lot going on on screen and I think I was overwhelmed with love for Bucky who was trying so hard to disappear. 

Anyway, the film was great. The story was interesting and although it didn't have the same shocking twists that the other Captain America film's have had, the plot was still interesting and kept audiences fully engaged throughout. Surely by Monday morning we'll hear that this film has broken opening weekend records and is on it's way to breaking the bank!

2 comments:

  1. A few, slight corrections and clarifications:

    First, both Spiderman and Black Panther have confirmed dates for their movies. Spiderman will be released on July 7th, 2017 and Black Panther will be released on February 16, 2018.

    Next, Marvel Studios/Disney didn't buy Spiderman. In fact, Spiderman (on film) remains a Sony property. Marvel Studios and Sony worked out a deal where Spiderman could appear in MCU movies if Marvel Studios could have creative control of Spiderman's solo Sony movies. Sony produces the solo movies and makes all the money for those.

    Just some nerd trivia for you...

    ReplyDelete