Captain America: Civil War

A new Marvel era begins with Civil War. Not only because the film introduces new players to the stage with unusual ease, but also because it definitely opens the door to a dimension left completely aside in the first, and partly also in the second Avengers. Civil War closes the gap between the "down-to-earth" series Daredevil and the escapist blockbusters, while at the same time showing DC and Warner quite indiscriminately what a careful character and story build-up is for. There may be cliché in the middle of the story, but Brühl, as a mysterious mover, is an unusually civil and believable (semi) villain. At the same time, Captain America is definitely finding his role as Captain of Inconsistency - a character so faithful to the original heroic idea of the comics that in the time of relativization, everything actually becomes a subversive element. His clash with Stark is much better motivated and, most importantly, much more meaningful than Batman v Superman. The intimate and unexpectedly impressive finale is an imaginary breakthrough. In this world, nothing will be as simple and clear as before. Marvel overwhelmingly won the battle with the competition and with itself. After Civil War, you may be wondering if you're more on the side of Team Captain America or Team Iron Man. But it's hard not to be on the side of Team Marvel. Who would have thought back in 2012? (05/05/2016)

Recent Marvel movies have usually ended up with five stars and from the sequel to the best Marvel movie ever comes a slight disappointment, here it will only be worth 4 stars. Honestly I wasn't too a film similar to The Avengers, (though the new Spider-Man made a very positive impression along with Ant-Man), I was much more comfortable with a dark espionage thriller in the vein of the second one. What's odd though is that Scarlett Witch is perhaps the strongest character in the film, stopping everyone, being everywhere on time, this felt trite in places when she was one of the weaker links in the Avengers. Hawkeye with Black Widow and Vision are useless. It's also strange that we wait almost an hour and forty minutes for the clash of the two main characters, and the film devotes a substantial portion to Bucky (they could avoided it!). As for the action, apart from the occasionally shaky camera work I'm relatively satisfied, there are plenty of good fights, but again no action scene has the kind of juice I'll remember in the future, which is a shame because the lack of goosebumps in films of this calibre is almost unforgivable. Surprisingly the humour doesn't work much either and I found myself getting bored a few times in the beginning, which thankfully improved later on. Satisfied yes, delighted unfortunately no. 75%. (05/13/2016)

Three long-term problems of the Marvel movies (if we do not count the uniform unisex kind of movies that Disney regularly produces) is the absence of proper respect for real respected bad guys with clear motivation, who do not only stare aggressively, depersonalized generic interchangeable CGI action and no consequences, impacts or personal sacrifices of the characters. It has always been the case that Marvel movies are better at squabble rather than at blockbuster action. The director brothers did try to change it in the Winter Soldier, and I must compliment them on trying to do the same in this movie too. They were successful in two cases (a scam in the form of the need for a bad guy, no matter how much potential this one has, and amazing action based on stunts) but terribly failed in one, because the unwillingness of Marvel movies to make main heroes any sacrifices has always been obvious but in this movie it is even more obvious in a silly way. In any case, this time the director's duo deserves more praise, because to handle so many characters in a way so that all their intentions are clear and understandable, that new players are properly introduced and do not act as useless as the fifth wheel, that the tension is tangible (unfortunately only in the final) and despite the escalation (although it is more required by the script than the movie itself) and the ambivalence of opinions of both parties, it kept the style of minor exaggeration and on top of all that, all the characters do their job and have enough space. Obviously, even much more experienced movie makers often fail in this department. On the contrary, they did not handle the footage well. It is not lengthy, but it has more sequences with very slow pace than would be appropriate. Other flaws include the epileptic camera in action scenes, and that the whole trifling dispute is more like a pub brawl of a few individuals than a war, let alone a civil war. (05/04/2016)

Marvel filled the hero cloning device and then turned on the uniformity generator. When these heroes, profiled long ago, spend the first hour verbally tapping each other to find out how much they prefer diplomacy over muscle, you somehow end up buying it, even though we know their motives and have an inkling of how and why they make their choices. Yet the action at Leipzig airport perfectly defines what's wrong with the MCU. The protagonists, who have stood together until recently, are suddenly about to face a massive battle and... nothing. Where's the personal drama when they manage to tell each other they're still friends between their fists landing on each other? Every move is predictable, every action guessable. The Siberian anabasis also misses a second chance in the same vein. True, in the individual aspects - the partial action moments, though none of them reach the Winter Soldier's momentum, the Black Panther, the Bourne-esque feel of the first half - it is strong and proves that the Russo brothers got it right, but as a whole, it’s absolutely draining, unsurprising, and you forget about it in a few days. Given what the film earned, there’s no reason for them to change anything for years to come. (05/05/2016)

Excellently filmed, almost as good as Winter Soldier, just with a whole load of extra frills. Perfectly balanced characters, clever story and a villain who...wins? Civil War is probably the most ambitious comic movie at the finale, but the most important thing is that it doesn’t disappoint. It doesn’t fall apart and it manages to stick to the skeleton of the original storyline (in the first version it planned just a small role for Iron Man, no huge battle of superheroes) which it then wraps in nutritious action. (05/04/2016)