Captain America: Civil War personal response

My favourite movie of the summer was Captain America: Civil War which is the third Captain America movie and the thirteenth film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The plot of the movie is: the government releases a new act where the Avengers have to only go on government approved missions to prevent the harm of innocent civilians. This leads to the Avengers being divided into who agrees and who disagrees with this proposition.

The Russo brothers manage to perfectly write a large cast of characters. Not only did it include most of the heroes from the previous movies, it also introduces Black Panther and the new version of Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even though it has a total of twelve superheroes it still is balanced and gives each character a time to shine.  The plot still remains focused on the main characters of Captain America and Iron Man.

The character of Captain America has changed since the first movie, as in the first film he is used as a tool for the government to fight their battles; in the second, he learns that the government are not always what they seem and not to be trusted. In this movie he is finally taking a stand against the government which opposes his original purpose - even going as far as putting down his shield at the end of the movie symbolising him giving up the role of Captain America. His main goal is to protect Bucky from harm destroying his relationship with his teammates in the process.

Iron Man on the other hand, feels guilty and wants to make up for his actions. Although he is the antagonist of the movie, he is not the villain. The movie makes it debatable whether Captain America or Iron Man were correct. The closest thing the movie has to a villain is Zemo who is just a man manipulative enough to split up the team. His motivation is to avenge the death of his wife which parallels Black Panther and Iron Man who blame Bucky for the death of their parents.

Black Panther is a great introduction of a new character and good representation of an African superhero. Spider-man brings back the youth and fun to the character that other versions lacked. Vision has developed from being just the deus ex machina at the end of the last movie to becoming more human because of his relationship with Wanda. He has gone from solving problems for Stark to creating them.

The action scenes in the movie are very well edited and remain relatively grounded for most of the movie until the airport scene where they show off the more science fiction based powers like Ant-man shrinking and growing. This scene is one of best action scenes in superhero movies as it shows every character fight each other at once using their powers to their full potential. Constantly showing the audience things they have not seen before.

The final fight between Captain America, Iron Man and Bucky is a powerfully emotional scene where none of the characters are holding back from killing each other. Before the scene it tricks the audience into thinking things will resolve when in actuality they get worse. It is heart-breaking to see the characters you’ve followed through all the movies beat each other in such a brutal way. Captain America: Civil War was the best movie of summer 2016 as it showed the characters deal with the consequences of their actions whilst not shying away from using the humour you would expect from a Marvel movie.  It has all the best things from the other marvel movies and more, I would definitely recommend the movie.