98% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed and recommended by Chloe; Watch it in cinemas; I'm buying the DVD
(Edit: I wanted to put this as a Must-See, but check the very end of this review to see why I didn't)
Watch it if you: Like any Marvel film; Want to have a reason to go to the cinemas instead of watching something at home; Just want to have a GREAT time (who doesn't?!)
First things first, please redirect yourself over to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) if you have not done so already. Remember that while Phase One mainly consisted of individual films that could be separated, Phase Two of the MCU (starting from Iron Man 3 and including Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Ant Man (2015)) is starting to try and tie things together a bit more. Ant Man is a good watch, although I guess it's not super critical for you to see it to understand this film.
The main reason I say this is because a lot of the plot follows on from these two films, and if you haven't seen them, you will question a lot of the characters' actions, because it wouldn't seem realistic or understandable.
So, following on from Age of Ultron, the government (not just of America, but of the world) wants to keep the Avengers in check. What good is a team of superheroes if we can't regulate and monitor them? What good is a team of superheroes if their actions kill innocent lives, yet no one becomes responsible for those lives? Enter the Accords, which enables various governments to utilise the Avengers if, and only if, they deem them suitable. This places a huge restriction on the Avengers, essentially waving away their right to make any choices or decisions on their own, and so naturally a divide occurs. The Avengers team ends up splitting into two camps: the Team Iron Man pro-regulation camp, and the Team Captain America anti-regulation camp.
That's as far as I will go in terms of plot, for fear of spoilers. The film covers a lot of ground, and there are several plot elements that keep pushing the movie onwards and upwards, making it hard to talk about certain elements of the film without giving anything away. Because of the complexity of this film, the vast amount of characters, and the perpetual engine of a plot they have, this film is a long one, with a run time of nearly 2.5 hours. The good thing though is that it doesn't feel that long; we are always engaged, and when the director feels like the audience is getting a bit tired of something, something new pops up.
This was most obvious to me when Black Panther was introduced, because it gave me quite a jolt and it made that action sequence a lot more interesting. I was so glad I didn't research him up beforehand because that would have taken away from that shock factor when he came on-screen. I was seeing his abilities, motives, and personality come out while I was watching it, because I had absolutely zero idea who or what he was, and that was fantastic.
The same cannot be said, however, for another cameo character in the film. I have already expressed my annoyance of Marvel spoiling this cameo in their trailer, but in case some lucky person out there has been able to avoid all mentions of this cameo, I will still put a spoiler tag here.
As for the rest of the characters, we have already had a chance to meet them and so the film doesn't become overcrowded because not too much time is spent dwelling on their backgrounds or underlying motives. I actually was very convinced at the choices and motivations that these characters had, and I think the film did a great job at portraying the conflict that they naturally would have under such extreme circumstances. It was easy enough for me to speculate, "Why would this person be on this side? That seems uncharacteristic...", however the film did a great job at showing you why it was uncharacteristic and how that would affect some of the decisions they made, or even the way they fought. I think that was really interesting because in doing that, it made the film have some deeper themes about morality, the greater good, and one's liberty to act on their good intentions.
Another thing to note is that because of all the characters, it almost looks like another Avengers movie (everyone from the Avengers is here except Thor and Hulk), however I understand why it wasn't classified under the "Avengers" label. The film's plot is actually much more complex. It's not as simple as "the whole world is in danger" anymore; the plot here is on a smaller scale and the film seems more like an action-packed spy film.
As I said, it's hard to go in further depth because of the nature of the film, but I will also add that (apart from the cameo), the trailers actually did quite a good job. They didn't really tell you how the movie was going to unfold (like with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), but they told you the basic premise of it, and that was enough. In fact, a lot of the action scenes they use are actually from the opening sequence. This actually got me worried at first, because I thought "Oh no, don't tell me these were the best scenes they shot for the whole film!", but I then realised it was hard for them to select scenes from the rest of the film without spoiling it. So, well done.
There are a few downsides to this movie though. Firstly, I'm still slightly confused at how Scarlet Witch's powers are defined in this universe, as I think her powers could have been utilised better in this film. Of course, this can be explained away by the fact that she is still quite young and inexperienced in fighting, and she is not in the best emotional state at this point of the series.
Another issue is that I'm not completely convinced by the main villain's... prowess (for want of a better word). It was fantastic seeing all the elements of the film come together, but the film just did not spend enough time on him to explain to me why he would logically be able to do all those things. In fact, he actually doesn't really appear as a villain anyway, because his 'evilness' doesn't really come through (I didn't think there was any villain in this film until I read on IMDb that he could be considered a villain, but then I had to Google his character name because I was confused who it was talking about).
Lastly, this one's a bit of a spoiler, so only click if you have seen the film or just don't care!
Overall, this is a great film and you will not be sorry for watching it in theatres. I actually wanted to say this was a must-see, because I think it deserves that special label, however there is internal conflict occurring because it doesn't really work as a stand-alone film, and if I put it as a Must-See, that implies that The Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron are also must-sees, since this film is quite dependent on them. So, if you have seen those, then it is a must-see for you.
A few side notes:
