Before I review the film itself, I wanna do brief review of the comic. I absolutely dreaded Civil War. If you thought I was tough on BvS, you've seen nothing. My dislike of Civil War is only surpassed by my dislike of One More Day (a sequel to Civil War, go figure).
First, let's remember the SHA was meant to be a metaphor for the Patriot Act. Whether or not you agree with Patriot Act, it doesn't change the fact that it fails as a metaphor. The Patriot Act, much like the the Mutant Registration Act, is all about targeting people based on what they are as opposed to what they do. If you were born with a mutant gene, you have to register based on that. If you're an American resident, especially if you're a Middle Eastern one, we have to surveillance you. That's the idea behind those acts. The SHA on the other hand, only requires you to registrate if you're someone who wants to fight crime. The way it was explained in the Civil War comic itself - I'm going by that since no one at Marvel could make up their minds on what the act was - it's similar to being a private detective. You don't have to join a police department to be a detective, but you still need to be licensed and held accountable under the same laws. So on what ****ing planet does Cap live on to think he can go around in a mask fighting "bad guys" (people he basically decides are bad guys) with no accountability whatsoever? That's vigilantism. We have laws against vigilantism for good reasons.
Now it's true superheroes act as vigilantes all the time - it's a staple of the genre after all - but there's really only two ways to make that work. You can either ignore it via suspension of disbelief, or you can do a character like Batman who's conflicted on where the line is. The second you bring in the real-life politics and have someone like Cap plant their feet in the ground and claim they have a right to act as vigilantes, the whole thing falls apart. As such Civil War isn't just an idiotic premise from the start; it's also one of Cap's biggest ***hole moments in all comic book history.
Now here's where the Team Cap players come in and cry foul. "Oh, but Tony became quasi-Hitler!" "SHIELD locked up people for nothing!" "Look at how EVIL the pro-registration people are!!!!!!" Sure, but they only did all that once they realized just how stupid Cap's argument was. It was so dumb they had to completely demonize the pro-reg side just to make it work. It's not a testimony to how "evil" the pro-reg side was, it's a testimony of the anti-reg side's complete imbecility (or rather the writers' imbecility).
And that's just the political aspect. Never mind the fact the people asked for superheroes be held accountable, unlike the Patriot Act where the government passed it in a matter of weeks without the public being let in or knowing much about it. Never mind the fact the incident that triggered the whole thing makes no sense when stuff like that happens all the time in the Marvel universe. Never mind the years of damage it brought to many Marvel characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man, some of which still haven't fully recovered. Finally, never mind the fact every character in the book is horrendously out of character, to the point you have to know absolutely nothing about them just to enjoy the damn book (honorary mention: The Punisher having no problem with the anti-reg heroes recruiting supervillains). I could talk all day on how much of a dog turd Civil War was, but I'll end it here.
Anyways, onto the film.
Surprisingly, I have no problem with Cap's position in the film. I still think it's as flawed as it was in the comic, but I didn't mind it for a couple of reasons. First, though still stubborn, Cap's stance came off more foolish and naive to me as opposed to ***holish. I think it's due to the fact Steve doubts himself throughout the film, and doesn't make up his mind on the Accords until he hears Peggy's words. Second, it helps that the film never took a side on who the good guy is and allowed...invited the audience to think for themselves on that. It also helps there was no Fascist Tony this time. Third, the whole plot doesn't revolve around registration. While I think Cap was foolish in regards to the Sokovia Accords, I thought Tony was foolish in regards to Bucky. So in the end they kinda balanced each other out for me.
As far as themes go, the film is all about a) the relationship between vengeance and redemption and b) the ways in which vengeance gets the worst in everyone. Each character has either a vengeance or redemption motive that's informed by the latter. The incident at the beginning is triggered by someone with a vengeance motive, causing Scarlet Witch to kill many civilians in the process. Tony starts out seeking redemption, only for the events in the story to drive him to a point where he desires vengeance. In the process he loses a lot of his friends, especially Cap. Zemo is the same way, allowing vengeance to consume him to the point he breaks apart the Avengers and resorts to wanting to commit suicide. Black Panther is the reverse of all this, starting out driven by vengeance but having a character arc by the end after seeing how vengeance consumed those around him. Bucky starts out starts out being a puppet to someone with a motive of vengeance, but by the end seeks redemption in the only way he could (by freezing himself). Then there's Spider-Man, whose feelings of helping out the little guy are clearly motivated by his guilt over Uncle Ben's death. I feel I could go on, but those are probably the best examples.
I don't know what else to say that hasn't already been said. The juggling aspect is as solid as everyone claims it is, but I feel Rhodey should've have more screentime. Rhodey doesn't really have an action scene or a one-on-one with another character until after he gets injured. I feel he should've had that to make his incident have more impaction. I honestly would've cut out Spider-Man completely and given those minutes to Rhodey. Spidey was enjoyable but he doesn't need to be in the film, he grinds the film's pacing to a halt. It's also out of character for Tony to put a kid in danger, especially after the thing with the kid who got killed in Sokovia. As for Spider-Man himself, I have some potential issues with the direction they're taking the character in. I'll reserve judgment till Homecoming, but as he stands in this film he doesn't feel as independent of a character as I feel he should be. Tom Holland is fantastic though, and other than the issues I had Spidey was perfect in every other way.
Zemo is arguably the MCU's second best film villain so far, the first obviously being Loki. He's kinda simple, but I feel that's what worked about him. He's not out to cause massive destruction or take over the world, he's just a regular guy on a revenge quest. In a lot of ways he's the perfect kind of villain if you want someone to tear the team down, because he's the type of person you'd least expect to pull it off, which adds to the tragedy of it in the process. Similarly to Luthor though, but nowhere near the same stupendous degree, there's some things that don't add up in his plan. How did he know Bucky wouldn't get killed by the SWAT members that went after him? Or where'd they take him? Or that they would specifically get the psychologist he murdered to diagnose him? I wish we spent a little more time with him. Again, despite how enjoyable Spider-Man is, I would have probably used more of that screentime on Zemo as well.
Like most Marvel films, it continues the trend of (for the most part) showing each of our heroes at their best with each increasing film. This can't be anymore especially true for Tony though. I felt this was the most humanized Tony we've gotten since IM1. He still has all the negative aspects that comes with being Tony, but we haven't seen that soft side of him since the first film, at least not in any large dose. Going in I was skeptical going on Bucky killing Tony's parents and how that would play out, but I completely bought it by the end. The interesting thing is how they managed to make me care for Tony's grief despite the fact he was clearly acting irrationally. Vision is another I felt became very humanized in this film, which is one of the things that was missing in Age of Ultron. And then there's Black Panther, whom I loved everything about. The performance was uncanny, the accent is perfect, looks incredible and is overall just so charismatic and likeable. He's one of those characters where it's hard to describe just how enjoyable they were.
Overall I give the film a solid 5/5. It has a few issues, but it's nothing that majorly hurts its overall quality. As of now, I would rank this as the best Marvel film overall, MCU or otherwise. I feel it's the film which embodies Marvel Studios the most. If you'd want to show a stranger why you're a fan of Marvel Studios, this is the film to show them and go "see, this is why they're so praised" (granted you need to watch some of the previous films for this one to make sense, but I'm sure everyone understood what I meant).
