Captain America - Civil War (2016)

With Ultron being a bit of a disappointment, the Avengers franchise needed something to rescue it from mediocrity and that salvation arrived in the form of Captain America.

Civil War is technically a Captain America movie, but it’s really an Avengers movie, people often refer to it as Avengers 2.5. It features all of the Avengers, aside from Thor and the Hulk (their absence is noticed and referenced), and it introduces new ones.

It has that same spy thriller feel as The Winter Soldier (the opening sequence could have come right from an action spy film).

The action is brilliantly choreographed and while they utilise a lot of locations as Ultron did, there’s the feeling that they have reason behind it. The story advances and it connects. It also poses some very interesting questions.

For me, Tony, is once again the genuine bad guy in this and the title references the fact that the Avengers, specifically Tony and Steve, are fighting each other.

General Ross (last seen in The Incredible Hulk) throws something called the Sokovia Accords at the group. He claims it’s the work of the UN and that they’d be under the control of the UN If they sign it, but it has Tony’s fingerprints all over it. He has his conscience pricked by a grieving mother of a US college graduate doing charity work in Sokovia when the Avengers destroyed the city in pursuit of Ultron. Tony thinks its his fault and technically it is, he did create Ultron after all. The question he never thinks of is what if the situations had been altered and the kid had been killed Sokovia because the place was a lawless failed state (which it was) and the Avengers or Iron Man could have saved him, but didn’t. Wouldn’t the same mother still blame him for her son’s death? He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. 

Saying that signing the Accords is the same as him ceasing productions of weaponry doesn’t wash either. Yes, Stark stopped making bombs, but did he go and recall all the stuff what was already out there and being used? Did he really stop doing it? How else did the US military get hold of an Iron Man suit for his good friend James Rhodes to fly around in and call himself War Machine? (yes, I know technically War Machine is an Avenger, but he does whatever the US military tell him. He doesn’t sign the Accords because it’s the right thing to do, he signs the Accords because he’s told to).

Steve refuses to sign and his reasons for doing so are pretty simple. What if they get told to do something they don’t want to or think is not in the greater interest? What if they’re prevented from going into a situation that they can affect positively by the Accords? Its not as cut and dried as Tony thinks or as Ross wants them to believe. 

I had another question. Ross shows them footage of the Chitauri attack on New York, the devastation when SHIELD came down in Washington, Sokovia and the building in Lagos that Wanda blew up at the start of the film. He wants them to feel bad about what happened, all the people that died, and I’m pretty sure that they do, However what if the Avengers hadn’t been there? New York would have either allowed the Chitauri to take over Earth or the security council would have nuked the city. If Steve hadn’t taken SHIELD/Hydra down they would have killed millions, the same with Sokovia and Ultron, although Ultron was Tony’s mistake and if they hadn’t been in Lagos then Crossbones would have unleashed a dangerous biological weapon of mass destruction. 

Yes, they all came at a cost, but the cost would have been far greater without the Avengers, or if they’d been tied up in red tape.

This puts Steve and his allies against Tony and his. It culminates initially in a face off between Iron Man, War Machine, Vision, Black Widow (although she’s still playing her own side), Spiderman (yes, he was introduced into the MCU in this film) and Black Panther (also introduced) and Captain America, Falcon, Bucky (the Winter Soldier), Ant-Man, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. It’s damn good fight and the dialog although it wasn’t written by him, is right out of Joss Whedon’s play book.

While I felt Ultron lacked both spark and complexity, Civil War has both and lots of them.

Aside from Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo, whose characters don’t appear in this film, everyone else reprised their roles from Chris Evans to Emily Van Camp as Sharon Carter.

The newcomers were Tom Holland as Peter Parker (Spiderman) and Chadwick Boseman as T’challa (Black Panther). I’ll say a little about both of them below.

Tom Holland was a really good call for casting. For the first time they’ve cast a kid as Peter Parker, who actually looks like a nerdy 16 year old. This is probably helped by the fact that Holland was 19 when the film was released and even younger when he actually played the role. One thing that I’m not totally keen on, it works for this film and in the solo effort, but it is going to have to change, is that Peter’s character and patter stays the same whether he’s wearing the suit or not. What is as the very heart of the Spiderman story and persona is that once Peter puts the suit on he stops being nerdy Peter Parker science student and becames instead The Amazing Spiderman, dangerous and exciting vigilante and superhero. At present Tom Holland’s version doesn’t do that.

Chadwick Boseman has the right look and build, but that’s as far as it goes for me as Black Panther. I think my main problem is his voice. He uses a rather whispery, gravelly type voice for the character, which is probably correct, but when I read about Black Panther in the comics I always heard a deep, commanding voice in my head, kind of like James Earl Jones. I also don’t think Boseman is particularly compelling in the role. I actually think Marvel may have missed a trick here. I can’t see any reason why they couldn’t gender flip the character and make Black Panther a female, instead of a male. The MCU don’t do it a lot, but they do tend to be slightly sexist (few female heroes and no solo film for any of them, although the upcoming Captain Marvel should address that), so they should think outside the box where they can.

Smaller, but still important roles include Daniel Bruhl as the bad guy Zemo, who is playing the Avengers like a fiddle for his revenge. Alfre Woodward as Miriam, the grieving mother who stops Tony at MIT to prick his conscience. The wonderful Marisa Tomei as Aunt May (thank God they finally cast someone age appropriate, of course I’ve also had a thing for Marisa Tomei ever since A Different World) and the introduction of Hobbit star Martin Freeman as the over zealous Deputy Head of the County Terrorism Unit Everett Ross (reports to, but is not related to General Ross). Stan Lee’s now looked for cameo came at the end of the film as a deliveryman who accidentally misreads Tony’s surname as Stank.

The Russo’s did such a great job with The Winter Soldier that they got this film and upped their game. It’s also netted them directing duties for Avengers: Infinity War.

Just like with The Winter Soldier, Civil War is the blueprint about how to make an MCU movie and has everyone eagerly awaiting Infinity War.