 |
| What am I becoming?!?! |
Looking back, I think it was input overload: I was reading so many other thoughts about the movie that my own were simply lost in the noise.
When I do one of these things, I’m pretty consistent with my process. I watch the movie alone, sit with it for a few hours or a few days (depending on the day of the week), then write until I think I’m clever. It’s why I churn out so few of these things; my opinion of myself is pretty low. This time I tried something a little different. My wife, who had no recollection of this movie, wanted to re-watch it with me to brush up on the lore before Avengers: Infinity War. It doesn’t sound like it would make much of a difference, but I promise you, it did. We got to be two people watching the movie again for what felt like the first time, and just like before, I felt blown away by the intricacy, intimacy, and character work that directors Joe and Anthony Russo were able to imbue in this film, even if it doesn’t hold the same weight as some of the other Marvel films.
Plus, I got to talk about Civil War for a good 45 minutes with a person who is contractually
obligated to love me ‘till death do us part. Too late to take it back now,
sweetheart.
What Works
The Characters
Serving as Captain America 3, Iron Man 4, Avengers 2.5, the introduction of Black Panther (which OMFG HE’S HERE!!!), and the introduction of Spider-Man (which OMFG HE’S COME HOME!!!), Captain America: Civil War had a lot of heavy lifting to do. Mostly, it succeeds. Tracking each character’s arc through this movie seems like it should be a convoluted mess (looking at you Batman v. Superman) but the Russo’s are able to make a relatively comprehensible movie. Anchoring the flick, you have Steve Rogers; a man out of time who just lost one of the final connections he had to the life that he used to know. To his left, you have Tony Stark; a man who is, perhaps for the first time, feeling insurmountable guilt at how many lay dead in his wake.
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| Tony's Fault! Tony's Fault! |
Putting these two on uneven footing right at the beginning of the movie made them all the easier to manipulate (which we’ll get to in a minute). The two are led on a magical journey full of heartbreak and betrayal until finally coming to blows in a Super Smash Bros. stage.
 |
| Final Destination, No Items |
During the final fight between the two, the audience can feel the frustration and angst behind every punch… have you even been in a fist fight with a sibling? Not that play fighting shit where someone accidentally gets hurt and you make them promise not to tell mom. I mean that gloves off, hardcore fighting to the death where every strike is a ‘fuck you’ for every imagined slight they’ve lobbied against you since birth. That’s what you feel between Cap and Iron Man by the end of this movie. They don’t want to kill each other, they just really want to make each other hurt, maybe knock out a couple of permanent teeth. Even down to Tony’s final venomous jab proclaiming that the shield doesn’t belong to Steve is designed specifically to cut down to the bone. Watching their arc unfold is fascinating, and if the character development had stopped there, it probably would have been enough to carry the whole movie.
But it didn’t stop there.
Wanda AKA Scarlet Witch AKA the Fat Olsen had a fairly tragic arc herself. As a new recruit, she was directly responsible for a handful of Wakandans getting exploded. If the guilt she felt wasn’t bad enough, she was essentially imprisoned in the compound on Tony’s orders being watched by Vision; the one person that she thought understood her. Watching her evolve from uncertain child to owning her shit and proclaiming “This is who I am!” as she increases Vision’s density until he looks like Magic Mike reject is fantastic to watch over the course of the film.
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| Touching is extra, ladies. |
And if the character development had stopped there, it probably would have been enough to carry the whole movie.
But it didn’t stop there.
T’Challa AKA Black Panter AKA Mr. Steal Yo’ Girl is driven by revenge brought on by the death of his father. He’s literally a Revenger. His entire arc is driven by his unquenchable thirst for the blood of his enemies, yet by the end of the movie HE SAVES THE BAD GUY TO NOT BE CONSUMED BY REVENGE!!!
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| This Bitch |
Sorry, I get more than a little excited talking about character development; mostly because it seems to be a concept too often ignored by major blockbusters. The point I’m making is that aside from Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man, you can trace any character’s motivations from beginning to end and have it make sense. It makes me excited that the Russo’s next film is, you guessed it, Avengers: Infinity War. If they can focus on the intentions of the cavalcade of characters in that film as much as they did in Civil War, we are going to be in for something truly special.
Special shout out to Scarlet Johansson, who was not terrible in this movie. Maybe fifth time was the charm for her, but it finally feels like she is comfortable with her character. She was, dare I say, almost charming?
