Here's the review I emailed to a few people afterwards. It's kinda long (TL;DNR: is good.)

(Trying not to be spoilery.)



I have a habit; I think some of you share it. When I don't agree with what I'm seeing in a movie or comic, I refuse to call it by its official name. When Linkara talks about All-Star Batman And Robin, he calls the first title character 'Crazy Steve', in honour of the crazy hobo wearing Batman's costume. I'll talk about Heath Ledger as a great villain in The Dark Knight, but not by the name the screenwriters call him. As an Alpha Flight fan, I'll speak of Volume 2, but never call that 'Alpha Flight'.

I have never, ever meant this as a good thing.

Until now.


Marvel's Civil War doesn't focus on Captain America specifically, and I think it's a better movie for it. The best you could say is, it continues the Winter Soldier story from, well, Captain America: The Winter Soldier; but even then, this one doesn't need Cap's name attached to it. The movie continues the stories of characters from earlier movies, specifically the new Avengers: Vision and the Scarlet Witch; and expands the MCU with a couple of major new characters (you probably already know who they are).
I could call this Avengers: Civil War, but the new characters and The Winter Soldier aren't Avengers in the MCU. Yet. (They all have been in the comics; but who hasn't? Okay, most of Alpha Flight, but, y'know...) Oh, and a couple of movie Avengers are missing.

How does it fare as an adaptation?
Terrible.
I loved this movie. It's going to hang around in the top half of Marvel movies for me. The comic book Civil War... not so much.
Compared to the comics, this was a balanced, two-sided exploration of the issues (those who haven't read the comics express disagreement). It was sooooo much better than the Event comic it was based on - and I was always worried that it'd be a bad movie because of said comic.

The worst thing I'm going to say about it is (and this is praising with faint damnation, believe me), I wish they hadn't named a particular character 'Zemo'. He had nothing in common, nothing, with his comics counterpart, and there was no need to use up that name on him.
Similarly, I was a tiny bit disappointed in Crossbones - they used a couple of smears of paint to give us a sense that they'd seen his comic costume, and that's it. That's all we'll ever see of either of these characters in the movies (I expect).
(I'd have preferred if Redwing was a real bird, too, to the shock of nobody.)

Those are all purist nitpicks. Non-readers aren't going to notice; I don't even hugely care about any of them. - If fans of any of the above wants to go on a ranty complain about them, I won't argue back, but not one of these even approached dealbreaker territory for me.

This was a spectacular, fun movie, with a lot of character.

It had its subtle moments (I like the bit where we find out what happens when a cat meets a bird .)
I recommend it, and it is a marvelous continuation of the MCU.