!!!!FULL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
In contrast to my views on BvS, Captain America: Civil War was a fantastic, fun and emotional ride that had me locked in from start to finish. The 13th entry into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe may very well be its best with so many characters balanced perfectly, new heroes introduced, additional villains for future conflicts and an overall seismic shift in hero dynamics moving forward. While I did enjoy Avengers: Age of Ultron, I didn’t love it like I thought I was going to heading into the film. But to be fair, it’s almost impossible for any MCU movie to recapture the awesome feeling of the original Avengers, when we saw all our favorite heroes team up for the very first time like we’ve never seen any other super hero movie do before. Civil War felt like a make-up for the underwhelming Age of Ultron. And for me, it took the concept of The Avengers and turned it on its head. These characters that we’ve built up so much emotion for and have seen squabble in the past now get to full on brawl with each other like we’ve never seen in a super hero movie before. Even smaller characters who aren’t as well fleshed out in the MCU like Scarlett Witch, Falcon or Vision get their time to shine, really coming into their own as established heroes. After Civil War, there’s no hero I’m bored with and no hero, I believe, couldn’t use their own solo film. I certainly can’t discuss every single awesome thing in Civil War, because I thought it was all awesome, but I will discuss a few specific points that vastly captured my attention.
- Uncharacteristic Stark
The appeal of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark has always been his quick, witty and overall playful attitude throughout the MCU. The genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist set the precedent of what a Marvel movie should be, but in Civil War that comical spirit is only a glimmer, replaced with a darker, morose Stark. I’m not saying it’s not for good reason, I mean he’s been accused of murder, Pepper left him and he’s trying to arrest his own 
friends, but it’s a turn that we’ve never seen the character take, even in Iron Man 3 when things seemed the most dire for him. At first I couldn’t tell if I liked it, but on further reflection, I do like that the events of the MCU have weathered Stark, that the eight years since he’s become a hero are affecting him mentally. It gives the world context. This isn’t just another adventure for our heroes to partake in – it’s a story informed by consequential, Earth-shattering events that can’t be ignored any more. Stark’s sullen attitude personifies that destruction that the Avengers have left in their wake.
- Bucky-Falcon relationshit
Sam Wilson (Falcon) doesn’t like Bucky (Winter Soldier) all the much, that’s clear. He sees Bucky as the crazy master assassin that he was brainwashed into being for sixty plus years. But, because of his faith and friendship with Cap, Wilson puts up with Bucky, going to great lengths to help Cap find Bucky, becoming a criminal in the process. It’s clearly awkward in scenes where it’s just the two of them – Bucky being the old best friend and Sam, the new blood, trying to replace Bucky in Cap’s heart. But, they don’t hate each other, and their scenes of animosity are playful rather than bitter – examples being the car scene and when Spider-Man webs them up real good. I’m happy we get to see a funny side of the Winter Soldier in Civil War because it shows he’s not just a one-dimensional character. I have confidence that he could stand on his own without Cap or other Avengers for his own solo film or possibly replacing a current beloved MCU hero. 
- Ant-Man/Giant-Man
For the amount of moodiness Stark brings to Civil War, Scott Lang carries the same amount of levity to every scene he’s in. Whether he’s geeking out over Captain America or tossing out quips in between throwing punches, he perfectly balances his humor with the overall brutality of the whole movie. But beyond his personality, it’s awesome seeing him as Giant-Man! Going from the smallest super hero ever to one of the largest is a hilarious juxtaposition, one that Paul Rudd handles just as you think he would. Honestly, that’s my only gripe about Ant-Man and Scott Lang – the actor comes through more than the character. Paul Rudd is great as a super hero, but he’s still unmistakably Paul Rudd.
- Spider-Man
It was a long time coming, but Spider-Man is finally back where he belongs. Many reviewers are saying he’s the best part of the movie, and that’s because he genuinely is. Tom Holland brings a whimsicality to Peter Parker and Spider-Man that we haven’t ever seen on-screen. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were both simply too old to do right by the hero’s teenaged roots. Both their Peter Parkers grew up to fast and never touched the struggle of going out to fight crime and save the day while worrying about a History test you haven’t yet studied for. Even against a well established actor like Downey Jr., Holland commands the screen in every scene he’s in. He’s a wide-eyed, naive, awkward teenager who’s being put up against these god-like heroes, but he’s just as powerful, if not more so than some of them. The only reason he doesn’t completely destroy say Captain America is because his abilities are still unpolished and new. He says to Stark when they first meet that he’s only been at it for six months. We get no back story, only a few blurry videos that Stark’s somehow captured with Parker swinging around New York. And for me, that’s plenty of back story. We’ve seen Parker get bit by a radioactive spider and Uncle Ben die twice in the span of ten years already. The general public knows what makes Peter Parker Spider-Man. We don’t know much about Homecoming yet, but we know it takes place after the events of Civil War, as most people expect it would. Marvel’s been good about keeping their movies in line with real-time, so we luckily won’t be heading back to where it all happened for Parker.
