Captain America: Civil War

[The Dark Knight]

I also think it's the best Spider-Man film since Spider-Man 2 (2004).

That's exciting, especially when Spidey doesn't have much screen time in this apparently.

[BatmAngelus]

I'm not sure if I'd rank it above or equal to Winter Soldier yet, but Civil War is absolutely one of the best entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It has the fun and comic book feeling of the previous films, but with a darker tone and maturity that will honestly challenge the whole notion that "Marvel just makes cookie cutter popcorn blockbuster films."

I thought the Russos did an excellent job balancing out the various Avengers characters, but their biggest triumph was examining both Steve and Tony's characters in a way where you had trouble rooting against either of them. By the end, I walked out feeling like I had fought my best friend.

And then of course, there's the action. The airport sequence is probably the superhero showdown of the decade. So much fun while including so much character.

SPOILERS:
Many critics are comparing this and Batman v Superman and I can't blame them. Not only do these have the "All American Boy Scout superhero against the millionaire playboy superhero" but there's a lot of other coincidental similarities in the storylines as well. Expect a lot of think pieces comparing the two (and in Civil War's favor).

- The film opens with a flashback of the death of the billionaire superhero's parents. This flashback is later brought back and made more relevant in the main superhero fight. (In BvS's case, it's used to end the fight. In Civil War, it starts the fight between Cap, Bucky, and Tony).
- The main superhero fights against mercenaries in Africa in the beginning, which ends in several deaths. The government then asks the superhero to be held accountable for that action as well as the past destruction that he's been involved with (from previous film(s)).
- A general from a previous movie is promoted to Secretary of State (General Ross in Civil War, Swanwick in BvS)
- The main villain is non-costumed and aims to pit the two main heroes against each other. This includes causing a major explosion that kills off political leaders and serves as the catalyst for the heroes to fight. At the end, he is put in a prison cell, gloating over his apparent victory.
- The superhero fight ends with one hero standing over the other's body, but sparing his life.
- The billionaire superhero realizes he was on the wrong side of the issue and was being manipulated by the villain. At the end, he's the one left to lead the rest of the superheroes.

[Silver Nemesis]

The comparisons are hard to ignore, and unfortunately I think the quality of this movie will retroactively worsen people's perceptions of BvS. We're lucky on this site in that we're largely free of DC vs. Marvel competitiveness. I think most of the regulars around here support both companies and won't let the rivalry prevent them from enjoying Civil War.

What did you think of Holland's Spider-Man, BatmAngelus? I know he only had two scenes (three if you count the post-credit coda), but I thought he made a great first impression. I loved the whole kid-on-work-experience-placement thing they had going on, with him calling Iron Man "Mr Stark" and being easily impressed by the other heroes. And what about Black Panther? I was expecting him to have a fairly small role similar to Spidey's. So I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be more substantial than that.

One other thing I forgot to mention in my earlier posts was a particularly impressive visual effect early in the film. I was blown away by the scene in Ant-Man where they de-aged Michael Douglas, and there's a similar scene in Civil War where we get to see a young Tony Stark. In the past it's always looked fake when they aged and de-aged actors. See Guy Pearce in Prometheus or Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy for examples (although Tron: Legacy came within striking distance of making it work). But it looks like Marvel's got this particular process mastered.

[BatmAngelus]

I thought both characters were great.

While I still miss the Ditko-like feeling of Raimi's Spider-Man, what really separates this Parker is his dynamic with the other superheroes. Loved his exchange with Captain America and his interaction with Tony. This Spidey's also got the talkative part down and I wouldn't be surprised if we see them nail the whole smack talk aspect of the character when he goes up against supervillains in Spider-Man Homecoming. I also enjoyed how his paraphrasing of "with great power comes great responsibility" was directly related to what Tony was going through and the themes of the movie

Black Panther was also a surprise in how big his role was. His final scene with Zemo is one of the darkest MCU scenes, yet also rather wonderful in its character development for T'challa.

Speaking of Zemo, I was, at first, underwhelmed that he didn't have the comic book costume and had no ties to any evil organizations. He was just...a guy. But when we got to the end, I realized that that was the novelty of it. He was someone who lost so much and was so bent on revenge that he was willing to take down the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. But he was also smart enough to know he couldn't take them on himself. He arguably succeeds more than Loki or Ultron ever did when it comes to ripping the team apart. I anticipate that this is simply his origin story and they kept him alive so he could come back in another movie. This time with a costume, please....

Overall, the Russos hit it out of the park once again, successfully introducing new players into the Marvel Universe while still honoring and developing the main ones.

[Silver Nemesis]

I loved the scene between T'Challa and Zemo. I was worried they might depict Black Panther as an angry one-note badass, which is somewhat how I felt they depicted Luke Cage in Jessica Jones season 1. But the scene with Zemo brought out T'Challa's humanity. He shows compassion, forgiveness and mercy, not only sparing Zemo but actually stopping him from committing suicide. And this scene occurs parallel to the battle between Iron Man and Bucky, giving us two examples of filial vengeance to contrast against one another. T'Challa forgives his father's killer, while Stark is consumed by hatred for Bucky. This is one of the many examples of narrative and thematic symmetry littered throughout the movie. In fact I would argue that symmetry is one of the film's central themes. Symmetry of ideas, symmetry of motivation, symmetry of opposing forces, narrative symmetry. It's even reflected in the poster.

