On Captain America: Civil War

SPOILER ALERT: Please do not read this if you haven’t watched Captain America: Civil War yet. Honestly, why do I have to say this?

If nothing else, Captain America: Civil War has taught me a valuable lesson in parenting.

How do you criticise something you love?

You always want the best for them, but you cannot blind yourself to their flaws. If your child is not the most intellectually adept, no amount of encouragement and enthusiasm on your behalf is going to turn them into the next Einstein; no matter how hard you try.

Sometimes you just need to lay it all out, and work with what you have.

So. Time for some tough love.

I really wanted to love Civil War. In the months leading up to it, I watched the reveal trailer multiple times, and got goosebumps each and every time. I re-read the entire Civil War comic book storyline (all 100+ comics, including those random and only slightly related off-shoots — Moon Knight still twists my brain into knots) to get myself fully prepared for what was to come. I went into the movie with no real expectations or ‘checkboxes’ I needed it to fill. All I wanted out of the film was to feel satisfied. You know the kind of satisfied I’m talking about.

And you know what? I did love it. And I was satisfied.

The first time around, it was as if the comic book reading kid in me had awoken to witness his dreams come true. Spider-Man doing loop-de-loops off War Machine. Captain America punching Iron Man in the face. Scarlet Witch and Vision in the early days of what would become one of the strongest, most endearing romances in the Marvel universe. It was all there. Maybe shy of a few X-Men but hey, who’s counting?

I didn’t mind that Civil War switched up its story to better fit with the meta of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I didn’t mind that the pivotal character, Spider-Man, had been swapped out for James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky AKA “The Winter Soldier” AKA Steve’s BFF. I didn’t even mind that the so-called “Civil War” would take place on a much smaller scale due to the realities (licensing or otherwise) involved with having 200+ characters on-screen at any point in time. In fact, I embraced this new story. I warmly welcomed the Black Panther to the fold, I cheered on both Tony and Steve at different points in the story, and I laughed myself to tears when a genuinely great Spider-Man was finally introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Homecoming indeed.

And then the unthinkable happened.

I started to really consider what I had watched.

And a lot of it… just wasn’t enough for me.

Let’s start with the primary motivation for this entire story; it’s not the bromance between Steve and Bucky no matter how much you want it to be, but rather it’s the destruction caused by the Avengers throughout the various films that came before. Now this is actually a major criticism fans have had for the previous films; that they never addressed the rampant destruction and chaos caused during previous films. Yet in doing so, Civil War presented some continuity issues where they correctly addressed the collateral damage to come out of New York, Washington, and Sokovia, but failed to address the events of Iron Man 3, Thor 2, or indeed anywhere else that wasn’t Sokovia in Avengers 2 (Africa and Asia, for example). I suppose it could be argued that the former two took place before Captain America 2, so S.H.I.E.L.D could well have covered it up, but I’m sceptical. In any case, it does lend a certain disconnect to all of it. As if the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t nearly quite as connected as it claims. That, or the Russo brothers skipped Iron Man 3 and Thor 2, and only skimmed Avengers 2 — but hey, they were probably busy working on the Captain America movies so who’s to really blame them?

As an aside, a friend mentioned to me that the government was willing to nuke New York in Avengers, and sanctioned most of the destruction that came in Captain America 2, so a lot of the things the Avengers are being blamed for are actually ‘best-case’ scenarios where the destruction could have been a lot worse without them.

That’s not all however, because we still have to talk about how that primary motivation evolved throughout the story. The chain of disaster-level events that led up to Captain America: Civil War started with the first Avengers movie, in 2012. Since then, Tony Stark had notably suffered from PTSD (which we believed to be a direct result of his near-death experience), while Steve Rogers exposed and then had a hand in ending the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. which spoke of an embedded mistrust in organisations existing as political tools. That’s about as pure a planted seed as you can get, in the events leading up the second Avengers outing, subtitled Age of Ultron. Here we saw that Tony was in fact trying to put an end to the hero antics, which led to he and Steve butting heads often. And here, we realised that they were very clearly setting up the central conflict for what we would eventually see in Civil War. So that’s all fine and dandy.

Then Captain America: Civil War happens, and after destroying entire cities in Age of Ultron, a comparatively smaller event happens in Lagos, and the world is up in arms. Believable? Perhaps. Contrived? Absolutely. What would have made a lot more sense to me was to have had the Lagos incident happen, then have the United Nations meeting occur to discuss what to do about it (after the mounting tension related to superhero activity), and then, only after the death of T’chaka, initiate the Sokovia Accords. That would have made a lot more sense to me.

