Captain America: Civil War (2016) – IMDb
What impresses me about this movie is how much good was done in a short amount of time for each character. There are really clever time-saving ‘tricks’ like Tony using the broom to bust open the hatch that caused the Spidey costume to come dangling down. That saved them minutes of precious dialogue; it just cut straight to the point. And during that whole scene in Peter’s place, almost every line of dialogue counted toward something important, with just enough ‘fluff’ to make it sound like a real conversation instead of ‘movie dialogue’ (the funny asides like ‘please move your leg’ and ‘your ridiculously hot aunt’), etc.
The same is true about the scene near the beginning with Tony’s holographic ‘flashback’ . That scene served so many purposes at once – first, it got me caught up in the background story; then, it gave me an insight into Tony’s attitudes and regrets concerning his parents;
then, when it was shown that it was a therapy technique, it showed me that Tony still has unresolved emotional issues concerning his parents, which then set up the stage for a reveal that causes Tony’s later actions.
These two previously mentioned scenes took about four or five minutes tops, and many other scenes in the film managed to squeeze in a half-hour’s worth of material (per scene) into 5-minute snippets by accomplishing a lot of stuff simultaneously (story-building AND character-building AND plot development) , and making it feel natural and not rushed or forced.
This film serves as a great example for others to study when it comes to screenwriting effectiveness. Something really remarkable was done here. And it was very refreshing after seeing so many big-budget blockbusters with horrible screenwriting.