Captain America: Civil War

Infused with regenerative contemplative crucibles, Captain America: Civil War reflectively considers its own mortality, reinvigorating its lifeforce thereby, with abundant earthen pyrotechnic implosions.

Like Mad Max: Fury Road, Civil War doesn't focus primarily on one or two characters, preferring to simultaneously develop several of its bracing recruits, while introducing new additions and a brilliant mild-mannered villain (Daniel Brühl as Zemo).

The super villain is usually larger-than-life, obviously enough, and it was nice to see this tendency altered with a subtle human touch.

Vision (Paul Bettany) points out how the activities of the Avengers have served to encourage antithetical tyrannical histrionics, the challenge of defeating them too irresistible for megalomaniacs to ignore, power mad lunatics who might have remained inert in their absence, inimically keeping themselves in check.

Makes sense.

But Civil War is mainly concerned with civilian casualties (like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), with decision making and oversight, Falcon (Anthony Mackie) reminding Captain America (Chris Evans) that the wicked are shooting at him too, the United Nations stepping in to neuter their independence.

It follows the Captain America storyline closely as Cap continues to try to save his old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), but I'd argue it's the 3rd Avengers film. Some of them are missing, but Civil War examines the dynamics of the Avengers much more closely than Captain America's, slowly breaking down their chummy conviviality, as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Cap bitterly establish opposing factions.

The UN believes the Avengers should be held accountable for their future actions and seeks to establish a committee to decide when and where to deploy them should the forces of evil contend.

Generosity not being solely an impulse of the guilty, Stark still feels regret for the innocents who have died on his watch, and agrees that the Avengers's actions should be legally sanctioned to prevent further loss of life.

Captain America disagrees, thinking their startling efficiencies will be unnecessarily disillusioned by bureaucratic finagling and polemical delays.

The Avengers consequently divide and even battle one another as immediacy demands their intervention once more.

When they do intervene, do they do so too quickly, without applying enough thought to the side-effects of their engagements, ignoring local, national, and global laws as they save the world from imminent destruction?

Are they justified in responding instantaneously, since their enemies are usually universally threatening?

Early on in the film, a split-second decision almost releases a deadly biological agent into an urban environment, which would have likely killed thousands.

They are capable of managing such scenarios, but a slight miscalculation and they would have been responsible for the deaths.

Yet if Loki invades again with another bloodthirsty army intent on enslaving the planet, then it makes sense that the Avengers should charge in head on.

If a committee was responsible for authorizing such a defence they most likely would if they were indeed thinking clearly.

But as the aura of the Avengers intensifies and their enemies expand exponentially, how will they deal with concurrent attacks launched from different locations around the world?

Does it make sense that they each train their own specialized forces to be ready to defend different domains at the same time, the United Nations providing their counterstrikes with a centralized governing authority, with members of the Avengers advising them as needs be?

But HYDRA has undoubtably infiltrated the UN (and are perhaps working with Loki in a Vichyesque fashion) and would likely attempt to use its influence to frustrate the Avengers therewithin.

If the Avengers are guided by the UN it clears their conscience of responsibility, unless they're prevented from acting which may augment crushing pangs of guilt afterwards (I'm thinking Superman II).

The Avengers have entered the political realm, wherein most actions are polarized, no matter how many times you apologize, and a resultant stoic ambivalence enables its representatives to constructively cope with the fallout.

The best Marvel film thus far, making good on its Empire Strikes Back reference (the audacity), Captain America: Civil War cerebrally moves the franchise forward, sacrificing sensation for revelation, spry self-aware matriculation.

The action's secondary to the thought.

Big time character development.

Scenes that could have been cut are left in to the film's advantage.

It's more like solid drama than fantasy.

Blown away.

Note: sarcasm is often employed by intelligent people but watch for the person who isn't intelligent yet picks up on the fact that if you respond to something someone says sarcastically you can often win over the crowd without having to explain why you're responding sarcastically. Some people realize that all you have to do is employ the sarcastic tone without offering further explanation to win arguments without ever actually saying anything. It's just repetition. A troublesome bunch.