#2,269: Captain America: Civil War
The Queen of Versailles - ★★½☆☆
I'm not sure what made me want to chase the feeling I had watching this the first time, but on a rewatch it was not as much fun. Revolting, but not the fun kind of revolting. No longer shocking, maybe.
Money Monster - ★★☆☆☆
I think I like the outline of this movie. Like, if you sat me down and told me about all the stuff that happens, I think I'd be on board. But the actual script that someone wrote from that outline? Not so much.
This movie is like if The Big Short were Phone Booth.
The Gambler - ★☆☆☆☆
By random luck, I missed this one in theaters last year. But then, I happened to stream it. Ah well. You win some, you lose some.
Captain America: Civil War - ★★★★☆
I don't think this tops Winter Soldier in my book, but it's probably my favorite entry in the MCU since.
Quick hits:
• All of the guest star characters in this are handled really well, but I felt like the main Cap crew may have been a little underserved.
• The shutter in the opening adventure is crazy. Made me wonder if it was inspired by Mad Max, but since it goes away later on, maybe it's just to show us how fast these guys are compared to the normals.
• This is maybe the first time a movie has made Iron Man do the generic superhero movie thing of standing around in costume sans helmet all the time.
• In the briefing early on, we see the death tolls of previous films' events on screen. If those are right, I don't really think world governments would be pushing for this kind of legislation. An annihilated nation, a diverted terrorist bombing, a weird military / air disaster, and an honest-to-god alien invasion with a combined lower body count than 9/11? Gunmen in the states routinely take out civilians on a scale comparable to the bomb in the opening scene of this movie without triggering sweeping legislation. I can see why non-USA nations want the accords, they don't have a lot of super heroes, but in our world those nations can't even get the USA to fall into step against pollution.