CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

Walt Disney Studios/Marvel Studios

Rated PG-13

Running Time: 146 Minutes

Click here to watch the TV spots of Captain America: Civil War on YouTube.
 

In Walt Disney Studios/Marvel Studios Captain America: Civil War, the consequences of the Avengers world-wide actions put Iron Man/Robert Downey, Jr. and Captain America/Chris Evans on opposite sides.

This is a non-spoiler review. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. There is one MCU continuity issue for me, but is a very minor non-issue when concerning this movie.

The thirteenth film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and as of 2016 the 75th anniversary of Captain America, the movie is set one year after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron and deals with the events of the past few movies, Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, and based on the 10th anniversary of the Marvel comic book crossover storyline limited series Civil War by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.

Actually this movie is really more of an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie. At the very least, the story is just as much about Tony Stark/Iron Man/Downey, Jr. as it is about Captain America/Evans. You also got to see more of the background of Captain America's friend Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier/Stan. The movie has an ensemble cast of Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson/Black Widow, Sebastian Stan/The Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie/Falcon, Don Cheadle/War Machine, Jeremy Renner/Hawkeye, Chadwick Boseman/Black Panther, Paul Bettany/Vision, Elizabeth Olsen/Scarlet Witch, Paul Rudd/Ant-Man, Emily VanCamp/Sharon Carter, and Tom Holland/Spider-Man.

This is an international movie as the characters travel to various countries - and the MCU country of Wakanda is represented well in the United Nations. There are sub-titles in the movie as several of the characters speak various languages.

The politics of whether or not the Avengers should be under oversight by the United Nations when informed by U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross/William Hurt were very important issues. I am basically Team Cap/Evans, who was against the accords and feels that the Avengers are better policing themselves instead of the government policing them - but the reasons why Tony Stark/Downey, Jr. are for the accords are very compelling, and I totally felt for him and could go for Team Iron Man. I totally understand the reasons which split the Avengers, and I felt for both sides - which is especially sad as they are friends.

Aside from the politics, the theme of this movie is that of loss. There were a few times where I felt for the characters at their loss.

It is awesome to see the Avengers using their full powers and fighting abilities fighting each other. Even without their powers, they are incredible hand to hand martial artists. Also, the number of Avengers, despite the fact that they were split up, makes me appreciate just how powerful a group of Avengers really are - and why there needs to be some kind of oversight with this kind of power. Some of the action scenes were very dramatic done with film strobe usage.

Introducing Black Panther on his 50th anniversary and one of the first black superheroes in American comics, as well as introducing Spider-Man into the MCU was awesome. Black Panther/Chadwick Boseman was done right - and Spider-Man/Holland was awesome and actually had more to do in this film than I had expected. Actually, all of the Avengers had their own scene moments and made you really appreciate them as characters - especially the vulnerable Scarlet Witch/Olson. Even a couple of minor MCU characters had scene moments in the movie, which make me appreciate the scope of the MCU more.

There are a few terrorist acts in the movie - and as a member of my local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), I totally sympathized with the first responders dealing with the aftermath of those acts in this movie. It also brings home the idea of world events being bought into the movie.

There is an intense helicopter scene, that hopefully was done with CGI, that was incredible.

For Stan Lee fans, his cameo is at the very end of the movie. You can enjoy the movie without worrying about missing his cameo.

I saw the film at a 9:00 Saturday morning showing and the theater was half-full. There were a lot of kids in the theater. I can only recall one language word in the movie and that was as a reaction word from Spider-Man and is not used as a graphic language word. In fact, the kid behind me had more of a reaction to a simple kissing scene than that one word.

There are two after-credits scenes. In my theater, a lot of people left after the first after-credits scene, but there were still a few people who stayed for the second after-credits scene. It is curious that one of the after-credit scenes in Ant-Man was used in this movie.

Spider-Man will return.

Click below to watch a trailer of Captain America: Civil War from YouTube.



Click below to watch another trailer of Captain America: Civil War from YouTube.



Click below to watch the Team Cap and Team Iron Man trailers of Captain America: Civil War from YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 146 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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42

Warner Bros.

