A "Casual Fan" Review - Captain America: Civil War [SPOILERS]

Before you ask, no, I haven’t read any of the comic books. My opinion is probably biased as hell, but that’s what happens when you’re just a casual fan of something.

The third installment of the Captain America franchise, directed by the Russo brothers, is probably the best yet, and that’s saying a LOT for someone who usually skips sequels and trilogies.

Now that the Avengers don’t have a guardian (S.H.I.E.L.D.) the UN feels they need to step in and tell the Avengers what to do. They’ve killed a lot of innocent bystanders and a majority of the Earth’s countries are getting tired of the Avengers’ shit.

The rub? Tony and Black Widow decide adult supervision is necessary and Captain America is all like, “What the hell, dudes? I’m not signing this shit.” Things escalate from there. I don’t need to tell you. You saw the movie.

CACW falls into the same Marvel tropes as the movies that came before it. There’s a whole lot of set-up and very little resolution. It’s a gateway movie, setting up things to come (and sometimes things it never delivers…like Thanos. Where the heck is Thanos?)

There’s awesome visuals and snappy dialogue, a few jokes, not to mention, the movie features a whole lot of shaky-cam action sequences that make no sense visually, but I’m sort of used to it by now.

Anyway, here’s a few things I couldn’t help but love.

1.) The Subtle Shout Out to #BlackLivesMatter:

Alfre Woodard plays “Miriam,” a grieving mother whose son’s life was inadvertently cut short when a building fell on him during an Avengers brawl. She angrily presses her son’s photo to Tony’s chest. In the next scene, Tony shows the rest of the team the photo and gives a speech on how the boy had so much potential to do great things, but now they’ll never know. You'd have to be dead asleep to miss what the moving was doing here.

2.) Spider Man:

But who doesn’t like Spiderman? The fact that they cast an actual teenager this time. The fact that we don’t have to slog through his origin story a third time. The fact that Aunt May and Tony Stark were totally making googly eyes at each other. I even loved his quips and how he couldn’t stop fan-boying over the guys he was supposed to be fighting against.

3.) Chadwick Boseman:

I won’t lie, his costume reminded me of Catwoman and I wasn’t really sure who he was until the movie was over. (Sorry, I don’t know anything about Black Panther, ok? Gee wiz!) Can I just say though, hearing white characters refer to this black dude as “Your Highness” was kind of cool.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It was political and relevant to our time, plus is was a whole lot better than Batman v Superman, just saying.