SINGAPORE – The rivalry is real.

Iron Man is a “Coke can”. War Machine is a “trash can”. Vision looks like “a big marker”. Black Panther is a pile of “Michelin car tires”.

This is how actor Anthony Mackie, 37, hilariously describes the members of one of the warring superhero teams in the upcoming blockbuster Captain America: Civil War. Not coincidentally, they are the team led by Iron Man opposing that of Mackie’s character Falcon, led by Captain America.

To be fair, Mackie also calls Team Iron Man’s Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, “perfect”.

In the movie, which opens here on April 28, Captain America (Chris Evans) is pitted against Iron Man when Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is accused of carrying out a devastating attack.

Thousands throng MBS to see Chris Evans and co-stars from Captain America: Civil War

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The New Paper, Reuters, The Straits Times, BH

Mackie, Evans and Stan, along with the movie’s co-director Joe Russo, are in Singapore to promote the latest Marvel superhero blockbuster.

Taking the competitive theme of the film to heart, Mackie takes another opportunity to root for Team Captain America – or Team Cap for short – and diss Team Iron Man.

He points out that he, Evans and Stan would try to get to know the local culture by eating stingray and chilli crab and learning to say “yes, lah” and “no, lah”, whereas Team Iron Man would “go from the press conference to the spa, from the spa to their jet”.

Jokes aside, this is a serious instalment in the Marvel cinematic universe.

There is spectacular action as superheroes clash and there is an emotional heft to the proceedings as friends pick sides.

Evans, 34, looking relaxed in a tight white polo shirt and jeans, says that the action scenes are easier to handle. “The emotional moments, that’s up to you, and the director really.”

As for his workout routine, he quips: “You go to the gym, pick up heavy stuff and you put it back down. You do that till you can’t do it anymore and you get big. It’s real simple.”

Russo, 45, points out that Civil War is extremely pivotal in the bigger scheme of things. “This movie changes the psychology of the Marvel universe in a very significant way and the ramifications of Civil War are going to carry over into Infinity War.

“It’s probably the most important Marvel movie to date.”

Avengers: Infinity War is slated to be a two-parter due for release in 2018 and 2019.

Asked to describe Civil War in one word, Stan, 33, picks “heartbreaking” and Mackie says “a**-kicking”.

Evans says: “Record-setting. There’s a hyphen, but give me a break.”

This article was first published on April 21, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

LOS ANGELES – From Jon Snow’s vital signs to festering grudges over wedding dust-ups, hit HBO show “Game of Thrones” ended season five with more cliffhangers than a rock climbing convention.

With so many loose ends needing urgent attention, viewers can only be sure of one thing: winter is coming, and it’s going to be tense, bloody and probably semi-nude.

Here are the big questions as season six opens on Sunday.

So is Jon Snow dead? Well, yes, if you understand how physics, biology, credible narrative and stabbing people repeatedly normally works.

If the young hero were joining the Night’s Watch all over again it seems unlikely he’d pass the medical, what with all those knives sticking out of him.

Last season ended with the boy in black on the slab, spilling more claret than a drunken wine waiter, and with a face that said: “I think I’m going to sit this season out.” Then there’s the small matter of his corpse – his very, very dead corpse – appearing all over the place in the season six teaser spots.

Wishful thinkers point to sightings of the actor Kit Harington in Belfast while the new season was being shot there, but the rest of us expect to see the Jon Snow action figure in thrift stores any day now.

Showrunner David Benioff could not really have been more clear when he said in a recent interview: “Yeah, Jon Snow is dead.” Or is he?

Another character very much up against it as the curtain went down on season five was flaxon-haired throne-fancier Daenerys Targaryen, played by the distinctly raven-haired Emilia Clarke.

Smarting from insurrection in Meereen, she and her confusingly named dragon, Drogon, found themselves stranded on the Great Steppe and surrounded by Dothraki warriors who didn’t look like they were hunting autographs.

She was once their queen, but will the nomadic Dothraki take the Mother of Dragons prisoner? And will she manage to use that winning smile to talk her way out of her predicament? And did anyone see where she parked that dragon?

If you thought Dany was having a bad day, Cersei Lannister’s cunning plan to unleash a religious zealot called the High Sparrow appears to have backfired spectacularly after he had her arrested.

Paraded naked through the streets, she is now relying on King’s Landing’s famed sense of justice and fair play as she goes on trial for treason, incest and regicide. Good luck with that then.

Adding to her woes, Jaime, Cersei’s brother – and lover – bears news of their daughter Myrcella’s murder. And all the while Cersei’s undead bodyguard Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane is running amok.

It’s a volatile situation that’s going to require some serious diplomacy, and since things don’t go down that way in Westeros, expect to see tears before bedtime. And blood.

Winterfell’s ailing noble – paralysed from the waist down after being pushed out of a window by Jaime Lannister in season one – travelled beyond the Wall to find a sorcerer he’d seen in his visions.

Bran Stark’s new mentor the Three-Eyed Raven, played by the delightful Max Von Sydow, is allied to the ancient Children of the Forest against the nasty White Walkers.

But we haven’t had so much as a postcard since the group reached the Raven’s weirwood throne. Actor Isaac Hempstead Wright, who plays Bran, skipped season five altogether.

What will the young Stark and his companions have to sacrifice to aid the sorcerous mystic?

Walder Frey and Roose Bolton really seemed to get away with betraying the Starks, with the Red Wedding massacre fading into memory. Or did they?

Sansa, Arya and their surviving brothers must surely have a bone to pick with the duo, if not dozens of bones, two nervous systems and several pounds of flesh, along with every other northern house which saw its nobles cut down.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but judging by the teaser footage, the North could be about to lose its cool.