This post DOES NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS!
I'm standing at the Baskin & Robbin counter trying to stop tears falling from my eyes as I tell the man serving me when I say "extra caramel" I mean EXTRA caramel! A few hours before I arrived at the o2 to watch the Captain America trilogy I received a rejection email from a job I really wanted. If they could have run a line into my arm and pumped caramel directly into my blood even then I might have been happy. I didn't even want to be at the cinema! I wanted to be sobbing uncontrollably into my mother's bosom. But come on! It's Chris Evans in close fitting clothes for over 400 minutes. There's no reason to miss that.
Civil War is such a well-rounded story it makes Batman VS Superman look like it wasn't trying. I screamed when the film hit its final act and I realised what was going on. I thought I came to see Chris Evans running around in those ass hugging pants he wears, I was not prepared for the emotional journey I would be taken on. How can Marvel question my morality and ask me to choose between Captain America and Iron Man? Whose side are you on when both Tony and Steve are kinda, sorta right? I was vehemently #TeamIronMan before I went to see the trilogy. But throughout the duration of the film my allegiance switched because both characters are so powerfully realised and both make compelling arguments that I just want to make love to both of them. Sorry, I mean, I want them both to win. And the best thing, by the end of the film, I wasn’t even any clearer on whose side I was on. The Captain’s blind loyalty and Tony’s debilitating stubbornness are in constant collision and it makes for the centerpiece to hands down one of the best blockbusters of the year while simultaneously setting up another Marvel hero whose babies I’m hoping to give birth to.
There are black actors in this film! Multiple black actors- I need two hands to count the amount of black actors who had speaking parts. And I have not digits enough to count the amount of black people in the film just existing, like we do in reality. While the ratio of black men to black women with substantial speaking roles is a dismal 4:1, I was just happy to see that they weren’t just window dressing, the creators of this Marvel installment are not just paying lip service to the idea of racial representation. From Alfre Woodard to Don Cheadle, from Chadwick Boseman to Anthony Mackie we are treated to a myriad of voices and it’s delicious. What isn’t so delicious is why we don’t have a Black Widow film yet. Black Widow is one of the most complex and interesting characters in this universe, yet she is relegated to making these men’s films better? Gimme a break and give her her own film, Goddamit. It’s cheeky. But yes, the film looks more like the world we live in and while news reporters in the film continually mispronounced the capital city of Nigeria, I left feeling like they cared enough about me and those who look like me to make sure we could see ourselves in their masterpiece.
I left the cinema tears streaming my face, the same way I came in but for a different reason. This film is a must see. Take your kids, take your wife, take your mum! GO!
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