Following on from this, I recall fans berating the subtitle “Age of Ultron” for the second Avengers outing because in that case “Age” referred to a meagre two hours of their time. The irony of this is that while Avengers: Age of Ultron most certainly served as an extended trailer for Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (not unlike Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice setting up the DC Extended Universe), it did at least introduce, discuss, and then conclude the primary motivation for the entire story as well as the central conflict it introduced. Civil War does not do this, opting instead to leave both aspects wide open, but somehow still nauseating in its insistence on concluding on a happy note (see: Steve’s letter to Tony).

To put it another way: The Sokovia Accords, the very obvious callback to the Superhuman Registration Act from the Civil War comic book event, is not resolved. It remains entirely up in the air, as well as that of the fate of all the Avengers. “Story for another time,” you might argue, and I would typically agree with you. But there are teases, or cliffhangers, and there are half-stories. Ultimately (no pun intended) Civil War seems to be cut off, rather than end in any satisfactory way. And I don’t blame the Russos for this, because the comic does the very same thing — subsequently, the events of the comic also lead to some of Marvel’s most questionable character reboots, including those of Captain America and Spider-Man. But that’s neither here nor there, for this discussion.

Before we leave the primary motivation, I would like to speak of another thought I had: The film seems to be teasing something big to come with Wanda (perhaps she kills Thanos?), whom many know as Scarlet Witch from the comics. In the comics, she is a mutant of incredible power; an entire Marvel storyline centres on her powers, and deals with her effectively going mental and wiping out nearly all of the mutants in the world with a singular thought following the death of her baby. Put simply, Wanda is the most powerful Avenger, plain and simple. And it really doesn’t show in the movies, where we still don’t even know what her powers actually are, reduced to “I can move things with my mind” in a rather tawdry fashion. But what if the primary motivation, stemming once again from an act of Wanda’s powers in Lagos, revolved instead of Bucky (and situations we will discuss shortly) but around Wanda? Granted, it is a Captain America movie, and is naturally trying to follow on from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but what if the Sokovia Accords (named as such) were formed as a direct consequence of the world’s mistrust of a former ally of Ultron, who attacked the Avengers with still-unexplained powers, before joining them? What if the world mistrusted the Avengers, because they mistrusted Wanda, and used her as an effigy-of-sorts to pin all of the blame on, for the destruction in both Sokovia and Lagos. Would that not have seemed a bit more believable than what happened with Bucky?

Instead, we’re expected to believe what we were presented with. That a man who had previously gone on missions while masked, had done a mission back in 1991 uncharacteristically without his mask on a stretch of road conveniently located in front of a camera with a functional audio and video feed that has enough clarity to easily identify him. That a man who had previously been unknown to world, “known only as The Winter Soldier” as previously discussed in Captain America 2, is now an international superstar who can easily and unquestionably be identified by media and news agents as a World War 2 soldier from Brooklyn. That a man who is very obviously not guilty of the thing he is being accused of would not make mention of it sooner and thereby avoid further conflict throughout the events of the movie. But “plot reasons” I guess.

All of this said, I don’t think the central conflict could have existed any other way than by having it revolve around Bucky. It was a magnificent way to tie in the entire story, as well as previous (world-altering) Captain America films, but it was also very cheap. Cheap because it took a previously unmentioned event, that of Tony Stark’s parents dying in a car accident, and made it Bucky’s fault (because nobody simply dies in this series unless their name is Peggy, I guess). Cheap because it shrank a satisfyingly large and further-expanding universe by giving two characters yet another way to be connected. Cheap because it dared to tell us that Steve had somehow already known about Tony’s parents but never told him. But “plot reasons” once again. Let’s move on.

The next topic I have noted down in my list of things to spend overly long discussing is the severe lack of consequence involved in anything going on, at any point in time. You are told of all the death and destruction going on, but the movie ultimately suffers from the same automatic powering up trope that nearly every other movie or TV series follows; the grunts and foot soldiers die easily, but any character in the top twenty names of the show credits will take literally hundreds of hits before going down unless they are Sean Bean. Remember how the entire audience grimaced when Rhodes fell from the sky before Sam or Tony could reach him? Why do you think it was filmed that way? It was meant to convey consequence; specifically, that these people are fighting each other. For all the criticisms of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and even though it ultimately used Gwen Stacy as a plot device, it cannot be faulted for having the guts to go there, resulting in Gwen’s neck snapping and doing its hardest to convey the dread-filled realisation of the mortality of the people involved. In Civil War, Rhodes just got a Stark Industries upgrade to his legs, and that was that.

That’s just not okay, for a movie based on a comic book storyline that featured quite a few deaths including that of Steve Rogers himself (spoiler alert, by the way).