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| Almost. |
The Action
When a man can throw a motorcycle and stop a helicopter from taking off, you expect a punch from him to lay you the fuck out. This movie, like Winter Soldier before it, does a good job at reminding the audience that the people going toe-to-toe with each other are demigods, trained assassins, and a literal purple Jesus.
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| Blood rushing from head... can't formulate joke... |
While it’s just a cool thing to watch, the brutality of these hits also serves to remind the audience that despite all of their power, most of these people are still human. They can bleed, they can die (you know, maybe one day) and they can become injured beyond repair, unless they have another movie in their contract.
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| Walk it off, buddy! |
Tying back into the previous section a bit, I also love what the action does for the characters psyche. In big budget movies such as this, you get fights that don’t go much further than ‘kill or be killed.’ Even in this Universe that I love so much and would do unspeakable things to/for, a lot of the action has been centered around “Hey you better go kill da guy or da guy’s gonna kill us.” And that’s all well and good, but it gets old after a minute. If you have a bunch of explosions with no discernable depth, well that’s a Michael Bay movie, my friends; beautiful yet vapid. As mentioned above, this movie does just a swell job of ensuring that every character has emotional baggage going into the action, ensuring that our characters are feeling the full weight of the punches both physically and spiritually.
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| EMOTION!!! |
The Badass Villain
If there was ever a face to put on the repercussions of the Avenger’s ‘victories,’ it would be the face of Helmut Zemo. Daniel BrΓΌl as Zemo tends to be overlooked, if not overwhelmingly forgotten, due in no small part to the fact that the title fight between our heroes is what audience showed up for. But when you take a step back and see what this man was actually able to accomplish, Zemo easily becomes one of the most terrifying and effective villains in the MCU. Zemo, a former Sokovian black-ops agent, is on a quest to abolish the Avengers in a way to ensure they remain abolished. Zemo is cold, calculating, and, most importantly, fractures the Avengers without throwing a single punch. Our heroes are torn asunder by his relentless quest for revenge.
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| Though I'm kinda bummed he didn't wear the costume. |
People often like to complain that Zemo’s plan is reliant
entirely on coincidence and one would have to take many leaps of logic in order
to make sense of it. To those people, I would say that it is a lot easier to
watch the movie without their heads up their own assess. There are better looking hats out there. I get that the notion of Rogers and Stark
showing up to the Soviet base at the same time as the crux of his evil plan is
more than a little coincidental, but I argue that this was never part of his
plan. Look, the whole bombing the UN, tracking down and interrogating Bucky
thing was all due to one asshole HYDRA agent that wouldn’t give Zemo what he
wanted. And Zemo says as much during that interrogation scene! The fact that
they show up at the same time simply saved Zemo the trouble of uploading the
video to YouTube and calling it a day.
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| "Uh, hey! It's the uh, Captain Spangley versus the Tin Man!" - The Grandmaster, probably. |
Regardless of what you think of his plan, coincidence is not
an inherently bad storytelling device. If it were, Heath Ledger’s Joker would
be seen as the worst villain in franchise history for the crazy amount of luck
he would need to break out of jail. At the end of the day, Zemo was able to do something that
countless other forgettable villains weren’t: end the Avengers.
Bait and Switch
The strength of Marvel post-Avengers has been to subvert expectations in order to keep the audience guessing. The idea of betraying the audience continues with Civil War. The story starts with a thoughtful look at government oversight vs. personal agency, with the Avengers split roughly down the middle. When Bucky is brought into the fold, he acts as a catalyst for both sides to be like: “See?! This is why I’m right, assgoblin!” Like Ant-Man before it, Civil War trusts that the audience is ready for a more intimate story between our heroes and, while set in the shadow of the Sokovia Accords, believes in bringing everything to a more personal, grounded level.
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| If these two don't make out in Infinity War I'm going to lose my shit. |
But the fun doesn’t stop there. After Bucky comes back from his murder-bot rampage (or Batmanning as I will now call it), he tells the quaint little story of a special batch of killer agents injected with the super soldier serum that will help Zemo take down an empire. The movie mostly sets up that the final act of the film will be our heroes fighting for their lives against a highly trained stunt team in order to save the world. Then *gasp* we realize, this isn’t the case!
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| "They knew we were coming to kill them! They can anticipate our every move!" -Steve, probably |
In this age of information and leaks, it’s so refreshing to
be surprised by a film, especially a film that I think I’ve seen a dozen times
before.
