LogFAQs > #970405078

Anthony Mackie playing Falcon is just cool to watch in this movie. I love seeing him fly around and do sick moves with his Falcon gear. Aside from that, Falcon is just the guy to keep it real in this movie. There's nonsense going on around him and he just wants to get to the damn point with all of these dramatic superheroes. I love his vibe and I think he's great as Cap's number two in this because he, like Black Widow, trusts him tremendously.

Black Panther played by Chadwick Boseman (RIP) also gets his debut here. Just a little snippet here is enough to really sell you on the character. He's tearing things apart, showing off incredible athleticism. Man, they just really make Black Panther look great. Boseman is also able to really bring you into this character too. He's an angry, vengeful person, but he's thoughtful too. He doesn't fly off the handle, and he goes through a whole arc. He wants to kill Bucky for revenge, which is understandable. But then you see him following Iron Man to the end. He sees what is playing out with Iron Man losing his damn mind wanting vengeance. He sees the lengths that Zemo went to in order to get his vengeance, and the bodies he left in his wake. And when Zemo explains his plan and expects Black Panther to kill him, T'Challa says he's done letting vengeance rule him. Just a great moment and wonderful arc for this character.

Speaking of Zemo, he's our villain here. And he's a pretty sinister son of a bitch. He just wants to tear the Avengers apart. While the government wanted to see them be held accountable in their own way, Zemo has another way. He wants to turn them against one another, orchestrating multiple stages of a plan to do so. He knows he's not powerful enough to kill the Avengers, so he had them kill themselves. He wants vengeance, just like so many others, and he makes it happen. Zemo is awesome here, and he barely has to do much. Daniel Bruhl just does a tremendous job and I want to keep seeing more Zemo because he's honestly one of the more interesting villains.

Bucky played by Sebastian Stan is wonderful as well. He is under control again, just trying to be his own man while everyone tries to keep him held accountable for things that were not under his control. He's tortured, and that comes across so well. They make him look so badass the whole time up to the end of the movie. They really do a great job when it comes to Bucky and he's the lynchpin of this whole movie.

Captain American and Iron Man, played by Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. respectively, are at the center of this whole plot. Cap believes in freedom whereas Iron Man wants control. He's seen too many things go haywire without checks being put in place and he just doesn't want to see it fall apart. Captain America just believes in not letting an organization control the most powerful group of people in the world, and he certainly doesn't agree with locking anyone up over trying to do the right thing. It's such a wonderful dichotomy that plays out so perfectly in this movie. Ultimately, it comes to a head when Tony learns Bucky killed his parents. And then Iron Man turns into the guy without checks being put in place. He becomes an executioner, wanting to just kill Bucky. All of his ideals he stood behind thrown away in an instant so he can get revenge. Just sublimely done.

It's a tremendous movie, and I love watching it every time. When I said that Captain America: The Winter Soldier felt like real cinema rather than just a popcorn action flick, I feel the same about this movie too. These characters have layers and story arcs and feel like real, breathing people with issues. That's missing in a lot of these movies. When you look past the giant, bombastic battles here, you get people with super powers all trying to do their best, even if they don't necessarily agree on it. And that's the sort of thing I love about the MCU, is when they can take these ridiculous concepts and make something feel truly special out of them. Civil War is seriously one of the best movies they've got in the MCU, easy.

Girlfriend Thoughts: She swears she saw this movie but at every step of the way she was like "Wait Black Panther is in this!?" and "Ant-Man is in this one!?" I do not think she saw this movie before. She kept calling Zemo by Elmo for some reason. My absolute love for Baron Zemo made me consider breaking up with her. She had a moral quandary with Sharon and Steve kissing, stating "Wait, he kissed her aunt and her too!?" I explained it was like 100 years ago it's fine please don't cancel Captain America. She seemed to really love Spider-Man which who can blame her? She was Team Iron Man at first, which threatened to tear our relationship apart, but then she soon turned to Team Cap after a discussion. She thinks Falcon rules too and was amused by him. She also really enjoyed Ant-Man, in particular when he went giant. She was absolutely stunned by the reveal that Bucky killed Tony's parents and felt bad until he went ballistic.