Solid Snake

One of the best scenes easily was Stark and Parker talking alone. The whole realization to Stark that this kid has a legit backbone to the why of what he does. Peter's explaining and he's damn near about to cry cuz you know he's talking about Uncle Ben's death. And Parker as a whole. The writing was good on him and then Holland just adds the nuisance to him. The way he moves under that moment. Not overselling the fear or humor of being a kid. Fuck.

I'm tired of a young Parker but damnit. I love good movies.

My only nitpick has to be the first 20 or 30 mins. It's fine. It really is.. but it could have been a better paced or written. It wasn't bad but it was slightly off in the pacing. Just... wee big tighter. I kind of felt it slow down needlessly.

Otherwise. I think it's my favorite MCU film. But... I think Cap 2 had it much stronger just in everything. It was just a very tight film. I dunno. I'll have to see Cap 3 again, I guess.

Marvel has had issues w/ villains. It has. You can say they haven't but they have. Loki is their golden cow of baddies. It shows. Ant others just lack cuz of the writing or the 3rd act w/ them. As good as the casting may be. Their work on their heroes leave their baddies on the low side for the most part. But Zemo? He's not the 616 Zemo. But his conviction and focus is totally Zemo. The fact that is was just one guy doing all this.. it actually seemed plausible by what Zemo has to do. It shows that he's built his plan to where we are and go w/ him and it works. And his last scene w/ T'Challa.. just feels so good. Zemo is built so well. This guy is real. And he's totally in tune w/ what he's done. For a villain that really never fights anyone... it's damn good. He's sympathetic almost if not already and you get his logic and it's not farfetched. There's pain in there and it's real. Damn near original almost today. He's a smart character. And Daniel Brühl rocks it. I've really loved where he's gone. Great introduction for me w/ him in Inglorious Basterds.

T'Challa was great. Shit. I loved T'Chaka too. I didn't expect to like the dad as much as he was in there. He just felt real. But Black Panther and every inkling of his world was interesting. He's royalty but also this Black Panther. And just every bit of him just rocks. The way he moves in the suit or even out of the suit. Loved his introduction w/ Nastasha. It just oozes of charm, respect, and both living up to their status. I have always loved T'Challa. But to finally get to see Wakanda inching so much more closer now. I'm excited cuz it's the most different of that world. I'd assume we get Klaw (Serkis) to come back cuz that'd rock.

The Airport scene? It's a fucking comic brought to life. Everyone gets their moment. All the logic and actions of the individual characters works. The humor and fighting. Even the off pairing of some of them in the middle of the fight. They all switch it up at times and you're following it and it works. Spidey in all that shit just rocks. He's annoying and upbeat and just won't shut the fuck up and the writing is sooooo good for him. We love it cuz it's just good writing for that character to where he isn't annoying to us but he's annoying to the people he encounters. Which no film really gave him good bs banter. It was there and he's annoying but the writing was never there for that.

Overall.. the source of material that the film has had to take from it's previous property entries just works. It's flowing and organic. It just feels so earned and it works. Fucking Marvel.

Solid Snake

The Stark twist? They kind of edge w/ it in Cap 2.

B5Erik

As much as I liked Civil War, I did have some issues.

One, there wasn't nearly enough Captain America in this Captain America movie. He was in it maybe half the time, but likely less than half. I was really hoping that they would do what they did with The Winter Soldier and have all of the other characters come in and out of Cap's frame. I would have been happier with a more Cap-centric movie since he is my favorite MCU character, and since this may very well be the last Captain America movie with Chris Evans in the role. Chris Evans, RDJ, and Hugh Jackman were cases of casting GOLD, and replacing them is going to be a challenge at best. Wasting Chris Evans' last Cap movie with so little of him in the film (compared to the first two Cap movies) is unfortunate.

And as a result of so little screen time for Cap, we really don't get the real world, grounded, well rounded, fleshed out Steve Rogers that we got in the first two movies. He was really a pretty two dimensional character in this movie, which wasn't the case in the first two Cap movies.

I would have been happier with a Captain America and Bucky movie (with the Falcon) and then a true Avengers: Civil War next year. They would have avoided the problem of having too many characters and too many sub-plot points in this one.

They didn't need Bucky to be the reason Cap fought so hard against signing the Accords. He would have been adamant on principle anyway. (And he'd be right - what if the Oversight Committee did tell the Avengers to do something they knew was wrong? Or if the Committee didn't authorize an action that absolutely had to be taken? Cap could have led the rogue team on a non-sanctioned mission and started the conflict there.)

