If you’ve recently watched Avengers: Age Of Ultron and you’re looking forward to the next big adventure for the Marvel team, a big one to add to your watch list, if you haven’t already seen it at the cinema, is Captain America: Civil War. The third installment of the all American hero story arc will continue on from where things left off in the impressive Winter Soldier back in 2014 and with the ongoing success of the Marvel cinematic universe, things are looking good for the First Avenger’s next action packed outing.
Release date
Cinema:
The bad news for anyone already crying out for another Marvel movie fix is that the Captain America: Civil War US and UK release date was back on the 6th May 2016, so you’ve managed to miss it at the big screen and you’ll need to wait for the DVD, Blu-ray and digital download release to catch the film. While you can console yourself with the prospect of Doctor Strange, which will be hitting the big screen later in 2016, you’ll have a little while to see Cap and Iron Man go head to head from the comfort of your sofa.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download:
The Captain America: Civil War UK DVD release date has been confirmed for the 5th September 2016, so it’ll arrive just in time to close out the summer with a whole lot of action. The Blu-ray will be arriving on the same date, but it’s become customary for the digital download release to be a week ahead of the DVD, so expect it to arrive on iTunes, Amazon video and in the Xbox ONE store from the 29th August 2016.
Storyline
Following the epic battles of Winter Soldier and Age Of Ultron, Cap’s next big campaign will see him leading the new team of Avengers as they fight to keep the world safe. With a confused Bucky Barnes (The Winter Soldier) out and about and threats mounting around them, the superhero force get involved in a new global incident, but when it results in some pretty significant fallout, governments look to put controls on how the Avengers operate, which creates new rifts within the team. However, with threats riding around them in the form of Baron Zemo and Brock Rumlow in his full Crossbones manifestation the team will have to overcome differences again to save the world.
The story also produces a little crossover action and a few new characters as Ant Man joins the Avengers, Iron Man and War Machine get in on the Captain America fun and T’Challa AKA Black Panther joins the fray. It feels like its going to be as close to an Avengers movies as any of the individual hero films have been, but with the success of the franchise it’s possible that it could start to become the norm for more crossover movie plots.
Cast
Obviously, Chis Evans will be returning to his role of Steve Rogers/Captain America and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 3) dons the red and gold of Iron Man with Don Cheadle (The Guard) as War Machine. Scarlett Johansson (Hitchcock) will be popping out of her back jump suit again as Natasha Rominoff/Black Widow, Sebastian Stan (Black Swan) picks up where he left off in Winter Soldier as Bucky Barnes, Anthony Mackie (Gangster Squad) plays Sam Wilson/Falcon and Jeremy Renner (American Hustle) brings Clint Barton/Hawkeye to the party.
In terms of newer characters in the mix, we have Elizabeth Olsen (Godzilla) reprising her role as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, along with Paul Bettany as the recently created Vision from Avengers: The Age Of Ultron. Paul Rudd (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) will star as Ant Man, Chadwick Boseman (Get on Up) has been confirmed as T’Challa/Black Panther, Emily Van Camp returns as Sharon Carter/Agent 13, Daniel Brühl (Rush) joins the cast as Baron Zemo, Frank Grillo takes on Brock Rumlow/Crossbones again and Martin Freeman (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) has recently been announced in an as yet unspecified role. As if that wasn’t enough new faces, Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming) also made his debut as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.
Production
As with the previous two movie releases, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is producing the Civil War, and Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Thor: The Dark World) have written the screenplay again. Anthony and Joe Russo are co-directing with support from director of photography Trent Opaloch (Elysium), building on the same honours for Winter Soldier.
The film has been given a certification of 12A by the British Board of Film Classification.
First impression
Based on the quality and success of Winter Soldier we’d be inclined to bet the house on Captain America: Civil War being an absolute banker for epic big budget cinema entertainment extravaganzerism. We’re big fans of Daniel Brühl from his work on Rush, Inglorious Basterds and Good Bye Lenin!, so he should make a good new villain in the form of Baron Zemo, and the addition of Martin Freeman could add to the acting credentials of the movie.
Winter Soldier was such a big step up on The First Avenger for us (read our review for more details), and it makes for a very strong platform for Civil War to build on, especially with its Avengers focus this time around. Bringing in Black Panther and Ant Man could prove to be a strong move too, and we’re looking forward to seeing how they develop Scarlet Witch as she comes over to the good side of the divide.