I get that Disney want to keep every character alive to maximise merchandising and spinoff opportunities (on that note, really happy to see a Black Widow movie being considered) but at some point you have to stop and look at what you’re presenting, and think about it. Really think about it. You’re talking death, destruction, and the consequences of those. But nobody ever dies (yes I get the “pulling punches” thing, but I don’t accept it away from the context of that airport scene). So what’s the point? Even the one not evil character I can recall who did die, Phil Coulson, found his way to Marvel’s TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — Game of Thrones, this universe most certainly is not.

Contrast this with Batman v Superman, where one of the titular characters ended up getting himself killed before the end of the movie (spoiler alert, again). Prior to watching this movie I promised myself I wouldn’t draw comparisons to Batman v Superman and Civil War due to the differences between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, and what Marvel and DC are going for respectively. But it’s impossible not to, because there are so many parallels (besides the obvious Paragon of Good wearing blue and red vs Dark but well-intended Billionaire in a suit).

Consider:

• Both movies’ central conflicts involve two stalwart superheroes exchanging words, ideologies, and fists (not necessarily in that order)
• Both introduce new cinematic characters so fantastic and refreshing that they entirely steal the show (Wonder Woman, Black Panther)
• Both central conflicts culminate in parental baggage, and the resolution of such through a third party
• Both movies use wanton destruction, death, and consequence as their primary motivators
• Both movies rely on your belief that the world would reject superheroes if they existed
• Both movies have villains who are more like side characters, with questionable roles in the overall events of the film

Civil War only narrowly edges out Batman v Superman because of Spider-Man reasons, but ultimately Batman v Superman presents the more believable demonstration of destruction with real consequence. A man who lost his legs. A child who lost her mother. A hero who lost his life trying to save the world that didn’t trust him. In the end, I watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice twice, and I still want more. But the only reason I would watch Civil War again would be for Spider-Man, who turned out to be breakaway success of the movie and made me more excited than I have ever been to see a high school kid from Queens wearing tights, in my life. Uhm.

One thing that was mentioned to me was that Captain America: Civil War was Marvel’s attempt at squeezing three movies into one: Captain America 3 obviously, but also Avengers 3, and Iron Man 4. I would say four, actually. The fourth being Black Panther, who indisputably owned the first and third acts of the movie. As I previously mentioned, Marvel carefully planted the perfect seeds to provide the motivation for the Sokovia Accords with Tony’s PTSD and attempts to end evil, Steve’s mistrust of political agendas, and the consequences for all Avengers after dropping a city out of the sky. In doing so, we’re presented with something special. Something that hasn’t really happened before. Yes it’s called “Captain America” so naturally it must focus on Steve, but it adequately gives exposure to other characters, and feels more like a culmination than any previous Marvel Cinematic Universe outing. And this perfectly addresses fan complaints that previous movies did not involve all of the Avengers even though they clearly existed in the universe, and could have stepped into help. But “budget reasons” in this case, I guess.

The only real problem about it is the disconnect between the various acts. I previously mentioned that Black Panther owned acts 1 and 3. That’s because those acts had a significantly different tone to the second act, the so-called “airport scene” which swapped out the seriousness and severity of the situation for more humour, quips, and more of what we’ve come to love from Marvel: Light-hearted, feel-good, superhero stimulation. I couldn’t understand why this was the case. It was as if two distinctly different directing styles were used. The result, however, was that my second viewing of Civil War felt like a drag all-through the first act. It was so serious, so deliberate, so… dark. Perfect for Black Panther, but every other character just felt out of place in this imagining. Skip to act two and the excitement returns. Spider-Man! Ant-Man! I’m laughing! I’m crying! It’s agonising but in a good way! This is the Marvel movie I signed up for. And with that second act, Marvel have made me happier than anyone save for my girlfriend has ever made me. Carry that into act three and I’m barely even paying attention… the first time. The second time, I’m easily able to switch back into serious mode, and really take in what I’m seeing. And it just doesn’t flow.

By the end I’m just exhausted. I loved the ride, it was wild, I definitely feel as if I got what I paid for and then some, but I want a break from it. And I think about the movies coming up: Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and then the next Avengers movie. And I feel so much better about all of it. I don’t have to endure this exhaustion for a while. I get some breathing space to rest and recover from what I just saw. And Marvel, conveniently, can leave the unresolved Sokovia Accords and shattered Avengers for sufficiently long enough that hopefully most fans will forget all of it by the time Black Panther comes around. Perfect, right?

Despite all that, I really do love Captain America: Civil War. I’ve neglected to adequately convey the praise I feel for the movie, mostly because when I was asked to write-up on the movie, I was asked for any points of contention I felt required further discussion. And so here we are. Consequently, these thoughts and discussion points are rather nitpicky. I make no apologies about that much. But just know that despite all of this, I hold Civil War right up there with the really great superhero movies spectacles, and I am happy that it happened, even if it didn’t hit all the spots it could.

We love our children, with all of their flaws. As they are.

Always.