Captain America: Civil War - 10 Most Hyped Moments
9. The Personal Relationships
Despite the scale and scope of the film, it's enormously positive to see that it's the personal relationships between characters that seem to shout the loudest.
It's precisely because of that successful focus on personal relationships and establishing dynamics and characters that we actually care about that sell the drama of the plot. As Crave's review notes "What matters is that these are people we know and love, fictional though they may be, and they are trying to hurt each other and we want them to stop."
And further "This movie isnt about killing someone you dont know, its about coming to blows with someone you do know, and thats simply more involving." Those are the key stakes, and the key reason it all lands so heavily, a point Cinema Blend seemingly agree on:
"The headliner, of course, is the key conflict between Captain America and Iron Man - whose emotional battle will tear at the heartstrings of every fan like theyre watching their own parents go through a messy divorce but the truth is that this is a feature where you can throw a rock and hit amazing character dynamics."
A lot of the selling of these relationships clearly comes down to the performances of Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan and Robert Downey Jr - who seems to be taking the lion's share of the praise, and rightly so, according to Forbes' love-letter to his performance:
"Robert Downey Jr. is as good as he has ever been here, and at some point we are going to have to acknowledge that the best performances in these comic book movies or fantasy action films are just as worthy of praise as those in would-be respectable dramas."