Saw this with the kids yesterday in 3D digital IMAX. Was very impressed. I thought it was shockingly good, and that's saying a lot because I really wasn't in the mood for more MCU offerings this year, even though it's my preferred cbm universe. Probably not *quite* as good from beginning to end as TWS but it was close. Definitely my favorite "team" superhero movie by far. And I must say that for me it didn't have a single cringeworthy moment like Falcon jumping into the chopper in TWS. So even if it wasn't as masterful from beginning to end at least the Russos tightened up low end moments like that. Kudos to them.
I loved all the action sequences and was genuinely shocked that:
Crossbones died so early on, Cap *didn't* die, and that after not dying he gave up his shield. They are so PERFECTLY poised to have him be "The Captain" from here on out with black costume and red and black vibranium replacement shield given to him by Black Panther. Ross gives the original shield to John Walker...ugh, it would be so perfect. But alas, Thanos is going to come and wreck all of that.
I thought it was brilliant that:
They totally make you think that Zemo is going to unleash an army of "Extremist Part II"--I mean Winter Soldiers to create a common threat, unite the team, same old same old, but then instead they went totally sideways by having Zemo off them all and drop the Mr. and Mrs. Stark murder bomb so that the title bout of the film really IS the title bout of the film. Fantastic.
Spider-Man and Ant-Man had my kids in stitches during the airport battle. And one thing I really liked about this movie was seeing all superheroes in "pull their punches" mode, both against each other and against the regular humans trying to arrest them. It made the film less violent yes but by the same token it also made all of the duels more like the comics and forced everyone to have more creative tactics which made for very entertaining battles.
And unless I wasn't following the action correctly they actually had Cap, Black Panther AND Bucky all running on foot at 50 mph??? They aren't even trying to reign in these guys' power levels, but I love it.