Captain America: Civil War Review (no spoilers at the top, spoilers below the break)

Heroes meeting, fighting, and teaming up was a big part of the silver age Marvel formula. It was reinvented writ large for the comic Civil War crossover ‘event’ when the forces of good ripped themselves and each other apart, occasionally literally, while the bad guys stood aside pointing and laughing. It wasn’t Marvel’s finest hour because it mischaracterised many heroes and did lasting damage to them, especially Tony Stark.

I was less than enthused when Marvel Studios announced that the content of Captain America 3 would be Civil War. I’d genuinely have preferred the Serpent Society. It appears that the decision to go with heroes fighting was made in response to Warner Brothers announcing Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice and Kevin Feige’s opinion that Marvel therefore needed to “up our game”.

Fortunately, Civil War the movie takes relatively little from the comics that share its name. This time both sides of the conflict have valid viewpoints that each is able to express. Some characters develop and modify their opinions as the story progresses. Nobody ends up looking like an idiot or a fascist.

This is a confident movie. It’s not afraid to slow down, to allow long periods without action – but not without drama. It avoids frenetic cutting away as scenes are just getting interesting, so lots of bits are not just one-punches but one-two punches or more. It takes time to show consequences and to consider them.

Cap 3 has an insanely huge cast. It’s a tribute to the production team from writers to camera operators to the actors that each character has his or her own moment to shine and most have good two-hander scenes; and yet the focus remains on the guy whose name appears in the title.

The movie has themes of power and responsibility, so its good to have the poster-child for that introduced. Spider-Man brings a definite tone to the proceedings. Best of all, he feels like Spidey. The Black Panther is another significant addition, and of all the cast T’Challa gets to most set-up for movies yet to come. It is a mark of how deftly he is used that his story arc doesn’t feel like a trailer.

The film isn’t perfect. The main villain is a generic revenge-driven baddie with a famous name pasted over him. He might as well have been called Colonel Schemey McVengeful rather than waste a well-established and distinctive Avengers villain identity. The ending felt downbeat, with quite a lot still to resolve that won’t be addressed for several movie instalments to come. Still nobody has shouted “Avengers Assemble!”

But those flaws pale compared to the achievement of bringing so many characters together in so many potent ways, with proper emotions as well as great action scenes, with moments that provoke thought and moments that provoke affection for our heroes. If there must be Civil War then this is how it should be done.

This film is a milestone in superhero movies. It’s good entertainment. It will reward multiple viewings. It will stand the test of time. I recommend it.

Big spoilers below, so do not read ahead until you have seen the film…
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Really, I mean it. I recommend you resist the urge and watch the film first….
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Let’s get the problem bits out of the way first, because none of them are enough to sour what is a quite excellent film.

The villains were weak: Colonel Helmut Zemo of Sokovian Special Forces has none of the operatic charisma and vision of his comics namesake. Rumblow is more like Cap’s comics antagonist Crossbones and has a good if brief showing before he is wiped out as the disposable opening-act bad guy. And yes, Zemo wins; he destroys the Avengers. He’s still generic and forgettable.

The last act: Presumably someone decided the selling point of the movie was going to be a ‘who wins’ fight between Cap and Iron Man, because that’s what the big finale is about. There’s no heroes-fight-then-team-up-to-stop-the-baddie moment because the villain’s whole plot is to get the heroes to fight. Neither Winghead or Shellhead stop Zemo. The Panther does, eschewing the way of vengeance as the culmination of his story arc.

I’d really have preferred Rogers, Stark, and Barnes against the Masters of Evil at the end. Zemo actually got hold of five more Winter Soldiers then put bullets in their heads while they were sleeping. It was a narrative swerve justified in his exposition but it felt to me as a viewer as if I’d been robbed of a scene.

There were a couple of character arcs that seemed unfinished, although it might have been deliberate. The last we see of the Scarlet Witch is her again straight-jacketed and imprisoned in the Raft, back to the start of her nightmare. We know Cap releases her (presumably while the final credits are rolling before the first of two post-credit scenes) but her journey about controlling her powers and finding identity seemed truncated, as did her relationship with the Vision. Likewise the Vision was left with unresolved questions about himself, about Wanda, and about the Infinity Stone he bears. A closing moment to check in with him as we did with Rhodey would have been nice.

I question one casting choice. Did we really need a thirty-something Aunt May? Why eliminate one of the few strong roles for older women in the Marvel Universe? A younger May seriously changes the Peter-May dynamic and I doubt it will be for the better.

But after that’s said, all that’s left is praise. Praise for introducing a pitch-perfect T’Challa, with a revised origin that has less dated Colonialist overtones (Klaw was not involved in T’Chaka’s death, which instead happens onscreen in Cap 3). Praise for a quippy, bright, light-hearted, big-hearted Spider-Man who is fast and cocky and inexperienced and always fun to watch. Praise for using Peggy Carter’s passing as a trigger for Cap’s resolve to resist signing the superhero-controlling Sokovia Accords. Praise for Sharon Carter, who gets to quote Aunt Peggy’s “plant yourself like a tree” speech (a direct borrow from the best Cap scene in the comics’ Civil War), and her eventual inevitable lip-lock with Steve. Special mention to the comedy shot reaction of Bucky and Falcon to that.

Robert Downey Jr. really brings the goods to this film. His Stark runs the gamut of the character with practiced skill and pushes his limits further than before. This is a Stark who has taken a series of hammerings, from Ultron to Pepper leaving, from the Avengers split and Rhodey’s critical injury by friendly fire to the revelation that Bucky murdered Howard and Maria Stark. Downey manages to carry it all in his face and voice in his most mature and masterful performance.

Some of the relationship stuff was really fun. The nascent Vision/Wanda romance was well laid out. The Natasha/Cap and Natasha/Hawkeye friendships were given due acknowledgement. Ant-Man and Spider-Man’s newbie fannishness were used to great effect. The mid-credits accord between Rogers and T’Challa also tasted right.

For a movie about superhero clashes a lot of its quality did not depend on the action scenes, which is a compliment. But when the fights happened - and there were a whole lot of them in many combinations - they were done very well. They were all framed in different ways with different filming techniques with different props, settings, and lighting, so they never got same-y. A little shaky-cam aside they were always clear about cause and effect, storylined as intensively as the plot stuff.

As a fanboy I had my own long-held views about how various fights should go. What amazed me was how much the movie agreed with me. Spidey was remarkably hard to hit and impossibly dextrous. The Winter Soldier could probably best the Widow but not the Panther. Ant-Man would be fun inside Iron Man’s armour but shouldn’t underestimate Tony’s micro-defences. The Vision is an unstoppable heavy-hitter (and yay, a density-changing one!) until he crosses Wanda Maximoff.

What was I left with at the end? A movie about flawed heroes, one who cared too much about his friend and another who had been pounded by life once too often to be able to trust any more. A series of jaw-dropping battle scenes, too few of which were against the bad guys. A desire to see what happens next. A positive moviegoing experience that I’m eager to repeat (despite the seat-kicking child behind me). A Captain America who was again tested as a man as well as a hero and who came away beaten up but unbroken.

More please.

IW