Civ 5 was driving me nuts. Every time I started it, I got the annoying opening cutscene, and it seemed the only way past it was to randomly hit keys, until it would eventually stop.
I’ve found a better fix, though, a way of disabling the opening movie altogether, and I’m happy to share it.
Go to your Documents folder and open up “My Games“. Inside is a “Sid Meier’s Civilization 5” folder,
Open the folder and then use Notepad to open the UserSettings file.
Find the entry that reads Skip Intro Video = 0.
Change the 0 to a 1 and save the file.
Congratulations, you’re done, and you’ll never have to see that opening movie again.