I think if most MCU fans had their way, they would put Spider-Man as a founding 
Avengers member – have Spider-Man part of the MCU from the very beginning. However, when I really think about it, I’m glad Spider-Man is swinging in when he is. I like that he’s just a kid tossed in the middle of this tumultuous team of heroes. I like even more that Stark is helping him along his hero development, sort of as a guiding light to help him learn what it really means to be an Avenger. Stark he’s not full on Avenger yet, obviously, but I bet he’ll be front and center when Thanos comes knocking on Earth’s door.
- Brutality
The end fight between Cap, Bucky and Iron Man was especially brutal and emotional. Maybe this is a little dramatic, but with every punch I could feel Stark and Rogers’ friendship being ripped apart. When Stark’s helmet comes off and we see his bloody face as Cap is on top of him, I felt real fear for Stark. Cap has a chance to kill him, but luckily his humanity takes over and he instead disables Stark’s suit. It was actually hard to watch these two teammates who I’ve enjoyed seeing work together so much trying to rip each other apart. And aside from Cap and Iron Man, Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine, is permanently crippled! That’s pretty heavy, Doc, but I’m glad no one actually dies because I didn’t want some contrived, unbelievable plot about brining the character back to life for Infinity War. When the credits role, nothing is resolved. Team Cap and Team Iron Man are still at odds, Team Cap looked at as criminals. But that’s great set-up for the next Avengers. They’ll have to put their personal feelings aside to save the world yet again.
So by the end of Civil War, out heroes are divided, Cap’s leading the Secret Avengers, Stark is leading the regular Avengers and Spider-Man has new tech to play with for his solo film next year. We’re heading into uncharted territory in Phase Three of the MCU. While Phase Two had mostly sequels to established heroes, Phase Three will have us meet a lot of new characters like Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel and the already introduced Spider-Man and Black Panther (hopefully the Inhumans are somewhere mixed in as well). With Civil War, the Russo brothers have shown they can handle large casts of heroes effectively. That makes me very excited for Infinity War, which will no doubt include even more heroes.
Releasing in 2017, 
I don’t review or give my impressions of movies because right out of the theatre I can never get my thoughts straight to formulate decent analysis. But I saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (for the sake of brevity I’ll refer to the film as BvS for the rest of this post) twice over the weekend and my mind is buzzing from the spectacle that was thrown at my eyeballs. My conclusions are far from favorable – I’ve come away from BvS with great disdain for where the DC Cinematic Universe is headed, however there are very specific parts of the movie that I liked and a only one character that I want to see more from.
ever wanted to walk out and ask for my money back in the first half hour of the film. Granted, I liked the final fourth or so of it, but god damn was the rising action’s a slog to get through. It’s disjointed and contrived, going from one character telling you about something that’s happening or going to happen off screen to another. The film assumes we know about past occurrences and characters from the comics, when the average movie goer knows probably zero about Cyborg or how Flash can travel through time or what Darkseid’s omega symbol looks like. It’s either Snyder assumes our knowledge of the DCU, or, even worse, he’s going to fill in the blanks in later movies, expect us to keep up with and remember the world they’re building and have us have a realization later that that’s what BvS was referencing. And that’s probably the largest mistake that this film commits: trying to force all these concepts and characters and history on us without letting them grow organically. They tell us rather than show us – a HUGE gaffe in any story-telling medium. Marvel’s Cinematic Universe is where it’s at now in the public consciousness because it’s been taking its time introducing us to new characters one by one and discovering new concepts with us instead of us being dropped into this whole universe with its own backstory that we need to catch up on. I get DC wants to speed up the process and build a cinematic universe with the Justice League that rivals The Avengers, but tossing out stupid films like BvS that have poor narratives, stale characters and a drab, morose settings aren’t going to make us see their vision.
