Film
Captain America: Civil War, the latest installment in the vast Marvel Cinematic Universe. With all the good they do, The Avengers are now facing political interference. A new accord seeks to control their involvement in conflict around the globe, brought on by extensive collateral damage in previous encounters. What this accord would mean to The Avengers ability to chose, and remain on the side of right, causes a rift between allies Captain America and Iron Man.
The film builds on character and relationship development that has taken place over several films now, in the form of the Avengers films, as well as the Captain America and Iron Man ones. This means that as with all other films from Marvel, this story slots in to a very specific time in that entire universe, and viewers are likely to be somewhat lost if picking up Captain America: Civil War as their first foray into the whole MCU.
There is little time spent dwelling on character development in the first act of the film, but rather we are caught up to when the film is set in relation to the last one, and the story can be sped forward to events that are relevant.
Due to the several intricacies of sharing universes between films, moving the story forward after the previous Captain America films, and the many characters present here, both new and old, the film does have an amount of rewatch value built right in to the story itself, as missing connections or subtleties is very likely, especially with the fast pace of some of the action in the film.
Captain America: Civil War however, does feel like it is lacking a certain something present in the other films. But this may be due to the fact that it does take time to set up story and character arcs for the coming Avengers: Infinity War. This is also the likely explanation for why some characters do not get as much screen time as one would expect, forgoing this to allow newer characters to get their moment, and as a means to forward the plot along at a suitable pace.
While the film does dwell a bit, and rush over some detail, it is still a faced paced action, with an engaging storyline. Whether it is necessary to choose between Team Captain America and Team Iron Man is open to debate, but the disc release, with all its additional material, is sure to delight fans, and offer audiences a change to recap events before they see any new Marvel film.
Disc
Captain America Civil War is available now, to purchase on disc, in South Africa.
Video
Video on the disc is encoded at a high average bitrate. There image is stable, with no visible onscreen artefacts. Colours are vibrant, with deep blacks, that hold their detail well in darker scenes.
Viewers who wish to scale up to a larger screen would benefit from the HD material and high bitrate.
Audio
Main audio is presented in a DTS 7.1 mix. Dialogue is clear via the centre speaker. Audio is encoded at a high average bitrate.
This being a Marvel film, it is no surprise that there is extensive use of the surround channels, with very discernible panning and effects.
Notable, however, in its absence, is an Atmos soundtrack. While this is not too big an issue, the technology is becoming more accessible and widespread, so it would be nice to see more titles with this mix, and to have titles future proofed against home theatre system upgrades.
Navigation
Navigation is simple to use, with some clips from the main feature for background, along with music. These clips do not provide enough visual or context to be able to spoil any of the film, should one not have seen it yet.
Viewers are able to access bonus features, scene selection, audio track select and sneak peeks from the main menu.
Scene selection is via thumbnail and scene title. And the bonus features sub-menu further divided into “features”, “deleted & extended scenes”, “gag reel”, “audio commentary” and “info” (which allows one to re-read the disclaimer from the studio regarding bonus content, which is shown at the beginning of the disc).
Bonus Features
United We Stand, Divided We Fall – The making Of Captain America: Civil War (part 1 and part 2)
A two part look at the behind the scenes in these rather lengthy features. They delve deep into the making of the film, with lots of behind the scenes footage, and input from both cast and crew. This great resource gives a vast amount of access to the process and effort that goes in to making a movie such as Captain America: Civil War.
Adding a great deal of value to the disc, this is an enjoyable feature to accompany the main film.
Captain America: The Road To Civil War
A short look at how things have lead up to this point for Captain America. Although a very short featurette, there is some valuable input from actor Chris Evans (Captain America) on character and some behind the scenes.
Iron Man: The Road To Civil War
As the partner, or rival, the Iron Man featurette gets similar valuable information from Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) regarding his character, and too provides some behind the scenes.
Open Your Mind: Marvel’s Doctor Strange – Exclusive Sneak Peek
A look at on upcoming Marvel cinematic release, for Doctor Strange. This does contain footage not seen in earlier trailers, and those wishing to totally avoid any sort of spoilers, are best advised to skip this for now.
Audio Commentary
The audio commentary provides both interesting information, that fans and filmmakers alike would enjoy, as well as some really great insight in to characters, story and the filmmaking process.
it is obviously best to rewatch the film with this commentary, only after having seen the film itself, in order to get a better insight to the topics being discussed, and so as not to spoil the actual story.
One hope would have been to have a cast commentary to accompany this one, in order to get an insight in to what the cast did on a daily basis, how they prepared, and their thoughts and ideas for their respective characters.
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