Captain America: Civil War – Because Who Needs Bad Guys?

I was a little late to this party. The movie has been out for almost a month, but I had stuff to do with families and work, so this review is a little delayed. Now, while I’m going to try and avoid anything major, there be spoilers ahead. Please also bear in mind I saw the movie today, and there are some things I may need to process for a little while, but She was insisting I get a post together while it was fresh in my mind, so here we go.

The film starts with the Avengers working on a task that seems decidedly un-Avenger worthy. I won’t go into the details, but the first two films (and indeed the other movies within the Marvel MCU make it seem like it’s kind of a big deal for the Avengers to assemble (which they still haven’t said); yet, here they are working together on a task that frankly seemed beneath them (until shit went sideways, which I’m not sure it would have had they not been involved in the first place). So, oops?

Everyone knows the general premise, evolved from the original comic book story of Civil War. The world starts to worry about the Avengers after the havoc they ostensibly caused in Marvel’s Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Though, side note, wasn’t most of that damage caused by others? I mean, maybe you can blame the damage from Age of Ultron on the Avengers based on how Ultron was created, but I’m reasonably confident that even a shitty lawyer could argue that the Avengers prevented more damages than they caused in the other movies. But whatever, the U.N. wants to control the Avengers. As a result, Tony Stark, the Iron Man, the guy who stood up in the U.S. Senate and told Garry Handling, “You can’t control me,” says “Yeah, maybe they should control us.” I guess they set up how he could evolve this way, what with his post-Avengers PTSD and all. Still, it seemed like a marked change in character that was somewhat unearned. Captain America, defender of freedom and liberty, says “nope,” and now the good guys are in conflict.

There’s a bad guy, and I guess his main purpose is simply to line up the pieces on the chessboard, but the main attraction here is getting the good guys to fight each other (like Thor and Iron Man did in the first Avengers flick, and Hulk and Thor in that same movie). Marvel’s managed to find a way to make a movie that doesn’t feel like any of the ones that came before. Captain America: The First Avenger was a war movie with comic book characters. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a political thriller with super hero action. Captain America: Civil War is almost like a family drama with a shitload of action. The whole conceit of the movie is to set it up for the money shot from the trailer of the six-on-six teams charging at each other like, well, like armies did in the American Civil War.

The movie’s visuals are frankly stunning. The characters (with the possible exception of the Winter Soldier and Baron Zemo) feel fully-realized. Every single one of them gets time to shine in this movie. It gives us what is frankly the best adaptation yet of Spider-Man, and Blank Panther was incredible. The Russo Brothers earned the right to helm the upcoming Infinity War movies with this exceptional weaving of a fantastic tale with breathtaking action pieces, combined with the sparks of light-hearted humor (something Warner Brothers clearly forgot in the DC cinematic universe) and long-lasting emotional consequences.

That being said, I write on the internet, and so I must pick at nits. I thought Baron Zemo could have been flushed out a bit, and maybe he could have had a better direct confrontation with the heroes. People expecting the good guys to unify to defeat the bad guys are in for a bit of a shock, and the fact that Marvel plays the long game with its movies allows this to happen. The repercussions of the conflict are going to reverberate soundly through Marvel’s Phase 3. In fact, that could be the problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forward. I’m not sure how they can keep raising the stakes for the characters in the stand-alone movies. Now that Black Panther and Ant-Man have taken part in this massive level of conflict, what can they face (alone) in their own movies (or with the Wasp in the cleverly-titled Ant-Man and the Wasp) that ups the ante from this movie? Are those going to be de facto Avengers films like this one was? Thor has the luxury of Asgardian conflict independent of Earth’s problems for his own movies, but how do the characters that have been lumped into this world do on their own now? Comic book readers can parse these issues with separate storylines, but the MCU is more contained and comprehensive, and the casual viewer who doesn’t read the comics could have some… issues with dialing back the scale of the conflict.

Yeah, there were some issues with some of the motivations, and frankly, even now I can’t figure out how Bucky wasn’t turned into swiss cheese in one scene where his prosthetic silver arm was apparently more effective than Cap’s shield at blocking gunfire. But I still enjoyed the movie, twists and turns included, and I can’t wait to see how deep the fractures run.

And now, to wait for Doctor Strange…