Captain America and Iron Man Duke It Out in Civil War`

WOW!  

     I loved Marvel's Civil War, especially after the dumb-but-entertaining Batman versus Superman.  There is no question in my mind that Marvel derivatives have a much better understanding of human nature than the DC counterparts.  

     Civil War is an interesting theme, especially since many of my friends seem ready to start a war over relatively trifling differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, say. But in this movie, Iron Man (Tony Stark) is at the forefront of the ethical issue of advocating vigilante justice while also taking responsibility for collateral damage.  Specifically, innocent people routinely die during spectacular superhero operations, but you never hear about it.  Until now.   And the superheros naturally feel remorseful about the death of innocents, even if it seems unavoidable.  This is a worthy theme for superheroes to ponder.

     To deal with their dilemma, some of the heroes want to submit to the United Nations, while others want to work with no accountability.   It's a serious issue.   Marvel develops the case for both sides of the issue, and you might be surprised at which heroes come down on the side of law and order and which prefer vigilante-ism.  In fact they change sides and are forced into combat in a series of clashes, which my senior brain was too slow to fully comprehend. 

     The strongest characters continue to be Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and Captain America (Chis Evans), both of whom are totally believable both in terms of their acting as well as the way their characters are defined.  Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle) are also very convincing. However, some of the others are a bit more dubious.  Hawkeye, for example, is really kind of an oddball. What does the bow and arrow do that an AK-47 does not? It's the dumbest weapon since the Empire rolled out the ineffective and slow light saber.  Conversely, Scarlet Witch seems to have kind of the same powers as Yahwe, if only she would concentrate a little better.   The Vision is also too powerful and would be a better character if his abilities were better defined. 

   Speaking of Gods, I guess Thor may have not fully recovered from his last concussion, and the Hulk my have had a bad hamstring, because both cleanup hitters sat this one out.  That strikes me as a very odd decision. Perhaps it means that Hulk is going to take on Thor in an upcoming movie, and they thought it might be redundant to have the same two characters whaling on each other in consecutive movies (?)  I think I will go out on a limb and predict that that indeed will be the case, as Hulk seemed to enjoy beating up Asgardians the past few movies. 

Hulk Smash Thor?  Next movie...

     On the other hand, there are some other fan favorites that show up as a replacements.  I won't tell you everyone who shows up, but they are cool. 

The plot is a little complicated, and after a while I had to give up on figuring out who was changing sides and why and just enjoy the action scenes.  And if you haven't heard, you should stick around after the credits for a few extra scenes that might be important in the future.