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.

Follow us on Facebook: Pancho's Movie Reviews

ANT-MAN

Marvel Studios

Rated: PG-13

Running time: 117 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.



In Marvel Studio's Ant-Man, ex-burglar Paul Rudd is recruited by retired scientist Michael Douglas to be the super hero Ant-Man to stop rival scientist Corey Stoll from misusing Douglas's Ant-Man technology.

One of the original Avengers from The Avengers comic book, Ant-Man finally makes it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the twelfth installment of the MCU movies after being through years of development. Co-Written by Paul Rudd, Ant-Man is the last film of Marvel's Phase Two. Basically Ant-Man is a Marvel version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Rocketeer. In fact Ant-Man had been in development since the late 1980's when Ant-Man creator Stan Lee pitched the idea to New Line Entertainment - then owner of Marvel - but New Line found it too similar to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

In the movie, forty years ago, scientist Douglas develops the Pym particles which allows shrinking technology. Douglas buries that technology and resigns from SHIELD, when his misguided prodigy Stoll attempts to sell the technology to the government as a weapon for an army of soldiers that are the size of insects with superhuman strength - the ultimate secret weapon. When the Stoll of today continues to try to reinvent the technology to use as a weapons system for an army of soldiers, Douglas and his estranged executive daughter of his company Evangeline Lilly recruit ex-con burglar and divorced father Rudd to use his talents and the Ant-Man suit to redeem himself and stop Stoll in order to save the world for both of their daughters.

This movie is much more dramatic than what the currently airing trailers of which the media is airing now portrays. The movie trailers used in this review more closely represent what the style of the movie really is. It was great to see Rudd/Ant-Man going at it as a kick ass fighter with his shrinking technology and defeating security systems, which is what I wanted see in Rudd to be doing for an Ant-Man movie. Lilly is also amazing as the one who trains Rudd/Ant-Man. Most of the comic relief comes from Rudd's buddy Michael Pena and Pena's crew David Dastmalchian and Tip "T.I." Harris - and Pena's crew do not have a large part in this movie. The movie mostly concerns Douglas, Rudd, Lilly and Stoll.

It was also great to see the cameo from Garrett Morris who played Ant-Man at a party in a Saturday Night Live skit. It would have been great if the Morris cameo was at a party as well, in order to have more of a tribute to the SNL skit, maybe a cameo in a party with Stan Lee. For Stan Lee fans, Lee's cameo is at the end of the movie, so you can concentrate mostly on watching the movie until then. It was also great to see cameos of Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter and John Slattery as inventor Howard Stark, as well as a young CGI'd Micheal Douglas during the 1989 sequence.

It was cool to have the song It's a Small World being used in the film, considering the theme of Ant-Man and the movie being owned by Walt Disney Studios. Curiously, the song It's a Small World does not have a Disney Corporation copyright, and is the only Disney entity outside of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit not to have a Disney copyright. I also liked the story themes of Mentor/Pupil and Father/Daughter that were used in the film, making the movie even more of a family film. I admit to tearing up a little a couple of times during the Father/Daughter scenes, with Douglas and Lilly and with Rudd's daughter Abby Ryder Fortson and the love that they obviously had for each other.

With the introduction of the science of Pym particles, Ant-Man brings the subatomic quantum realm - the Microverse - into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are additional ties to the MCU with the continuous referrals to The Avengers. Actually, the movie feels very much like the original Iron Man movie on a small scale (no pun intended). It is amazing to me to realize how many technological suits there are in the MCU.

I wish there was more personality to the ants, but as Douglas says, Do you know how many ants there are? Even for the one ant Rudd seemed to be connect to, a personality would have been nice. Personality for the ants would have made the ants more anthropomorphic, especially when Rudd controls the ants to do his bidding. As it was, I felt Rudd's relationship with the ants appeared to be more of a master/slave relationship otherwise.

The film was shot in the 1.85 format to give a greater appreciation of the vertical aspects of the Ant-Man scenes that can not be appreciated in the traditional 2.35 aspect ratio movie format. The movie also made extensive use of macro photography to show things from Ant-Man's point of view.

It was great to see during the end credits Special Thanks to Marvel comic book artists John Buscema, John Byrne, and Gene Colan.

There is a mid credits scene and an after credits scene. It is curious to note that in my theater, most of the audience stayed all the way through to the end credits. People are getting hip to Marvel's end credits, which is a film-goer's bonus. Personally I enjoy listening to the music of the end credits as well as reading the various film departments and names.

Ant-Man will return.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.



Click below to watch a final trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 117 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Like us on Facebook: Pancho's Movie Reviews