Opening slightly earlier for those in the UK (April 29), a preliminary wave of reviews have surfaced for Captain America: Civil War – and the early verdict is overwhelmingly positive.
Plucked from Empire Online and GamesRadar, both reviews shower praise on Joe and Anthony Russo’s mighty threequel, spotlighting the movie’s pacing, starry ensemble and action sequences even in the face of a bum-numbing running time.
Both extracts are largely spoiler free, you’ll be pleased to note, and while Civil War‘s all-consuming marketing campaign has ramped up the tension between Teams Iron Man and Cap, these first reviews crown Marvel as the true winner in Joe and Anthony Russo’s superhero tussle.
Empire: Who needs a villain when you have Steve and Tony? Both protagonists. Both antagonists. And drawing other power-people to their cause in surprising ways. The clashes go far beyond the set-up squabbles of Avengers Assemble. Or even that other big 2016 superhero showdown. Forget Batman v Superman. Here you get Ant-Man v Spider-Man, Hawkeye v Black Widow, Scarlet Witch v Vision, The Winter Soldier v Black Panther and (well, duh) Captain America v Iron Man, all rolled into one. And that is what you call the ultimate Marvel superhero event. Matching its blockbuster scale and spectacle with the smarts of a great, grown-up thriller, *Captain America: Civil War* is Marvel Studios’ finest film yet. There. We said it again.
GamesRadar:That epic runtime is the only problem. It’s generally well-paced, but there’s one too many plot swerves as you wait for the gang to suit up and throw down. There’s also a slightly icky and completely unnecessary romantic beat that torpedoes the MCU’s best love story, and it’s a shame that the trailers (and LEGO) gave away quite so many of the film’s surprises. If there’s a risk of the Marvel ‘formula’ becoming stale, there isn’t any evidence of that here. Civil War isn’t just a damn-near-perfect popcorn crowd-pleaser; it doesn’t offer any easy answers for its combatants, or the world going forward. Team Cap or Team Iron Man? The real winner here is Team Marvel.
Captain America: Civil War is expected to land in theaters on May 6. Stay tuned to We Got This Covered when we’ll be publishing our own verdict of the threequel in the coming weeks.