Be Excellent To Each Other

There are certainly parts where he's still doing his normal schtick but I was very struck by the scenes in the Civil War where he's trying to convince the others that some kind of regulation is needed; he was noticeably quieter and less dominant than usual--subdued and almost depressed seeming in places--which isn't a mood I think we've ever seen. During fights and when recruiting Spiderman we're back to nearly the usual Stark, but even then there's a slight sense of him playing the expected part while being slower with the quips and quicker with the anger. It's possible I was just looking for such things but by the end of the film I did get a sense of a Stark who's more frustrated with the world and for whom the whole 'hero' thing was massively losing it's shine. He pretty much admitted that he'd destroyed his relationship with Pepper due to his compulsion to try and fix what he sees as the results of his mistakes.

That bit in Civil War when he's emotionally devastated by the woman telling him about his (actually pretty tangential) role in the death of her son, I'd love to see that play out with Larry David.

Bitter woman: "He went there to build affordable housing. You dropped a city on his head."

Iron David: "That's very unfortunate. That's very sad. If I saw him I would have shouted something. You know, 'Get out of the way. City falling,' or something."

Bitter woman: "He tried to change the world, and you killed him."

Iron David: "I didn't kill him. I don't even know the guy! You say he was black? Because this wasn't a race thing. I have many black super-friends. Don't read anything into this."

Bitter Woman: "While you were out stopping the bad guys you didn't even think about anyone else!"

Iron David: "I distinctly did. I remember flying around and thinking, "Oh Gosh, I hope that city doesn't fall on anyone's head." What do you want me to do about it? What? Stop staring at me. How's this my problem?"

Bitter Woman: "You..."

Iron David: "I saved loads of people. I saved that guy with the comb-over and the kid and the uglier kid with the overbite and... and I saved loads of people! I filled a bus with them! Did you save anybody?"

Bitter Woman: "You're a bad man, Iron David..."

Iron David: "I'm not a bad man. You're a bad woman for trying to guilt a guy trying to do a good job. Yeah, you think on that. Laying an Elevator Guilt-Ambush on me. What, was I supposed to catch that city? I've lost all desire to finish this bagel now. You've ruined my lunch-break. Don't phone me. GOODBYE!"

Other than Scarlet Witch fucking up the explosion, nothing that was lain at the avengers feet was anything other than them clearing up other people's mess

So many great lines and pieces of action.

Giant Ant Man!

Everything Spider-Man said!

Especially "You have the right to remain silent!"

Black Panther vs Hawkeye!

Ant Man!

"What's that voice?" ... "This is your conscience speaking!"

And my personal favourite line of the whole movie for some reason...

"Sorry. I thought it was a water truck!"

I think Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen have done a fantastic job in their respective roles, but I think they need to be retired and replaced completely by McAvoy and Fassbender.

Obviously the most marketable character in the film series is Wolverine, and for better or worse Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. Fortunately it's not too hard to come up with excuses for him being present at whatever point in time the story is occurring in.

They came pretty close to an ending that cleanly established Wolverine as one of the Xmen back in the McAvoy/Fassbender timeline, but sort of messed up the entire timeline by having a different version of Wolverine show up in the Stewart/McKellen timeline right at the end.

I assume with the new one they are abandoning that timeline, doing another story centered around McAvoy/Fassbender timeline, and coming up with another excuse for having Wolverine turn up. I was just irritated that they did a bad job of tying it up neatly when they could have done so very easily.

Now the part of my brain that is wondering exactly which version of Wolverine is supposed to be appearing in various other movies (I gather a third standalone Wolverine movie is planned, too), when they could have just left the Wolverine at the end of DOFP in the past, and let the entire rest of the cast from the prior movies just make a clean exit, and focus on other characters in the past, and recast when they need to.

I think about time travel in movies a little too much.

The Cap/Bucky friendship is the axis that the film turns around, as it was in the second film and (of course) as was set up in the first.

As was my concern before it came out, it does rather make Cap the hero, which isn't really how Civil War was meant to go down

He is a goddamn hero!

As for not being Avengers, I agree with DocG as the central axis is Bucky/Cap, and more Falcon than other ancillary characters.

Had the Avengers name been used, there would likely have been internet snarks asking where Hulk and Thor were.

Rather than generals, you mean?