This is a picture of the true stars of Civil War.....
...directors Anthony & Joe Russo. These two told an intricate superhero tale which 99% of the time transfers into a jumbled mess onscreen (X-Men 3, all Fantastic Fours), and they made it look easy. This is not a Captain America movie as much an Avengers movie. Thats a good thing because they kept the story first, and the original Civil War storyline was told in multiple Marvel titles besides Caps. This storyline had more details than Winter Soldier which they also directed, but they did a better job in this one. These 2 will be directing the Infinity War movies, and now that fills me with confidence .
There was ....one
glaring mistake made when reintroducing an established Marvel character...
.again....
Marisa Tomei as Aunt May?! As Robin would say, "Holy Dumbass Batman!?" Hollywood pretentiousness trying to "glam-up" one of the few elderly characters in the Marvel universe. Idiots.
Anyway the movie introduced the new Spider-Man very well, and the Black Panther. Both were brilliant sells, and especially so re: Black Panther. Chadwick Boseman not only didnt drop the ball, he mightve invigorated interest in a flat character. RDJ did that with Iron Man. I never saw the Ant-Man movie, really enjoyed how they displayed him here, and Rudd was entertaining as always.
Daniel Bruhl did a fantastic job playing Baron Zemo (that purple mask was stupid anyway). In an interview, he said the budget for this movie was so huge that you could make twenty films from it. Heres some IMDb trivia and then an honest conclusion..
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) remarks how attractive Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) is. Downey and Tomei actually had a relationship in the 1990s, and appeared in two other films together: Chaplin (1992) and Only You (1994).
The finalists for the Spider-Man role did separate screen tests with Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., with the intent of seeing whose chemistry fit the best with both Evans and Downey.
Chadwick Boseman underwent a vigorous training program to get in fighting shape for the character. While admittedly not a big reader of comics as a kid, Boseman read as many comics as possible for anything Black Panther-related. Boseman also visited South Africa to better incorporate cultural aspects of the country into his role.
Hope van Dyne was going to become The Wasp in an earlier draft of the script, but she was removed due to concerns that reducing her role to a cameo alongside the other characters would be a disservice to her as a character. The fact that Evangeline Lilly was pregnant at the time also probably influenced the decision.
Originally Iron Man was only going to have a small role in this movie. However, Robert Downey Jr. asked for more screentime and a higher paycheck. Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter planned to have Iron Man written out of the film completely, in which case the Russos had backup plans to adapt another story in the event that happened. However, Kevin Feige persuaded Marvel Pictures/Disney that Robert was fundamental to the film and this in turn led to Ike Perlmutter no longer being involved in the feature film side of Marvel Pictures.
Tom Holland made audition tapes together with Jon Bernthal while filming Pilgrimage (2016), with Holland landing the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Bernthal the role of Frank Castle/The Punisher in Daredevil (2015).
Should you see it?
If you dont like superhero movies, then no. Its a great superhero film, but imo would not transfer outside its already built-in fanbase. Daredevil could though, but thats why DD is 5 stars and Civil War is 4 1/2