Words cannot describe how happy Captain America: Civil War makes me. What could have been a cluttered mess
instead was an amazingly well done, but not great adaptation, of an intense
Marvel story. They obviously couldn’t do an accurate adaptation, since a true Civil War adaptation requires the
Fantastic Four and several X-Men, the two franchises that Marvel still doesn’t have
access to. Side bar, Marvel, Fox Studios; sit down, talk and find a way to
share the franchises. Marvel, you get more movies as Fox will shoulder some of
the financial burdens. And Fox, have you seen the money these crossovers make? I
guarantee that the returns would pale in comparison to the money that a Captain
America/Wolverine movie would pull in. Side bar over, let’s get to the Civil
War.
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| Bad ass from the moment he put on his cat costume. |
Movie opens to a flashback to 1991.
James Buchanan Barnes aka Bucky aka Winter Soldier being programmed to start a
new mission. He’s sent out, takes out a car and steals a suitcase full of
strange blue liquid. Flash-forward to the present day, and the current Avengers
team (Captain America, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, and Falcon) stopping a
terrorist attack in Africa. Said Terrorist, Crossbones, and his crew are going
to steal a biological weapon. A massive, well done chase and fight scene
occurs, leading to a major fight between Cap and Crossbones. When Crossbones
realizes the battle is lost, he bulls a bomb and tries to blow him and the
Captain to Kingdom Come. Captain is saved by Scarlet Witch, who captures the
explosion inside a magic bubble and levitating him upwards. The explosion
destroys a nearby building.
At the Avengers Headquarters, US
Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross reprimands the group for the destruction the
Avengers wrought. In response to the latest incident, which included the deaths
of several humanitarian workers from the reclusive nation of Wakanda, the UN
has prepared the Sokovia Accords. Said Accords would basically create an
oversite committee to determine when and how the Avengers would be deployed.
Iron Man, War Machine, and Vision are for signing the Accords, believing legal
oversight would be helpful. Captain America, and Falcon are against it,
believing that an added level of bureaucracy would only make it harder for them
to save people.
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| A surprisingly diverse cast. Of ten characters two are women, three are black men, and one is a robot. |
There’s a momentary break in the
action when Captain America learned that his former lover Margaret “Peggy”
Carter had passed away. He attends her funeral, learns that the SHIELD spy that
had lived across from him in Captain
America 2 was her niece Sharon, and that most of his team signed the
Accords in his absence. We then jump to Vienna, where Black Widow meets the
Wakandan Royals, King T’Chaka and his son, T’Challa. During T’Chaka’s speech,
the event is attacked by a bomb, killing Wakanda’s king and many others. Folks
see a fella that looks like Bucky, and people start blaming the Winter Soldier.
Learning that the UN is planning on taking out Barnes, Capt and Falcon go rogue
and try to save Bucky. After another fairly intense fight and chase, which
includes T’Challa in his new role as Black Panther, War Machine flies in and
arrests Bucky, Captain America, and Falcon. I just want to take a second to
point out that I think this might be a first in movie history, we get to see
three major Black characters on screen at the same time. First time that I can
think of it.
Meanwhile, Helmut Zemo tracks down
Winter Soldier’s former handler and steals a red book that has the trigger
words for Winter Soldier’s programming. We’re given a quick scene with the
Vision and Scarlet Witch, it initially starts off cute (Vision trying to cook
despite not having a sense of taste) but turns a little sinister (Vision can’t
let Scarlet Witch leave by Stark’s orders). Weird, and creepy. Learning about Wanda’s
house arrest is what keeps Cap from signing the Accords. Meanwhile, the
restrained Bucky is interviewed by a shrink. Good, he needs help. Said shrink
is Zemo. Not as good. He had a goon deliver an EMP device to a power station.
Said power outage lets Zemo recite the programing words, and forces Bucky to
tell him about his mission in 1991, and then cause a scene. Captain America
captures Bucky and he and Sam learn Zemo’s apparent plan. Zemo is going to a
hidden HYDRA lab where they kept additional frozen Winter Soldier experiments.
Bucky could destroy a small nation by himself. Five of them, they could destroy
the US or Canada.
