It has been said that 2016
marks the deconstruction phase of the comic book superhero genre what with Deadpool turning it on its ear with a
healthy dose of postmodern irreverence. It also saw two movies that addressed
the very heroic nature of these larger than life characters, first with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and then
Captain America: Civil War. Both
movies featured iconic superheroes in conflict with each other while also
addressing the effect they have on the world. How does the general populace
react to them and, more importantly, how do those in positions of authority
react to them? The latter in both movies – not so well. Should superheroes be
governed and if so by whom? Should they be held accountable for the massive
destruction incurred from their world-saving battles? These two movies address
these questions in very different yet intriguing ways.
Civil War takes the basic story from the 2006-2007 Marvel Comics limited
series of the same name, written by Mark Millar and penciled by Steve McNiven,
and uses it as a springboard to address narrative threads introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier
(2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron
(2015). