10 Biggest Problems With Captain America: Civil War
7. The Second Act Becomes Dangerously Close To Tedious
After a kick-!*$% opening and a succession of genuinely interesting scenes in which the Avengers are introduced to the controversial idea of their being regulated, something unexpected happens: Civil War begins to drag.
Whilst the film has been almost unanimously praised by fans and critics alike as "perfectly paced," I'd argue the very opposite: that Civil War starts with a bang, introduces a neat concept and then spends an hour so meandering before it gets to the bit that everyone is waiting to see... that being the huge showdown at the airport, in which our two superheroes factions go up against one another.
Getting to this point, however, isn't anywhere as engaging an experience as it probably should be. The reason for this, I think, stems from the fact that Civil War has a lot of characters, and we move between them at such a speed that it's hard to invest in any of their individual plights to the degree that they deserve.
When you have a film built about introducing new elements, one by one, the drama tends to suffers somewhat, and that's what happens in the middle section of this film... we get a new villain, we get Black Panther, we get Spider-Man, we get Ant-Man... instead of being a film, it starts to feel more like a trailer. Thankfully, this digressiveness comes to a halt when the fighting begins, but - from a narrative viewpoint - Civil War's middle section flirts with tediousness.