And I didn't like the ending. So, now Cap, Black Widow, Falcon, Ant-Man, and Hawkeye are all fugitives? That creates problems for the upcoming Ant-Man and Avengers movies. They have to spend screen time dealing with that plot point in each of the upcoming movies - movies that would be better served dealing with their own plots and not the 800 pound gorilla of a leftover plot point that has to be dealt with.

Still, there was a lot of good stuff in the movie.

Spider Man and Black Panther were AWESOME. Chadwick Boseman was everything that I expected him to be, and Tom Holland was on the money. The handling of Spidey and Black Panther was outstanding. As was the handling of Ant/Giant-Man.

The airport fight scene was excellent, and was a hell of a lot of fun.

So while I liked the movie, it was flawed enough for me that I can't put this in my top 3 or 4 MCU movies. Maybe not even top 5. Top half of the MCU for sure, though.

Solid Snake

How would CW cause issue for The Infinity War, which they're not called that anymore, films?

It's Thanos. Shit is going to hit the fan. It's kind of the big fucking thing that trumps the Accords.

I wouldn't call it an issue for Ant-man anyway. He was operating illegally to begin with. Now it's just more serious on the level. Might make his family or whatever else situation more awkward for him but I'd hope they write something to make it an organic element. That Ant-Man film really needed more balanced writing.

I'd also disagree about not enough Cap. We got a lot of Cap. And he wasn't overshadowed at all by anyone. It's his film.

B5Erik

And they'll have to waste screen/story time coming up with a resolution to the, "Rogue/Wanted," status of those heroes. Even five minutes of time dealing with that will be five less minutes to deal with the plot of the actual movie.

I loved Ant-Man. It was as much fun as any Marvel movie. It wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot of fun and had a ton of positives - and a decent story.

Come on. This was not a true Captain America movie. He was in it MAYBE half the time. Maybe. I think there was probably more Iron Man/Stark than Cap/Rogers in terms of screen time. There would be long stretches with no Cap.

And when Cap was there he was a cardboard cut-out of the Cap we saw in First Avenger and Winter Soldier. There was nowhere near the depth of character for him in this movie as in the first two. Not even close.

And they turned Tony into a TOTAL asshole. And a gullible, foolish one at that. He was supposed to be somewhat beyond that by this point, but I guess not. One lady berates him and calls him a murderer and he caves. Riiiiiiiight. The Avengers SAVED ALL OF HUMANITY. Not once, but twice! Were there deaths among the collateral damage? Unfortunately, yes. But trading a few thousand people to save BILLIONS of lives is a good deal. Stark should know that. Yes, it's sad and tragic that innocent people get killed, but doing nothing means exponentially more deaths.

Then Tony is easily manipulated by Zemo into attacking Bucky & Cap? He knows full well that it was not James Buchanan Barnes who killed his parents. It was a human robot who was programmed to do so. Bucky wasn't responsible, and Tony is beyond smart enough to understand that.

My issue is that this was a more Tony Stark centric movie than a Steve Rogers centric movie. And they made Tony extremely unlikeable in the process! Up to now he's been impulsive, arrogant, occasionally irresponsible - but ALWAYS likeable. Not this time.

This movie isn't a home run. It's a ground rule double.

HN

Did Cap have any action scenes without Buck? (Besides the opening in nigeria)

B5Erik

I don't remember any. And there was so little Steve Rogers in the movie that it really bugged me. It was mostly Cap fighting with other heroes on the screen. There was maybe 15 minutes of actual Steve Rogers/Cap being developed as a character, and that's being generous.

slop101

What twist? That Zemo killed the hibernating super soldiers? I thought that was brilliant, because that's not what Zemo was after.

If you mean Bucky killing Stark's parents - how was that even a twist? Just because the audience doesn't know something doesn't make it a twist. It happened completely naturally and made complete sense; Hydra wanted the Starks killed, and Bucky was their #1 assassin. What's the matter with that?

HN

Spidey's sensei

slop101

Cap had way more screen time - it wasn't even close!

You obviously weren't paying attention.

HN

I wouldn't say "way" more. Cap had maybe one extra scene

Cap w/o IM:
_opening
_buck's apartment
_phone call with BW
_make-out with Sharon carter
_meeting antman
_prep leading up to bunker

IM without Cap:
_talk about gathering teammates with BW
_spidey/aunt may
_ocean prison
_with BW at the avengers compound
_Rhodes/Stan the Man
_I think there was one more with Ross, can't remember

B5Erik

When the blu ray comes out we'll be able to measure it a little better, but there was an awful lot of Tony Stark/Iron Man in this, "Captain America," movie.

