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FilmsSuperheroes

Captain America: Civil War (2016) (Blu-ray film review).

In many respects, the film ‘Captain America: Civil War’ is an ‘Avengers’ film in all but name. It even introduces the Black Panther and a certain webcrawler into the fold and shows how effective a force such as a Giant Man can be as he defies the Square-Cube Law and takes on anyone in sight.

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After a disastrous Avengers mission to stop Crossbones (actor Frank Grillo) and loss of lives, the team is required to come under United Nations dictates and they will decide whether they can go into battle or not. This divides the establishment of Tony Stark/Iron Man (actor Robert Downey, Jr) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (actor Chris Evans) who thinks this will keep their arms tied. The rest of the team divides accordingly with some just going into retirement. Things aren’t helped because Wanda Maximoff is considered both a foreign national and far too dangerous. When you later see her take out several of the powerful Avengers on and win, you do have to wonder if they might have a point.

Things escalate at a UN meeting to ratify the revised Avengers operation when an explosion allegedly set off by the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (actor Sebastian Stan) and Ross (actor William Hurt) is ordered to kill him. Cap tracks Bucky down ahead of the kill squad because he doesn’t believe him guilty. Of course, you know that means war and both sides bring on more members. The one thing that baffles me is how does Tony Stark discover that Peter Parker (actor Tom Holland) is Spider-Man and yet can’t find out the truth about Cap’s assertions are correct?

A lot of the above is spoiler and there are far too many surprises. From a who would beat who situation, you’re going to have a field day. The odd thing about any fights though, outside of the opening battle, is there is very little group co-ordinated battles in combat. There are fewer downtimes since the last ‘Avengers’ film but everyone gets something to do and if you’re familiar with all the characters and films, you don’t bogged down by any explanations. It’s super-hero short-hand really.

The audio commentary is from the two directors Anthony and Joe Russo and scriptwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The discussion is wide ranging, including the episodic rather than sequel status of each of the movies so far. This also saves them having to explain who the characters are each time. In many respects, this is also somewhat like how authors of multi-book series work because they establish a large fanbase. With Captain America and The Avengers, it’s just a matter of scale. Their analysis of the characters is quite thought provoking. They do concede the Vision is too powerful but from my perspective, so is the Scarlet Witch and I hope they do something about them both next time. After all, it is DC Comics that tends to have teams that are over-loaded with characters that are far too powerful, not Marvel. Then again, with more films to come, that might be rectified.

Certainly, it is also an extension of the previous films and is ultimately making a long series to follow. It does prove that the Avengers don’t need either Thor or the Hulk to beef up figures and I suspect that it will keep evolving and make you wonder what’s going to happen next.

GF Willmetts

September 2016

(region B blu-ray: pub: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. I blu-ray disk 148 minute film and extras. Price: varies a lot so shop around). ASIN: B01EWNUUTQ)

cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey, Jr, Scarlett Johannson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd and Tom Holland

check out website: http://waltdisneystudios.com/

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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