I agree with your points about Zemo. I was disappointed when I saw the first pictures and realised he wasn't going to be wearing his traditional costume. But by the end of the film, I'd come to appreciate the Russo brothers' take on the character and actually felt sorry for him. Unlike Loki or Ultron, Zemo's just an ordinary guy. He couldn't possibly go up against the Avengers himself, and he doesn't have the resources to conjure an army to fight on his behalf. So instead of adding pieces to the board, he just manipulates the ones that are already in place; pitting the heroes against one another so they do his job for him. And although none of the Avengers actually die, Zemo still more or less accomplishes his goal. He splits up the team and turns half of them into outlaws. His one miscalculation was in killing T'Chaka, as that brought Black Panther into the mix.

In a film filled with colourful over-the-top characters, it was refreshing to have such an understated human antagonist. The Russo brothers seem better at handling villains than most MCU directors. I thought Crossbones, Winter Solider and Zemo were all interesting and memorable in their own way. Now I'm looking forward to seeing how the Russos handle Thanos.

[Silver Nemesis]

Now's as good a time as any to reflect on the failures of the past. This particular failure was one I watched repeatedly on VHS as a kid.

[The Joker]

Now's as good a time as any to reflect on the failures of the past. This particular failure was one I watched repeatedly on VHS as a kid.

Yeah, Marvel, outside of the Incredible Hulk, had something of a curse going there for awhile where none of their properties came anywhere near as close as being successful as the Superman or Batman films. I remember getting a big Marvel book published around 1990 or 1991, and they themselves even acknowledged this!

It's funny, but every time I see the 1990 Captain America film being referred to, I always think back to how I first came across the film. It wasn't released until 1992, and I remember being sick on a school day (yeah I was actually sick and not Ferris Buellering it), going to the doctor, and afterwards, my Mom taking me to a Blockbuster Video to keep me occupied at home. Browsing around, I think my eyes nearly shot out of my head when I saw the VHS box for an ACTUAL CAPTAIN AMERICA movie sitting right there on the video shelf. Especially considering I was definitely not expecting a film, in any way, to having been made since I don't recall EVER seeing it mentioned in whatever magazine, or seeing a trailer. But there it was. I don't recall exactly how many times I watched it during that 2-3 days I had before having to return it, but it was most assuredly alot.

Obviously, it wasn't on the level of Batman, but at that time, and as a Superhero fanatic, I was so starved for new films featuring my favorite heroes on the screen, I would have accepted certain deviations from the source material just in order to be able to actually see and hopefully enjoy those movies. Deviations from the source material when making a film with comic books, especially at that time, was almost always going to happen. It just depends on to what extent. I remember the Red Skull being Italian was odd to me as a kid, but I don't remember Cap having suffered from Polio being much of an issue for me. Personally, I thought the "Memories of You" montage where Cap is going back to his home town to hopefully reunite with his love to be pretty effective. But that's just me.

[BatmAngelus]

No spoiler looks into the comic history of Captain America and Iron Man's battles as well as the history of the villain, Zemo:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/captain-america-iron-man-who-887370
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/captain-america-civil-war-meet-888509

[johnnygobbs]

I've just seen the film.  I'll add more thoughts later, but the one thing that really stands out about this film, apart from Chadwick Boseman's particularly impressive performance as Black Panther/T'Challa, is how sympathetic the ostensible villain, Colonel Zemo, is (perhaps the most sympathetic villain in a popcorn movie since Ed Harris' General Hummel in The Rock), not to mention how successful his plans are despite being, as Silver Nemesis has pointed out, a relatively ordinary guy with no super-powers or advanced abilities.  But that is as it should be considering this is a film which is primarily focused around two sets of good guys going head-to-head.

My only real criticisms are that Spider-Man's presence seems relatively shoehorned (it's a shame the MCU wasn't able to strike a deal with Sony some time prior to Civil War, and thus establish this version of the character beforehand), and that once the Winter Soldier re-emerges onto the scene the whole philosophical/political issue of accountability and oversight, that initially divides the team, is somewhat forgotten about in favour of a story that is much more focused on personal allegiances, friendships and vendettas.

[BatmAngelus]

Much like Wonder Woman in BvS, Spider-Man could've been cut from the film without making huge changes in the story, yet he was enjoyable for the small screen time he had and impressed people enough to want to see a solo film.

It's a shame that the Andrew Garfield films were such a mess, as connecting a previous Spider-Man series or movie to Civil War would've helped feel more natural (Garfield is too old for the Civil War Spidey anyway). If you think about it, Scott Lang/Ant-Man/Giant Man isn't really any more important to the story, but his presence felt more organic given that he had a solo film and had encountered Falcon as his "audition."

Ideally, the MCU Spider-Man would've been the post-Raimi reboot instead, could've had his own movie in Phase 2, and audiences wouldn't feel as fatigued with the character. Given the circumstances with the Webb/Garfield films, though, I think they made the right call in bringing their Spidey into the team up movie first to get people's interest back before giving him his own movie.