Captain America: Civil War: blend of fun action "rojak"

Yup, it had been a quiet 2 months. DIY travel to Korea (itinerary online soon) and other familial responsibilities given me infrequent chance to blog. Nonetheless, lets make a comeback the way Marvel did the recent Captain America movie: with a loud bang.

Captain America: Civil War should be named Avengers: Civil War instead, given that so many Marvel characters that were featured, and it just continued from where Avengers: Age of Ultron ended. To cut the story short, with more and more casualties resulting from the Avengers missions, it will be soon enough when the nations decide they should not operate above the law. UN had come out with the Sokovia Accord, a motion to control the Avengers, basically rendering them to a team of pawn operating under a special UN committee. Stark/ Iron Man, with his own guilt from Sokovia, tried to persuade the whole team to sign, but Captain America head the side to oppose, with the simple reasoning that Avengers needed to be independent, free from political influence in order to battle the great evil which threaten mankind. Kind of egoistic to me, though. To muddle the matter more, Bucky Barnes appeared to bomb a UN gathering (may or may not be under influence of HYDRA, with no spoiler there), and surprisingly, a lesser powered villain Zemo (Colonel Zemo here, not Baron Zemo) was manipulating events with his own agenda.


The similar formula is followed. Many characters, both from the original (minus Thor and Hulk) Avengers, to the individual movie Ant-Man, and even preview of future projects such as Spiderman (reboot) and Black Panther. All of the actors, actress (Black Widow, of course) easily ease into their character and most of them were given ample focus (as long as do not compare to Capt/ Iron Man/ Winter Soldier). The action is fast paced, and everyone took part in the fight. However, I felt at times, there were overused of hand held camera sequence; after all, I used to have motion sickness. There is a dose of humour in the form of Ant Man and Spiderman; and also some nice one liner here and there. But, this is still far from a perfect hero movie. It was fun, but not filling enough. The movie tried to deal with a deeper layer of seriousness with the argument of freedom vs accountability, but it barely scratches the issue, choosing to focus on the action instead. While I did not actually read the true Civil War story arch, I believe that the actual story is probably better. I cant help it, after Dark Knight trilogy, it set the bar for realistic superhero movie.


Still, for the fun action sequence, the chemistry of all the characters, and watching so many superheroes on screen, this definitely is worth the ticket price. Just do not expect a main dish, its more like a fun side dish rojak.

ratings: 3 half poink~!
comments: I realize why I do not like the movie. I am in camp Iron Man, and I agree that great powers should not go unchecked. Now, back to waiting for Apocalypse vs X-Men