Captain America: Civil War

Zach Goodier

Cap is back, and he’s bringing back most of the Avengers with him. This time, after a semi-successful mission in Africa, the Avengers are called to answer for the increasing amount of collateral damage left in their wake. Towards this end, the UN decides to create an oversight committee in order to reign in the superheroes. This splits the group, with people like Cap and Hawkeye believing that to agree would be to involve the Avengers in politics and limiting their ability to function as protectors of the planet as a whole. Meanwhile, people like Tony Stark, especially after creating Ultron, feel that they have too much power to operate separately from the people they are supposed to be protecting, and their mistakes, willful or not, cost lives.

If you're hoping for a lot of this, then you might be somewhat disappointed, but it does happen.

This movie initially does a good job of making both sides out to as reasonable as they are: Cap prioritizes personal freedom and the right to make our own choices (conservative), and Stark takes the stance that the safety and security of the world as a whole should take precedent. However, things get more complicated as the summit to sign the accords is bombed, and Bucky Barnes is believed to be the culprit. Afterward, Cap goes AWOL trying to save Buck, while Iron Man is called to apprehend him. From here, things get fuzzy quickly, as both new and old faces are called on to side with either leader.




Any more specifics would be spoilers, so in terms of how everything turned out? Pretty good, but there are a few minor issues with both the story and how things turned out. First of all, this probably shouldn’t have been a Captain America movie, but another Avengers film. Sure, Hulk and Thor are missing, but the vast majority of the group is fighting. Sure, the central story heavily involves Bucky, but the first Avengers had Loki, so clearly that shouldn’t have any huge bearing. The reason this becomes an issue is how the story starts to eventually sway in Cap’s favor, with Tony being treated like a traitor for much of the story when it’s actually Rogers who went rogue. Plus, much of the fighting could have been avoided with relative ease had Rogers and his comrades tried talking before attacking.

Scarlet is back, and while she doesn't get extensive time to develop her character on-screen, she does a solid job.

The tone feels somewhat biased towards Cap, with Stark being treated more like an antagonist, even if his reasons for believing they need limitations ultimately end up proven valid by Cap going rogue, especially with how it all turns out in the end with the movie’s villain, who *SPOILER ALERT* was playing Captain by framing Barnes in order to drive a wedge between them, which is ultimately successful to some extent. *END SPOILERS*

This basically sums up the tone of the movie: everyone hating on Iron Man.

So, this movie does have some issues, but it does ultimately deliver as an action movie and it does add some realism to the Avengers franchise, forcing the heroes to face the consequences of their sometimes mixed outcomes when fighting dangerous foes. The visuals are all that we’ve come to expect from Marvel, which is to say excellence, and the story is somewhat convoluted, but ultimately should provide you with enough to keep you entertained. The only issue is that the attempt to make these characters turn on each other has some mixed results, and labeling this a Captain America film does kind of tilt things in one direction, even when it feels counter to reason. Rather than showing both the right and wrong of both sides, like the comics, this movie takes a fairly Captain-centric view, which still makes a solid film, but ultimately loses much of the depth that the comics had towards this event. 

There is a late film development that definitely makes things personal for one of our Avengers.

Overall, go watch it. It's a great film, and you will almost certainly enjoy it. However, if you're going in believing this will be a balanced and open film about the equal validity of these opposing ideologies and characters, then you might feel this movie comes up short, basically forcing a particular outcome to satisfy a somewhat convoluted plot with a villain who had potential, but ultimately wasn't developed enough to be memorable. My beef with the film is more in comparison to the comic storyline, and how 

Good:

-Great action.

-Outstanding visuals all around.

-Realistic consequences from the first movies.

Bad:

-Villain kind of an afterthought, with a convoluted plot that really shouldn’t have worked.

-Some VERY questionable moments by many of the characters that occur just for the sake of plot, to keep the tension high and the conflict rolling.

Scully Rating: 9.0 out of 10