The positives: Great intense action, acting, CGI, cinematography, atmosphere. Negatives: the story was terrible. If you enjoy MCU, you will enjoy this for the action, and intensity, but don't expect to get absorbed in the story - there is no fun here. The first 90 minutes is 10 stars- excellent, the rest is soaked in a miasma of icky goo.

Disclaimer, don't let my negatives that follow, in any way dissuade you from seeing this film. It's a rush of wonderful enjoyment, and super fun action and excitement, but as you will realize if you choose to continue reading, I am critical.

This is not a Captain America movie, and they should not have named it as such. This is a potpourri of idle heroes, bored to tears, with too much spare time. Let's take all this adrenaline, egocentrism, testosterone, and lack of focus and start a fight in the locker room, just for $^%@$ and giggles.

My opinion of alternate titles would include:

The Winter Soldier Returns Avengers: Civil War Avengers: Cynical War Iron Man vs Captain America The New Avengers

This movie is about questions and answers. What happened to Stark's parents? Where is the winter soldier? What is to transpire with the new recruits? Is Ant-Man going to join the Avengers? What are Vision's powers? Who is this Black Panther? Wow, Spiderman? Whatever happened to Frank Grillo? What about Emily VanCamp? Where is the Hulk? Where is Thor? And so many more.

There was way, way, way too much hype surrounding this movie, and we were hoodwinked by the razzmatazz - all bark, and no bite. What I mean is this had no tangible theme, and no lessons learned. We were duped by the glitter of Spiderman, and deceived by the mystique of the Black Panther. But none of this came to fruition, we got a bite of it, but it left a sour aftertaste. View it again with an open mind, and I feel you might fathom what I'm saying (maybe?)

There are lots of failed attempts at establishing additional heroes into the MCU, and providing some foundation, and the presentation was meager at best. I'm sorry for the blasphemy, just being honest. I'm hoping there is no revisionist history at work here, but I really can't remember if I ever loved this movie nearly as much as the other ones. I think I conveniently forgot how abysmal the story was, if only to spare myself the trauma of reliving it. Again, the action, the fights, all the ambience was over-the-top, but the story is depressing and sad (not a fun movie if you're looking for anything... cool). This is very heavy, and the lightheartedness factor is a big zero.

I finished this and thought to myself, what is wrong with me? Have I suddenly lost all ability to enjoy the MCU, or just having an off day? I thought I remembered at least enjoying this somewhat, but now I'm not so sure. I'm gonna lean toward just having an off day.

7.9 stars.