Australian Odeon

All is not well within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Tony Stark is still racked with guilt over his creation of Ultron and the path of destruction he left behind. Steve Rodgers is leading a pared back team of Avengers, who continue to wreak collateral damage on those they seek to protect and the world has finally had enough. The UN has devised the Sokovia Accords, which absorb the Avengers into the UN as a task force to be controlled by an international committee. Into this highly combustible situation enters Bucky Barnes, who appears to blow up the signing of the Accords, pitting Stark and Rodgers at odds over how to deal with the situation.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo manage to keep the stakes high, but the tone light, making for a thoroughly entertaining addition to Marvel’s increasingly bloated movie universe. There’s no depressive ‘Batman V Superman’ nihilistic introspection here, with the quips and jokes we’ve come to expect of these characters present and accounted for. This is particularly notable in the showdown between the two teams of super heroes, in the most gleefully enjoyable action sequence the MCU has yet delivered. No character is explicitly trying to kill the other, further underlining that this civil war is just that; civil. The film sees the introduction of Black Panther and Spiderman, with Antman also joining the fray, but with one of the best scripts for a Marvel comic film each character is given enough to work with so that the penultimate match up doesn’t feel like super hero roll call. Civil War takes all of 5 minutes to introduce Spiderman, but does so more satisfyingly than the previous incarnations, which took 5 films between them. The film also doesn’t explicitly tell the audience whose side they should be on, Team Rodgers or Team Stark. Both have legitimate motivation for why they are pursuing the course of action they have chosen, and both have flaws in the beliefs fueling those motivations.The need for a strong villain, which has been the Achilles heel of many a Marvel movie, is negated by having the two likeable protagonists at odds with one another.

The Captain America franchise is quickly becoming more interesting and involving than other films in the MCU. Age of Ultron was so preoccupied with setting up future installments it occasionally forgot to be a worthwhile film itself, and the events of the Thor series don’t really having any effect outside of Asgard. The MCU was in danger of becoming blandly episodic, with little change to the status quo of any of the characters. There’s little to no foreshadowing here of what might happen in future Avengers films, focusing instead on the story at hand, elevating the film to the same level as the first Avengers or Iron Man films. The films’ fundamental flaw is the slow start to the first act, which only adds running time to the longest film in the MCU. A tightening up of these initial scenes could have seen this film rank up with The Dark Knight as one of the best comic book movies ever made.

Once again the film highlights the elephant in the room; Black Widow, as portrayed by Scarlett Johansson, remains one of the most intriguing of all the Avengers but it still yet to receive a standalone film. The last 16 years have seen five Spidermans, four Batmans, three Supermans, three Iron Mans, two Thors, two Hulks, two Wolverines and an Antman. But Black Widow can wait…