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United we stand. Divided we fall.

 

Captain America: Civil War, USA/Germany, 2016. Directed by A. & J. Russo, written by C. Markus, S. McFeely (from the characters by J. Simon and J. Kirby. With Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen. Original music by H. Jackman. Length: 147′. Rated: PG-13.

After a lot of epic disasters to cities and thousands of unwanted civil deaths, the Avengers are being rallied to order by the United Nations and the world governments. While Tony Stark and others are willing to be supervised, Steve Rogers thinks unacceptable to have someone controlling them while the world’s safety’s at stake. Iron Man and Captain America, already inclined to argue, are about to break the last vow and come to blows…

MARVEL’s cinematic universe and its new puzzle piece: in the same year of “Batman vs. Superman”, another battle with, literally, a ‘civil war’. This time, though, the whole team of Avengers, already assembled differently from the yet-to-be Justice League, fight themselves. If anything, at least this is much more believable, as the team was already dividing between the two most charismatic figures in the previous installments.
The Russo’s brothers movie is totally lined up with the second ‘Captain America’ movie (“The Winter Soldier”), which got the saga into much darker atmospheres and more intense pathos, and while here the greatest threat was an abundance of characters to show off with all their skills and capabilities, the only true mistake is the length.
The Markus-McFeely couple has an even longer history with Captain America, since they wrote also the very first movie (plus “Thor: The Dark World”) so that they should know how to deal with superheroes; their writing, in this case, leaves just a bit worried for they will write the next Avengers movie too: if they move on on this narrative redundancy with a movie divided into two parts…
Not that this one is bad written after all, but after the central part with the most exciting and engaging battle scene, the rest is just too emotional for a superheroes movie, a bit like “Batman vs. Superman”, and the final sequence fall in the trap of exaggerating this trait.

Speaking of the cast. Well, since the list at the top page is just limited to a few names, it’s quite difficult to consider every last one of the great actors involved in this movie, so just a few general considerations and a couple of notes.
Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans, Iron Man and Captain America, are really taken by arguing and fighting with each other, and since the credibility of this movie is based almost completely on this storyline, the movie benefits from their skills. Generally speaking, I truly loved the characterization of Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen),  and the interpretation of this two extremely talented actors has earned (and should earn) them a bit of extra space in the upcoming movies.
The notes are saved for Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland. The first one gets to introduce Black Panther with an important background construction, which can only help in his upcoming ‘solo’ movie: while the superhero sequences are enjoyable, I couldn’t help but notice a bit of excess in stressing the emotional motivations of his T’Challa counterpart. On the other hand, the introduction of the new Spider-Man could truly take the whole movie down: instead, making it balanced with Black Panther’s and most of all limiting it to a couple of sequences made the treat; honestly, though, it’s extremely difficult, even for a talented young actor like Tom Holland, to get to erase the memory of the two predecessors in such a short time, so I think it’s due to wait for his own movie.

The composer, Henry Jackman, already involved in the previous Captain America installment, succeed in the not easy goal of keep the soundtrack where it belongs, on the side. The rest is irrelevant (or better could be if it introduced something truly new, which he doesn’t, so let’s call it sufficient).

The movie in its whole gets a good grade, maybe just because it doesn’t ruin an extremely captivating universe MARVEL has created through the years. Just as I said though, the expectation for the next movies has only risen… and this is not always as positive as it seems.

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LEGGI LA RECENSIONE IN ITALIANO: Capitan America: Civil War -Recensione