No Spoilers ahead…. just a few hints
1. Captain America: Winter Solider
2: Guardians of the Galaxy
3: The Avengers
In the extended Marvel universe, this is how I would rank my top three films. The Russo brothers smashed it out of the park with their sequel to The First Avenger and eclipsed both Avengers films in size and overall quality. The story telling and character depth in Winter Solider really made for a good spy film, stepping out of the ‘superhero’ mold. So how do you follow up such a great film? You try to rectify the mistakes made in Age of Ultron and make a great Avengers film under the guise of Captain America 3.
Panther Power
The general idea of a sequel is to make it bigger and (hopefully) better than its predecessor, expanding on everything you loved about the original- enter The Avengers. Bringing in beloved characters from the existing franchise and introducing new faces (Black Panther) is surely a step in the right direction?
Right?
Marvel Sony Team Up
As work on the script started, there were rumors that Marvel was working on a deal with Sony to bring Spiderman into the Marvel cinematic universe, and with it came great excitement. The buzz for this film was reaching new heights as it was eventually announced (there were a few moments when it looked like the deal was dead in the water) that Spiderman was not only going to be recast, but he was going to feature in Cap 3. With the same writers, directors and studio as the previous films, this movie was certainly moving in the right direction from day one.
Cap 3 pits Steve Rogers against Tony Stalk (Iron Man) and splits the team down the middle creating a civil war amongst superheroes. HMV is having my life by offering either a Captain America steel book blu ray or an Iron man steel book cover and I can’t decide which side I’m on!! This is a very personal story for Steve Rogers, it delves deep into his loyalty for his best friend and the loyalty of those around Cap. His stance in the civil war comes from a position of love and standing by his peers. Iron man’s is more of a fear of failure, knowing that he is a man in an iron suit, knowing that there are greater powers, how can he help regulate this?
Similarities To The Comic
The film follows the general idea of the comic of the same name, during a superhero/villian altercation innocent lives are lost and the government step in to create a hierarchy amongst the Avenger elite. Naturally this stance fits well with Tony Stark but not with Captain America who has seen the corruption of governing powers in the previous film and believes it should be his own choice if he were to put his life on the line to save others.
This film really gives each personality enough character development, screen time and dialogue bar it’s main villain. You have many hero’s in this story and they all get to play their part and shine, Black Panther is amazing, Ant Man really pulls the laughs and Spiderman is a revelation to the point I was left angry as I wanted more of him in the film. Vision is a guy who could easy defeat most of The Avengers, so his love for Scarlet Witch holds him back from the fight and its a smart move by the writers to acknowledge such.
The airport scene is a blast, it’s the first time we get to see Spidey in his suit, Ant Man becomes Giant-man and our heroes slug it out. It is scenes like this that allow the directors to shine. They are masters of CGI having worked on many films FX but this film is far from a shallow CGI movie, in fact this has a lot of heart. There are many twists throughout but non to really take your breath away. The big twist comes in the third act where Iron Man really takes it to Cap and Winter Soldier. Before seeing this film I was heavily in Caps corner, I could really understand his stance in this film but as the third act arrives I found myself switching sides (much like Spiderman in the comics, although he moved from Iron Man to Cap). It is heart wrenching to see our heroes in this plight and leaves the door wide open for future movies.
Zimo Frames
The villain is the major downfall here, turns out he was pulling the strings throughout and twisting the cogs, the problem being you barely care. Zimo is a twisted character quite like Red Skull so I expected to see a much darker side to him, instead we got a broken man whom hides in the shadows and watches as the Avengers fall. He frames the Winter Soldier but rarely gets his hands dirty in actual fights. We are promised that this is only the start of his story so I hope they build on this villainous character as he has had his genesis. Another slightly downfall of this movie is that it tackles a lot of the themes in Batman V Superman, although done far greater here (BvS Ultimate cut rectifies these problems). Having already seen a film tackling a lot of the same story points although in a different format meant that although this film is great, it just came out at the wrong time. That wow factor was lost, instead substituted with “better than BvS” which is a shame as this film deserves more.
Verdict
Does this movie rank amongst my top 3 Marvel films? Certainly. Does it sit alongside Winter Solider? Definitely. Does it knock it off the top spot? Hmm I’m not too sure. I give this film a…
4/5
It would sit just above GOTG and just below Winter Solider. A great family film with a lot of heart, it tackles humour and balances it with a straight face. I’m so excited to see what is next for Captain America and our directors who now move onto Avengers: Infinity War. Black Panther looks like he is going to be a great addition to the Marvel roster and Spiderman looks like he could be the best version on scene to date. It was a win overall for Marvel who have again stretched the superhero genre and taking our excitement levels to new heights.
One Comment
This guy clearly had no love upto 26