Captain America: Civil War Review - 10 Reasons It’s A Near-Perfect Comic Book Movie

4. The Airport Scene

Everything I've talked about so far - the conflict, the action, the characters - all comes together in a scene that is so indescribably awesome it transcends the already extreme hype surrounding it. Running fifteen minutes and never once dragging, the massive superhero showdown at Leipzig/Halle airport a new high-watermark for blockbuster action, involving twelve different heroes of all different shapes, sizes and sensibilities, from a retiree with a bow-and-arrow to an almost-God born of a magical MacGuffin.

This was the point in the film that made me make that earlier "unfathomable" comparison to Iron Man - it truly is stuff we haven't seen before. I could sit down and detail all the individual skirmishes and cool moments, but it's worth just experiencing it first hand; in a list of the film's best moments, I'd be hard-pressed to not have this dominate the top three (with the #1 a non-debatable, deliriously cool set-piece).

What's so surprising, though, is how, for all the geek-bait, it's impeccably constructed. This isn't two street gangs meeting in an alleyway and immediately jumping into a scrap, but a carefully constructed showdown where violence is a final option and containing dam`ge and reducing injury takes priority without weakening the tension; Team A has a single, clear goal they want to achieve, Team B steps in the way and, after exhausting all methods of restraint, they run at each other. BOOM!