This post has been a long time coming, and is wildly late. I apologize.

Disclaimer: I don’t really read comics. I’ve never read the original “Civil War” run. These are my opinion on the film as its own entity, not as an adaptation. Maybe we’ll convince Miller to come out of hiding and do a guest post.

Civil War is so difficult for me to categorize or even really describe. I have the same problem with this Captain America installment that I had with the first one, but more on that later. First, the good. Civil War features everything that we’ve come to expect from Marvel movies. The sets are immaculately dressed, perfectly suiting both the tone of the scene and the personality of the character inhabiting the space. The locations, too, are just exotic enough to be interesting and just familiar enough to be recognizable. Settings: A+.

While we’re still on mise-en-scene, the costume design was also spot on. I’m not just talking about the superhero costumes – although I think we should all acknowledge those for a moment. Very few of the MCU films have the same costume designer more than once,. And yet, without fail, every time the costumes are redesigned, they remain recognizable not only to the previous iteration but also to the comics. (And most of the redesigns are excusable in the diegesis in three words: Tony Stark’s money.) But costume design is about every piece of clothing the characters wear, and I think Civil War’s costume designer deserves an Oscar for Vision’s outfits alone. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when you do. Overall production design (costumes, settings, CG – which I don’t want to waste time breaking down; suffice it to say that it was excellent as always): A+.

Sound design is typically broken down into three categories: effects, music, and voice. I don’t want to spend too long on any one, so I’ll touch just briefly on each. Effects are hard to talk about because you only really notice them when they’re particularly bad or particularly special. Since nothing sticks out in my mind either way, we’ll say they were perfectly adequate. The music once again had the challenge of weaving together multiple themes without being overwhelming: Cap’s theme, Iron Man’s theme, the Avengers’, even Peggy Carter’s (or SHIELD’s, it was hard to tell, as the two are intentionally very similar). It’s a lot of different motifs to try and work into one score, but I’m positive I heard all of them at some point or another.*

Voice I’d like to talk about separately for one very important reason. When discussing theory, dialogue falls under voice-sound design. But dialogue is also obviously part of the writing. Add to that the standard of dialogue that we’ve come to expect from Marvel, and it deserves its own section. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have done it again in that respect. Looking over their writing credits to write this review, I can’t believe I didn’t start following their careers sooner. The Chronicles of Narnia, the entire Captain America franchise, not to mention creator credit on the Agent Carter TV show. They seem to have a knack not only for witty one-liners but also for character voice. Cap’s “I can do this all day” is officially a classic line. And the overall banter is genius by itself. Sound: A+.

As for the overall writing… Let me back up to the first Captain America installment. I love everything about that movie except the very last shot. (Granted that’s an issue of editing, not writing, but bear with me for a moment.) It’s the very end of the movie, the very last thing the audience will see, and therefore the one thing they’re most likely to remember best. Isn’t that something worth making perfect? For Civil War, I loved everything except the last (approximately) seven minutes. I don’t want to spoil anything, as I’m sure there are some of you that still haven’t seen the film yet**, but I was pretty disappointed. If you have seen it, I can tell you I’m probably not disappointed in what you think I am. Maybe I’ll delve further into it at a later date, but I will say that it is definitely an issue of writing. It’s the first time I can think of that I’ve been let down by the Markus/McFeely duo. Writing: B.

Overall, though, I have to say I was favorably impressed. It’s hard to get over problems with the very end of a movie, but it’s also very likely that multiple viewings may change my opinion. Civil War was entertaining and moving, and seeing it in the theater made for an excellent night out with my fiance. I highly recommend seeing it if you haven’t already, especially if you’re planning on seeing subsequent Marvel movies, because I guarantee you’ll be lost without it. It went down, y’all.

*There was a viral video, around the time I drafted this post, claiming (falsely, in my opinion) that the MCU doesn’t have a “musical identity.” I shall be refuting that video someday very soon.

**This was drafted some two weeks following the film’s theatrical release, and later scheduled to post in line with its home release. Obviously it did neither. I’m still not spoiling.