It’s May, so the summer movie season has officially kicked off, and let me tell you, thank God for that! Rather than spending your time at the beach or hanging out in the sunshine, you can sit down in your seat with your overpriced buttered popcorn and soda, and enjoy stuffing it into your face while watching big budget explosions. Now, let’s talk about the first summer movie: “Captain America: Civil War.”

Hello, I am the Movie Buff here with a new review of Marvel’s newest film “Captain America: Civil War,” a film based on hundreds of superheroes fighting each other, cut down to about 12 characters clashing. However, this movie makes “Batman vs Superman” look like a total failure… oh yeah, it was. Unlike “Batman v Superman,” there are actual characters that we care about, such as, Iron Man, Discount Grey Iron Man, Scarlett Johannson, a purple flying guy, a Black Cat, and Spider-Man. On the other team, we have: Superman who can’t fly and carries a frisbee, guy with a bow and arrow, criminal with a metal arm, guy with a jetpack, a witch, and Ant-Man.

Civil War takes place after the events of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Because of the fact that we want action and not the Peace Corps, we watched as the Avengers have caused destruction in many places in the past, including New York, some European country, some African country, and some other random places. Because of this, the United Nations believes that a bill should be ratified, so that the Avengers are controlled by the UN and do not to act as a private organization. Captain America believes that the bill would be taking the rights away from the Avengers to protect the world while Iron Man agrees with the ratification of the bill in order to control the destruction that he feels guilty for causing.

However, another plot is also going down featuring Captain America and his best friend Bucky Barnes. Bucky was a super soldier created by Hydra (a group of German Nazis who formed to combat the super soldier serum that Captain America had). Bucky had been used as an assassin in the past and is now a criminal, attempting to change his ways, but still being hunted by many world governments. With Black Panther and Iron Man both after him for their own reasons, Captain America attempts to protect his friend and fight against the bill.

“Civil War” is easily the second best Marvel Cinematic Universe film (The MCU is the collection of films produced by Marvel, including characters such as Iron Man, Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor just to name a few) behind 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” With the right blend of action and story, the Russo Brothers brought about an excellent film.

Unlike in other superhero movies, “Civil War” brought back the stellar actors from the previous films, including Chris Evans as Captain America and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. However, the best acting in the film came from the new characters to be introduced. Chadwick Boseman brought about an amazing new character in Black Panther, an African prince out to avenge his father’s death. The other new star is our third Spider-Man in 10 years, Tom Holland. Both Holland and Boseman captured their characters perfectly and, in my opinion, outshined the two stars.

Despite how good it is, “Civil War” did have some issues. It suffered from having all of the superheroes but not being able to give all of them a lot of screen time. While Iron Man, Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Scarlet Witch, and Black Panther all covered a lot of screen time, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, and Paul Bettany’s Vision all were underused in the grand scope of the film. Along with this, the inclusion of a villain seemed forced, but we all know Marvel hasn’t made a good villain other than Loki anyway.

All in all, I definitely recommend seeing “Civil War” especially in IMAX 3D. That about wraps it up for me, The Movie Buff. I hope you enjoyed my monthly reviews this year, they’ve been a lot of fun to write. Have a great summer, I’ll see you in September, and maybe I’ll see you at the movies!