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Episode #92 - Captain America. Vote in the comments on who had the best review. Prove that Craig is the smartest and best and most attractive.
#92. Captain America: Civil War Reviews
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I'm going for Todd on this one. Craig is dead wrong.The world doesn't have to be in imminent danger for a movie to have stakes. As a psychological thriller the stakes are more character based and that is a good thing. The world DOESN'T have to be in danger for a movie to be good and too often movies try to artificially increase the stakes by having a big special effects sequence at the end to make it seem like the world is in danger. This movie doesn't fall into that trap.
What! Ouch!
I actually agree with you that a giant CGI climax isn't necessary. In fact, we got one in this movie, but it had no weight behind it, so that shows how much good it did. Something similar happened with Crystal Skull (don't worry, I like Civil War WAY more than that dreck), in which we never feel like there's a plausible threat to anything. The main driver of the story (i.e. the civil war) falls flat to me because I never felt like the opposing characters were actually enemies. They were still friends, they just had a disagreement and some superpowers.
I still give the movie a B or B-. Good movie, just not up to my Marvel expectations.
Different characters have different levels of investment in this. Spiderman and Antman are just happy to be there, the issues don't directly impact them in the same way and they get to be members of the big leagues. Black Widow and Hawkeye are both torn between the two sides and don't want to go that hard. Vision is firmly on team iron man but not willing to use his full power to take out the other team (also he is distracted by scarlet witch). Black Panther is incredibly invested, just not in the same issue everyone else is. Scarlet Witch and Winter Soldier are the two people who are badly treated by team iron man and ross (rightly or wrongly). Both are fighting for survival mor than ideals. Falcon and War-machine both are ideologically agree with their own side of the fight and both firmly loyal to their team leader. Finaly Cap and Iron Man both want things to work out, and both recognise that it can't. They have both strongly embraced the ideology that they are championing and are both under strict time pressure to achieve their short term goals before the situation massively deteriorates. If Iron Man fails, the Army will get involved which will increase casualties and be more likely to end in the death of his friends. If Cap fails 5 crazy winter soldiers will be unleashed on the world. Neither can let that happen.
So there is a mix of minor and massive personal stakes in this movie it isn't all one note. and it ends with people who will never be the same again. the two teams will probably work together in the future but it will never be what it could have been. And that is stakes to me.
I'd go with Ryan. He seemed to be most in line with my thoughts on the movie :)
Ouch, dude. But fine, counted. (I actually set up a poll here, if you want to make it even more official.)
AssassinInWhite is only agreeing with me because I hold his oathstone.
He's Truthless, so wouldn't give his opinion too much weight.
Niiiiiiiice.
So... I am a little biased. I usually agree with Craig. And his portion was the loudest which according to the Literal Idiot's Guide to Arguing should make him the winner. Though I won't fall into that trap.
Ryan's was first and Todd's was last. And since I refuse to allow the primacy and recency biases to influence me I guess that leaves me with Kenn. Congratulations!
I'm going to vote for Todd. Honestly I liked everybody's review of movie, but you forced this choice on me. Generally speaking I like the line of thought that Todd brings to your conversations. I don't always agree with him, but I like the way he thinks about things. It's truly not meant as a knock on the rest of the crew.
Excellent choice. Todd's a smart man.
Rarely does a day go by don't use that quote. My wife has started using it and has no idea where it's from.