I generally like Jesse Einsenberg in films, but casting had me scratching my head from the moment it was announced. I wanted to give him a fair shake – nobody though Heath Ledger could pull off The Joker and look how that turned out. I went into the movie with an open mind about Lex Luthor, but came out disappointed and confused about the villain’s motivation and identity. He’s meant to be a young, eccentric billionaire heading this multinational corporation – a very millennial trope. He’s meant to sound brilliantly psychotic in a sort of “you don’t understand my evil brilliance” sort of way. I guess he’s behind the plot to get Superman and Batman fighting, but that’s not well conveyed in the rising actions at all. I never understood why he was even in the film until the end when he created the fifth ninja turtle… I mean Doomsday. To that end, isn’t it super convenient that the Kryptonian ship Luthor gets access to just happens to have all the information about the history of Krypton and other spacely things? Like, wow! Great tool for the bad guy to have and get easy access to. Overall I’m unimpressed with Luthor in the new DCCU and I’m not looking forward to seeing him in future films.
I wish we saw more Clark Kent and less Superman this time out. In Man of Steel, we kind of connected with Clark, seeing his family, his father die and his struggles during his childhood, but we don’t experience happy Clark or depressed Clark or angry Clark. We do see Superman angry – when Luthor shows him the pictures of his captive mother and in Man of Steel when he’s punching Zod a bunch – but Superman isn’t really who the man is. We never connect with Clark the average Joe. There could have been so many opportunities with him and Lois simply conversing, struggling to figure out what’s the right thing for him to do, maybe even arguing about it in their apartment for us to relate to the god posing as human. The only emotion Clark ever conveys is “stoic concern,” like he’s always analyzing situations rather than letting his emotions control how he feels. Like I said, we get a brief glimpse of him being emotional atop LexCorp in his suit, but not in the glasses. That’s why ultimately when he dies at the end and they try to drum up sympathy with a long, drawn out double funeral sequence, there is a noticeable lack of concern from the audience (or at least from the two showings I went to). I genuinely don’t care that Superman is dead and that bothers me because I should. It’s Superman! Truth, justice and the American way! Hope incarnate! Just not in this universe; not to me.
Simply put, it feels unearned for multiple reasons. Superman’s death isn’t inherently an emotional moment. After just two films, there was no way his death could have been impactful no matter how charismatic Henry Cavill played Clark Kent. We’ve just been introduced into the DCCU and already you’re killing off your most iconic character in it? It goes right along with my main theme – Zach Snyder is telling us to feel bad for Superman not letting emotions come organically. Had Superman died in the upcoming Justice League part 2, I might have felt something for this hero who I’ve spent four films with. But here, we know he’s coming back somehow, one because the Justice League hasn’t even been formed yet and two because we see the stupid dirt rising at the very end of the film. If that happened a few films later, his future in the DCCU might be ambiguous. Here, it feels rushed. Same thing with Doomsday’s appearance and demise. In a few films, had Luthor unleashed his monster on Metropolis and killed Superman, I’d be ok with that. But in the BvS we got, a big, dumb monster shows up with a half-hour left in the movie and kills Superman. Sure, Superman give his life to kill this unkillable beast, but we care nothing about Superman’s character, we care nothing about Metropolis or this universe that Snyder’s trying to build, so Supes’ death seems superfluous. I’d have walked out of this of the theatre feeling the exact same way about the DCCU had Superman died or not.
minute scene, we’re told there are other metahumans in the world and see brief clips of each hero in action. Instead of building to a team-up movie, we’re meant to care about characters who the general audience, the non-DC fanboys, know nothing about. I wish I could say I’m excited to see more from these heroes, but I’m honestly so turned off by the DCCU at this point.
suit at the UN building as it’s exploding for some reason not yet known. From that we can surmise that he’s already a prominent figure in his country. Representing Wakanda, I’m thinking that’s why he’s on Stark’s team. He believes Bucky had something to do with the explosion at the UN building and he’s summoning the power of The Black Panther to bring The Winter Soldier to justice. We see some awesome scenes of Black Panther sprinting like an unstoppable force towards Bucky who’s riding his motorcycle. He pounces atop cars through a tunnel with Cap struggling to keep up behind him then lunges at Bucky’s bike just like a jungle cat catching his prey. Later on, we see Panther and Bucky fighting on rooftop when a helicopter comes to shoot Panther. The bullets bounce off his suit like Cap’s shield. That vibranium suit armor ain’t no joke.
2015 is officially part of history, and what year in media it was. It saw the revival of beloved franchises like 
The Trivial Matters 