Captain America: Civil War

Scott F

Scott F

Pug Life
I don't think there is a thread for this one yet?

SPOILERS (of course)

I really enjoyed it. I've been on an Iron Man kick lately....watched the 1st and 3rd one with my kids recently. But I admit I've not seen any of the Captain America movies yet. (there were TWO before this one?) Let's be honest, this was essentially an Avengers film, right?

Slow in a few parts, but overall moves well. The battle between Avengers at the airport was f-ing awesome. Really some fun stuff going on there. I loved Ant Man's new suit ability. As per usual, there's way too many characters in these films, but I think they kept things pretty grounded as far as plot and pacing went.

Spider Man......eh. Not for me. (Marisa Tomei looking great as usual though...while I'm at it, Scarlet Witch is hot too) I just felt the kid was too young & doofy and didn't really read as Spider Man as I know the character. And where was the Incredible Hulk? :nads:

In closing, as far as action movies go, I feel like I've been spoiled by Fury Road. Every time things come to a lull, I keep thinking, "The action & carnage wouldn't have stopped in Mad Max"!
 
Haven't seen it yet, will check it out as soon as I can find it playing somewhere. The first Ironman was really good. Maybe the best superhero type movie I've seen. The sequels were enjoyable also. All a matter of opinion. About Fury Road... I was really disappointed. Too much like Road Warrior, except for the action was terrible with all the CGI special effects. Too fake. My favorite character though is Batman. Wish they would just get it right, just once. I mean, what's with Batman Begins? It starts out with him as some kind of white dude trying to be a Samurai. That storyline just started out all wrong. But it got good ratings. I thought Michael Keaton was a bad choice as Batman, hard to think of him as badass. Val Kilmer is better IMO. Oh well. Now I'll have to watch all the Batman movies again and follow that with some IRONMAN. I don't know what the appeal of the Transformer movies is, but they keep making them. I liked Real Steel though. I'm trying to imagine a super hero movie done by the Coen brothers.... or how about Quentin T???


MW
 
Last edited:
Captain America: Winter Soldier is probably the best mainstream comic-book movie made.

Going into Civil War, I figured it was the same team making it, and the addition of Tony Stark never makes anything suck, so it should be a great time.

And it was. It wasn't as good as Winter Soldier, which was tight, focused, and had the atmosphere of a 1970s spy thriller, while Civil War wasn't as tight, had a weak villain, and way too many characters, but it was still a great time. A very different movie from Winter Soldier, but fun in its own right.
 
I saw it last week. Wasn't thrilled. It's... uninspired. To be honest, I thought the script was weak, I thought the direction was weak, and I think shaky cam is so over that this actually looks dated. What was Trent Opaloch thinking? He was so much better on Winter Soldier.

I didn't bother with the Superman/Batman movie because comic book movies are getting to be old. But I do have a soft spot for the comic book Iron Man, and I am also a fan of Robert Downey Jr., so I'm a really easy mark for RDJ playing Iron Man. But I can only take it so far, and this film pushed me towards my limit.

I'm not saying it's a bad movie. I'm just thinking it's perhaps the weakest of these Iron Man / Avenger / Captain America movies. Joss Whedon set the bar pretty darn high. This movie suffers as a result. As someone else said, Captain America: Civil War is the best Spiderman movie yet. Talk about damning with faint praise. But that sorta sums up the problems I have with this film.
 
Is it just me, or did the wide acton shots look like stop motion at 15 FPS (I watched it in 2D)? There wasn't really any motion blur and the movement looked choppy.
 
I found the ridiculously-high shutter speeds and pell-mell camera work made the early fight scenes pretty much unwatchable. I dunno, I thought the first half was pretty boring and lame, until they got to the airport, and then it became exquisitely delightful fun. And I thought Spider-Man was the unexpected bonus - I thought this portrayal best matched how I remembered him from the comics way, way, way back in the early 70's.
 
Haven't seen it, probably won't. Not at least until it plays on Television, then I might watch, if nothing else is on. The Age of Ultron sort of soured me, and Superman Vs. Batman nailed the Coffin shut. Too much action porn with weak stories and weak characters.
 
It was decent. Marginally better than Age of Ultron, not as good as Winter Solider. WS had a much more cohesive tone and story. This story was kind of repetitive, stretched and overstuffed. And there were a few blandly shot and staged dramatic scenes where the filmmakers sitcom roots betrayed them. I was also surprised by how much of this movie hinged on Bucky. I was kind of done with his character in the last one. This seemed like more of the same, which added to the recycled, repetitive quality I mentioned. Still lots of fun moments. Loved Giant-Man. Spider-Man's off to a promising start but he felt shoehorned in here. You could cut him out and not have it make a lick of difference. Wasn't crazy about the way Vision was handled. He had a mysterious, elegant quality about him in Age of Ultron. Here he seemed sort of mundane. And probably my biggest issue, I thought the central conflict didn't have quite the dramatic charge I wanted. Other than the last bit between Cap, Iron Man and Bucky, I didn't fully buy their opposition to each other. The pieces were there but it rang false emotionally for me until the big reveal at the end, but that was too late in the game.
 
Just saw it and enjoyed it. It teetered on the edge of having too much going on but it managed to not fall off that cliff.

Batutta said:
Spider-Man's off to a promising start but he felt shoehorned in here. You could cut him out and not have it make a lick of difference.
Click to expand...

Spidey was a late addition. Marvel wanted him originally but Sony own's his film rights and wouldn't cut a deal so Black Panther's role was beefed up for Civil War. Eventually Sony realized that their Spider-man reboot kinda sucks while the MCU just prints money, so they finally came to a deal with Marvel. Filming was well underway by that point so that's how Spidey ended being basically an extended cameo that sets up another reboot.


-Andrew
 
I was honestly pretty bored during the first half of the film. It picked up a bit later, but never really rose to a great climax.

I did see it in IMAX though, and I enjoyed the airport fight scene when the scene opened up to 1.90. I kind of wish the rest of the film had been shot that way. However, the fight itself was pretty inconsequential to the overall story, outside of the whole "needing to take sides" thing.

I also had issues with the frame rate at times, which I thought might have been the 3D. I am pretty surprised to hear that the 2D version suffers these same issues.
 
Saw it this weekend. 2D. A super hero jamboree for sure. The frame rate problem really detracted from the movie for me. It was really bad in the first high action scene (hospital attack) but I even noticed it in very low action scenes as well. I read in a review that this was the first movie to use the new Imax/Arri 2D cameras. Whatever the reason, quite surprised it happened, as it seems like a huge failure rather than a conscience decision to create certain effect (nausea?). Also, not a big fan of shaky footage, which there was during some scenes. Story was tolerable. Ant Man stole the show at the airport. Loved that character.

Mark
 
It was good for sure. Not as good as Winter Soldier, but solid. And that Airport battle scene was worth it.
 
Gotta say... I'm ALL superheroed out. Good movie but there was just no anticipation/excitement there for me.
 
I just couldn't get into this film, like somebody else said, uninspiring, felt like a committee made film lining up new characters and little else of value.
The Bucky/Captain America storyline didn't maintain my interest. Shame - the first Cap America film is one of my favourite superhero films, the best of the Marvel origin titles so far, a great WW2 period action film that gave me the same thrill as Indiana Jones and those other pulp style action movies from the 80's.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top