I mean, seriously - how much downtime away from the action did Steve get just one on one with another character, time where he was allowed to just be Steve Rogers? Not much. And one of those scenes was with Tony Stark!

On the other hand, Tony Stark spent an awful lot of time doing the Tony Stark thing.

And my biggest gripe is this - for the (likely) FINAL Captain America movie (with Chris Evans), this didn't have a lot of Captain America in it. Not nearly as much as the last two movies (and that's because there were a zillion heroes in this movie who got screen time).

Steve Rogers is arguably the best character in the MCU, and this movie wasted that character. This was an Avengers movie, not a Captain America movie and we all know it (and most of us knew it was likely to be that going in - I just hoped that they would have the characters come in and out of Steve's point of view more than having so many scenes without him, and without having so much of the movie focus on Tony).

Why So Blu?

So that oil tanker or whatever the fuck it was that Ant-Man threw and then turned into a giant one - how the fuck did it cause an explosion? It's a toy. It wouldn't have oil or actual gasoline in it. It's a cool visual but total bullshit. I thought I had noticed that goof on the first viewing but wasn't sure until I saw it again today. If anything - it would be a husk, so even though it slammed engine first into the concrete it has no engine or fluids.

B5Erik

I was under the impression that Ant-Man had shrunk a real tanker truck (offscreen) and then threw it...

(There was an awful lot going on, and he certainly had more than enough time to shrink a truck!)

Obi-Wanma

It's not a toy. The idea is that he shrunk it earlier.

Why So Blu?

Well, the idea wasn't conveyed strong enough - I didn't pick up on it. One would think that the toy would have had fluid or some extra weight to it. I'll freeze frame it when the Blu-ray comes out. Not dogging it out though, I thought Ant-Man was great. A friend who hasn't even seen Ant-Man the movie yet also thought he was bad ass.

CaptainMarvel

I thought it was pretty clear he shrunk it as well.

gmanca

It's not a toy, it's a callback to how Pym had a real tank on his keychain.

This was amazing and I can't wait to see the Airport scene again, it's hard to point out who stole the show because everyone had cool bits through out.

It sucks that we have to wait two years for a substantive connection to the threads left at the end of this movie, I would hope that all of Team Cap starts to pop up in other films between now and Infinity War.

Solid Snake

Bucky was around but he have his little concentrated fight w/ Spidey and a bit of T'Challa.

Yeah. It was pretty clear that Lang fucked up in picking it when he reacts that he thought it was a water truck. Not sure how much clearer it had to be, compa.

Cap:
Peggy's Funeral
Talking to Bucky w/ his arm between that machine that I can't remember wtf it's called
Cap's ending w/ T'Challa in Wakanda

IM:
The young Tony bit

------
might be more.


At the same time... it could be a good thing to see them MIA. Might make a bigger impact when they all have to team up again. I kind of don't want to see any of them in T'Challa's or Danver's film. But.. you know. All I care about is a good movie... so whatever.

Why So Blu?

We haven't seen the last of Zemo. He'll go from being Helmut to being Baron in a next adventure - maybe in the solo Panther flick. The scene where Martin Freeman jocks that his plan failed and Zemo responds with: "did it?" He'll be back. I agree Bruhl rocks, too,

CaptainMarvel

I know James Gunn has talked about doing a Thunderbolts movie... part of me wondered if that's why they made Zemo quasi-sympathetic.

slop101

It was pretty clear to me as well.

Solid Snake

I hope he's not in T'Challa's film. I dunno... it'd just be a weird turn for him to go after T'Challa. Seems beneath him but.. you never know.

It'd be neat if he was hired by Hydra but I'm not sure how comfortable I am w/ more Hydra.

Doubt it. After CW what's there left to be sympathetic w/ him as a viewer? He'd just be pushed into a team of bastards that he would lead. Once that mission is set... what he was before wouldn't matter.

Would be weird to see a Thunderbolt film cuz... I'd doubt they'd do a Zemo working alone. And not sure how far they'd ever want to edge into looking like a Suicide Squad w/ a twist. Course... it may not matter either cuz.. it's Marvel.

Manco

The mid-credit scene had me thinking about the Thunderbolts showing up at some point to extract the Avengers from Wakanda.

bluetoast

I bet Ant Man missed a couple visitation weekends while leaving for Germany and getting arrested again.