Iron Man, still believing that Cap
is in the wrong, assembles a new Avengers team to stop him. Knowing that Iron
Man will try to stop them, Cap also assembles a new team. This leads to a
massive brawl between Team Iron Man, consisting of Iron Man, War Machine, Black
Widow, Black Panther, Vision and Spider-Man, vs Team Captain America,
consisting of Cap, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, and Winter Soldier.
And I can’t go into more detail than that, it’d ruin everything. Just know that,
despite only appearing for this scene, Spider-Man and Ant-Man are perfectly
utilized.
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| Sigh, nothing even approximating this costume in this one. |
So… the good. The cast, perfect. Everyone
is perfect for their parts, and gives 110%. Tom Holland and Paul Rudd, who only
appear in one scene each to introduce them and then the major brawl at the
airport, they don’t feel like cameos. Both of them are the funniest characters
on their respective teams. It’s funny that after five major movies, it was the
Captain America movie where he had maybe fifteen minutes of screentime that
Spider-Man got the most accurate depiction. This Peter Parker was cracking wise
throughout meeting Tony and later helping Team Iron-Man. I especially liked
quips like “That Shield violates the laws of physics,” and the fact he was
absolutely star struck upon meeting Captain America. Even though he’d just
webbed Cap’s hands and stole his shield. Ant-Man was much the same way, star
struck by the Captain and others. When he sees Black Widow he’s all, “I know
you too, it’s great to meet you.” He also has a pretty good line when he shows
off his new power. I won’t ruin it for those who don’t know all of Ant-Man’s
tricks but the buildup line is great. “Oh I can do. I have done it. Once. In a
lab. And I passed out. But I can totally do it.” The CGI is great, as are the
fight scenes. Now let’s talk about the break out character, Black Panther. Chadwick
Boseman does a great job as the young prince turned predatory cat-themed superhero.
He’s motivated by a superhero classic, murder of a parent. His cold fury is
shown from T’Chaka’s death, and doesn’t abate until he learns how toxic vengeance
can be. Very well done.
And now, the bad. As far as
villains go, while Zemo’s plan turns out to be one of the best villain plan to
date, he’s probably the weakest character. He’s got like twenty minutes of
screen time, which for me makes him a minor character, despite being the major
antagonist. We also don’t see any of his sword or other combat skills, he’s strictly
a thinker in this one. They also make major revisions to his backstory, making
him a Sakovian Spec ops guy, rather than a German nobleman. Gives him motivation
to hate the Avengers that isn’t tied to his father, Heinrich Zemo. Elder Zemo
fought Captain America in WWII in the comics, and upon his death, Helmut takes
the mantel for vengeance. For those who don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I liked
Daniel Bruhl’s character, but it wasn’t really Zemo for me, and even if they’d
called him something else, he was kind of an underdeveloped bad guy. And, the
motivations are kind of weak. Iron Man is so broken up upon once again being
blamed for the collateral damage that hero fighting caused. I am kind of
annoyed that this plot point keeps coming up, especially the New York incident.
News Flash folks, had the Avengers not stepped in, you’d be either dead or
enslaved to the Chitari. Might seem callous, but I think I’d say “Sorry, but
stop your bitching,” were I Iron Man. Captain America’s motivation is also a
little weak. Guy doesn’t even entertain the idea of government oversight. Granted,
that was true of the Captain America and Iron Man of the Civil War comic story, but it was a weak story arc there too. Just
saying.
Overall, got to give this A-. The
cast and characters are great, the fight scenes are amazing, and while it was a
poor adaptation of the story of the comics, it was still a fun ride. But,
weaker character motivations and an underdeveloped villain keeps this from
being a super movie. A super superhero movie. Even if, somehow, you were the
level of comic purest that deviating from the original story even a little bit,
you’ll still find some good out of this movie. “What?” you might be asking. “What
could it be?” I would say that Black Panther, Ant-Man and Spider-Man’s parts in
this film should at least get you jazzed for their separate films. So yeah,
very good, flawed but great. Next time, something DC related, I’m still kicking
around a few ideas. See you then folks.
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