In truth, “Civil War” is a sequel to “Winter Soldier”, which is about Captain America’s friendship with his good friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) who’s been brainwashed and used by the bad guys in Hydra ala-Manchurian Candidate. But it tries to have a more complex story when superheroes act so wildly and carelessly that the high body count of civilian casualties as collateral damage in their heroism become unacceptable.
William Hurt and Martin Freeman represent a government body that tries to regulate the superoes who, in turn, believe that their independence and autonomy should not be curtailed by any international committee. The superheroes are polarized. One group is composed of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Don Cheadle as War Machine, Paul Bettany as Vision, Tom Holland as Spider Man and Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther.
They want to get hold of Winter Soldier who still works for Hydra and is believed to be responsible for a bombing of a U.N.meeting. Stan is, in turn, defended by Captain America (Chris Evans), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen.) They know Stan has just been set up by a mysterious operative (Daniel Bruhl) who has his own personal axe to grind.
Of course, what fans of these superheroes expect happen: the rambunctious fight scenes between these Marvel creations. But just like in ‘Batman V Superman’, we know that nothing really bad or damaging would happen in the encounters between them. There’s a lot of punching and hitting each other, plus explosions (which can be quite fun, we admit), and every superhero is given his own moment so they won’t be shortchanged in terms of screen exposure. But the best for us is Ant-Man when he metamorphoses from being so small to become a giant.
Spider Man is also given ample exposure in preparation for his own solo movie (just like what they did for Wonder Woman in the Batman-Superman flick), but sorry, new recruit British actor Tom Holland lacks appeal and pales so much in comparison to past Peter Parkers like Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. An even more bizarre choice is Marisa Tomei as his Aunt May who appears in the end credits with him.
One thing nice about “Civil War” is that it’s refreshingly bright and light compared to the Batman-Superman flick which is so dark and gloomy. Robert as Tony Stark continues to dish out his funny and cynical one-liners, even engaging in hilarious banter with Spidey after Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts suddenly goes missing. But still, they’re not as hilarious as Ryan Reynolds in “Deadpool”. Director Anthony and Joe Russo are not that good in comedy, as they already showed before in “You, Me and Dupree”. The movie’s pacing is so slow and surely lacks the comic sizzle of an Avengers movie or the acumen of directors Jon Favreau (who chose to do “Jungle Book”) and Josh Whedon who have a better sense of fun.
