Director : Joe Russo, Anthony Russo

Cast : oh come on, you know by now.

Running time : 2 hours 30 minutes 

This maybe a Captain America film in the old scheme of things but movies have changed now and this is a further step of the Avengers series also. The lines have blurred. It’s still fresh in my mind how much of an impossible achievement it was to successfully have all those characters work in Avengers Assemble. It was a miracle that it worked so beautifully. Civil War has to balance yet more characters both old and new. The old characters are set in their personalities now and never put a foot wrong and now new characters just show up with almost no introduction which is thought was absolutely excellent. Two and a half hours though, well it felt it. There is a lot of talking about ‘signing the agreement’ and my son fidgeted in his seat. It reminded me of The Phanton Menace’s trade agreement waffle.

The film centres around a supposed showdown between friends though, a falling out where beat downs are handed out. But I never felt the weight of the argument, as both parties were still friends even when punching each other. They were basically having a family spat at worst. But that mid movie slap fight is a hugely funny and entertaining piece of film making which has brilliant choreography since all players have to be doing something with their skills set against another skill set, and all at the same time. Marvel seem to excel in keeping the funny moments and that just makes the scene pop. At the mid section point, I and the audience were in full swing, basically because of the star player, the web swinging Spider-man who steals the show even as Peter Parker. THIS IS HOW YOU DO SPIDER-MAN!

After the highlights of this battle I felt the film slow again though and you realise there’s all the wrapping up to be done and it was all a big mouthful to take. I felt like I’d over eaten afterwards especially as we all have to wait to see the rest of the movie during the credits and then after the film credits have passed. It’s exhausting even if you’re a fan.

This movie certainly has incredible moments which I won’t spoil here but there’s also a lot of dialogue to fill the running time out. Another great slice of this universe if somewhat overshadowed by our favourite wall crawler.
C Whitehouse