Rated PG-13

Running time: 128 Minutes



Click below to watch the 42 trailer.



In Warner Bros. 42, World War II is over and America's baseball players return home from the war to the game of baseball. Brooklyn Dodgers team executive Branch Rickey/Harrison Ford wants to increase attendance - by bringing in a black player, Jackie Robinson/Chadwick Boseman.

Based on the true story of Jackie Robinson and the part he played in American history, and written and directed by Brian Helgeland, this biographical movie basically showed Robinson's/Boseman's 1946 season with the Montreal Royals in Panama and Robinson's/Boseman's first season as a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947. I am rather surprised that this is only the second theatrical biography of Jackie Robinson - with the previous one, The Jackie Robinson Story in 1950 which stared Robinson as himself. Although some of the material was created for dramatic purposes, such as Pee Wee Reese's line about the Dodgers someday wearing the number 42 - which in reality was actually said by Dodgers outfielder Gene Hermanski in 1951 - I felt that I got to know Jackie Robinson and got a glimpse of what his life was about. It was incredible to see what an all around great player Robinson/Boseman was, and Boseman went through weeks of baseball training to prepare for being such a great player. With Birmingham, Alabama's Rickwood Field - the oldest surviving professional baseball field in the U.S. - being used in the movie, the baseball stadiums felt very authentic for the time period. It was great to hear about and see such famous names of Dodger baseball, such as Leo Durocher/Christopher Meloni and Pee Wee Reese/Lucas Black in the movie.

Because there was a huge crowd for the Negro League Baseball players, Rickey/Ford wanted to bring that crowd to Major League Baseball. Granted, Rickey/Ford had a great respect for the talent of the Negro players and really wanted to bring that talent to the game and breaking the baseball color barrier instead of being that interested in the money. To see Robinson/Boseman signing the contract to be a Brooklyn Dodger was a great moment to see for me.

The prejudice at that point of time after WWII was intense. You can kill for them, but you can't play for them. Certainly the Dodgers did not want Robinson/Boseman playing for them, let alone the entire baseball league. The most graphic display of the Major League's prejudice was the Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman/Alan Tudyk's treatment of Robinson/Boseman. I had never knew that the Dodgers had a petition going that they would not play with Robinson/Boseman. Considering Robinson's/Boseman's supposed temper, which was why he got court-martialed while he was in the Army, I was expecting to see Robinson/Boseman to be seething most of the time while playing baseball and trying to hold in his temper. I felt that Robinson/Boseman was too laid back in the movie while everyone was insulting him. Actually, I felt that there was more tension shown with Robinson/Boseman in the trailer than what there was shown proprotionately in the movie. Robinson's/Boseman's court-martial was only just mentioned in the movie and they did not go into it. The story of Robinson's racist court-martial is more covered in the TV movie The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson.

Seeing Robinson's/Boseman's wife Rachel Robinson/Nicole Beharie encounter a White's Only restroom for the first time emphasized the difference between their California home and the rest of the country. It reminded me of my Asian Filipino cousin's travels in the Southeast with her white American husband.

What got to me was how much of a hero Robinson/Boseman was to the black kids, which was incredible - while the prejudice of a white kid in the stands was disturbing to me and my boss, who saw the film before I did. Actually, the movie made me think of the red tagged You're Black, They're White segment in the raunchy film Movie 43 that in a sense represents blacks in all sports. As black sportswriter Wendell Smith/Andre Holland has told Robinson/Boseman, "you are not the only one with something at stake here."

I must admit when I first heard of 42, I was thinking that the movie was the answer to the ultimate question from Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. While I knew of Jackie Robinson and is a hero of mine, I never knew his number. Now, I can not forget Robinson's jersey number - even though Adam's number 42 has no connection to Robinson's number 42.

It was great Jackie Robinson Day at the end of the movie and to hear during the end credits Count Basie's song Did You See Jackie Robertson Hit That Ball from 1949 which reached number 13 on the music charts.

Click below to watch another trailer of 42.



Click below to watch behind the scenes of 42.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.