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Spoilers will be below the cut and may appear in comments. You have been warned.
Captian America: Civil War is really an Avengers movie that happens to center on Cap. It's also an excellent meditation on the nature of friendship and responsibility. 4/5 stars
It's impossible to ignore how closely this movie followed on the disastrous Batman vs Superman not least because they overlap significantly in themes. This movie could have been titled "Captain America vs Iron Man" because yes these two iconic superheros do duke it out. But it's so much more and the ways CA:CW succeeds highlight a lot of BvS's failures. Captain America movies have not, from the first, been feel-good pictures. This movie is not going to cheer you up, either. But it's not about "darkness" - whatever that might be - it's about how people can have very different ideas on how to achieve goals they all see as right. How each of us has different tradeoffs we're willing to make. And what it means to be friends when your friends are trying to kill each other.
Another thing this movie has going for it is its exploration of consequences and growth. The heroes have to wrestle with the fact that they (despite saving the world several times over) have devastated cities and that innocents have died. Those acts have consequences - nobody in this movie walks away scot free. Also, everyone grows. That's a credit both to the actors and to the writers here who manage to show growth almost entirely without hitting us over the head with it. Comparing how everyone acts in this movie against how they behaved in their earlier appearances you can see they've gotten older, wiser, more cautious, more aware.
Below be spoilers...
( Read more... )
Captian America: Civil War is really an Avengers movie that happens to center on Cap. It's also an excellent meditation on the nature of friendship and responsibility. 4/5 stars
It's impossible to ignore how closely this movie followed on the disastrous Batman vs Superman not least because they overlap significantly in themes. This movie could have been titled "Captain America vs Iron Man" because yes these two iconic superheros do duke it out. But it's so much more and the ways CA:CW succeeds highlight a lot of BvS's failures. Captain America movies have not, from the first, been feel-good pictures. This movie is not going to cheer you up, either. But it's not about "darkness" - whatever that might be - it's about how people can have very different ideas on how to achieve goals they all see as right. How each of us has different tradeoffs we're willing to make. And what it means to be friends when your friends are trying to kill each other.
Another thing this movie has going for it is its exploration of consequences and growth. The heroes have to wrestle with the fact that they (despite saving the world several times over) have devastated cities and that innocents have died. Those acts have consequences - nobody in this movie walks away scot free. Also, everyone grows. That's a credit both to the actors and to the writers here who manage to show growth almost entirely without hitting us over the head with it. Comparing how everyone acts in this movie against how they behaved in their earlier appearances you can see they've gotten older, wiser, more cautious, more aware.
Below be spoilers...
( Read more... )