Like with Avengers: Age of Ultron, there is a lot to dissect and a lot more I can add. In fact, I thought about just writing an entire 18-page rant on Black Panther and Spider-Man. However, they have their own movies coming up and we are inching ever closer to that Infinity War release date, so let’s go ahead and jump to totally fair and balanced complaints.
What Doesn’t
Required Viewing
Captain America: Civil War is a movie that cannot exist without the rest of the MCU. I certainly don’t mind it, and I’m sure people like me feel rewarded when we have our very own Captain America ‘I understood that reference!’ moment. It’s enriches the world to see everything interwoven, and is kind of the whole point of having an interconnected universe in the first place. But while someone like me may think that it’s a super cool thing to hear Cap say ‘I can do this all day,’ more casual viewers like my folks are too distracted asking me who that purple guy is, if that’s an Olsen twin, and how has the arrow guy not been killed yet to appreciate the complex details of the character work.
 |
| A question for the ages. I got 10 bucks says he slips in the tub. |
I’m all for expanding this universe, but in order for this movie to make sense, you have to watch at least one Captain America movie, two Iron Man movies, both Avengers and an Ant-Man just to have some semblance of who these characters are. Six movies may be a little much for the casual viewer.
Great Personality
Like your significant other’s third best friend, this movie is fucking ugly. And if an image of someone you know flashed into your mind, you’re the bad person; not me. Back in Captain America: Winter Soldier, the Russo’s adopted a more grounded, earthy color palette for the grittier direction in which they were taking the character. While that palette works for characters like Cap, Widow, and Winter Soldier, having other characters in the universe conform to that scheme is grossly misguided and leads to underwhelming visuals. The airport scene gets a lot of credit for meticulously positioning and balancing all of the characters on the battle field, but it is done no favors by having the same color scheme as a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats. The background is grey and white, Cap’s costume is washed out, Panther doesn’t have his purple yet, Hawkeye is in all black. Even the reds with Scarlet Witch and Ant-Man don’t pop like they should, especially after Ant-Man grows to the size of a damn airplane. I mean guys, VISION is a PURPLE AND YELLOW ANDROID that somehow manages to get lost in the scenery!
 |
| I've taken |
I know he’s British but shit, give him a little bit of flavor. Spidey is the only character with any sort of brightness to him, and I can’t help but wonder if that was part of the deal with Sony; that he can come over and play, but he has to be the best looking kid there. It doesn’t seem like a huge misstep, but when you look at the Jack Kirby-ness of the films that follow this one, it’s a little disappointing that Civil War seems too self-conscious to want to be a comic book movie.
Final Thoughts
What are my final thoughts on this movie? This is a question that I’ve been asking myself since Civil War came out and has been ringing louder in my head for the last two weeks. I’m obviously impressed with the character work and what the Russo’s were able to achieve… but something just feels off about it. I think maybe part of it has to do with why this movie exists. When viewed through that lens, I keep coming back to the idea that this movie was made solely to set up Infinity War. There’s no resolution at the end, no vanquishing of some villain, no cataclysmic event; the lone purpose of its being is to communicate that The Avengers are splitting up and will have to reunite to fight Thanos. They took some interesting twists and turns along the way to get here, but Civil War can’t shake being a placeholder flick in the MCU.
But I had such a good time with this movie! The action, the characters, the intricacy. Maybe I’m having difficulty reconciling my conflicting viewpoints here. Like, maybe Captain America: Civil War is a pint of ice cream: there exists no nutritional reason to consume this but goddamn if I’m not going to enjoy eating the whole thing in one sitting. Civil War maybe be empty calories, but it is a damn good time.
So where does Captain America: Civil War rank in my list of MCU Films?
1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: Civil War
4. Iron Man 3
4. Iron Man 3
5. Iron Man
6. Guardians of the Galaxy
7. Captain America: The First Avenger
8. Avengers: Age of Ultron
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Thor
11. Ant-Man
11. Ant-Man
12. Iron Man 2
13. The Incredible Hulk
Huh, so that's what I think of it.
End
Well, now I’m behind. YAY! Fortunately, the next movie I’m looking at is as rudimentary as Marvel Movies come. Tune in… soon… for a look at Doctor Strange. In the meantime, if you like what I’m writing, please comment or share these lil’ guys. They love to be read! I’m now on the tweeties @TheJamesBrock and on Instagram… also thejamesbrock. To answer your question: no, I have no idea how to use either social media outlet.
Be kind to each other.
-James
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