The Fanboy SEO dishes out his non-spoiler review for Captain America: Civil War starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and directed by the Russo Brothers. Opens April 27 from Walt Disney Studios Philippines.

SYNOPSIS:

Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” finds Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) leading the newly formed team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers, resulting in two camps—one led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) surprising decision to support government oversight and accountability.

Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” stars Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Emily VanCamp, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd and Frank Grillo, with William Hurt and Daniel Brühl.

Anthony & Joe Russo are directing with Kevin Feige producing. Louis D’Esposito, Alan Fine, Victoria Alonso, Patricia Whitcher, Nate Moore and Stan Lee are the executive producers. The screenplay is by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely.

Get ready to pick a side and join the nonstop action playing out on two fronts when Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” opens across the Philippines on April 27.

Chill people, I won’t be dropping spoilers… not here anyway.

We’ve already established that Marvel Studios makes genre movies starring superheroes i.e. Ant-Man was a heist movie, Guardians was a space-opera and so on and so forth. The Russo brothers stepped the game with Captain America: Winter Soldier by giving us a spy movie featuring Captain America. For their second outing as directors for a Captain America movie, they return to that same vein.

Yes, I’m saying Captain America: Civil War, by heart, is an action movie with spy leanings and lots of great moments.

Civil War Characters:

Civil War is to some extent THE Avengers movie we all wanted. It’s got the almost complete line-up of Avengers from previous movies. We have some new major characters who join Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in this outing like Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland). I loved the fact that there relationships between characters are richer than usual. Cap’s got a new girlfriend, he implicitly trusts Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and then there’s also his bromance with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Iron Man also manages to build a deeper relationship with other members of the Avengers, despite not being one for awhile now.

Daniel Bruhl’s Helmut Zemo has been drastically changed to fit the story (typical Marvel). I’m still unsure whether I like how little he appeared in the movie which confirms his manipulation of the situation or I should be mad because of how little he appeared in the movie. Still casting him was a great decision because this guy can act. Sadly, his “Rush” co-star Chris Hemsworth is absent in this movie; could have been a good reunion.

Still we need to give credit where its due, Chris Evans nails Steve Rogers down pat. He knows Steve Rogers. He is the living, breathing embodiment of Captain America. It’d be sad to see him go when his contract with Marvel Studios expires because, honestly, between ‘TWS’ and ‘Civil War’ its going to be hard to top his performance.

Robert Downey Jr.’s performance is ‘OK’. Yes, for the first time, I notice that RDJ’s Stark here is a darker version of Stark. Understandable too, because unlike in Age of Ultron, there was no sing-song happy ending. Here in ‘Civil War’, he helped destroy what he built. It didn’t take a murderbot to do that. All it took was a push and guilt, which RDJ channels quite well.

Visuals

So many things happening and so many beautiful moments. I just wish we saw the movie in IMAX to get a better view of their new projection system. Alas, in this world, we don’t get everything we want. Still for 2D, Civil War was at the top of its game. Yun nga lang, like I said, the better the cinema you see it in, the higher the enjoyment factor. Be ready to go “wow” once or twice too as Civil War will blow your mind in terms of fanservice.

Perhaps the more interesting I can write about in this review visual-wise is Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther. The costume was just FUCKING AMAZING!

Production managed to make T’Challa look like a bad-ass in his suit, out of his Panther costume, and even with the helmet / headress on. It was quick to accept that this was Marvel’s “King of the Dead”. Plus check out that moment where bullets just bounce off of him like pebbles. How cool is that? Speaking of cool, the dude also fights like a cat, so there.

Humor:

Believe it or not there’s humor in a movie that already promises a dark story. And the name of that humor is Spider-Man. There I said it and you have to wait for the SPOILER REVIEW for Civil War to understand that.

Believe me when I say that “Underoos” is just the tip of the iceberg. Tom Holland and RDJ needs more of their magic for Spider-Man Homecoming to hammer the point.

VERDICT: 10/10

And no, I am not in any form sugarcoating this review. It’s just so damn good.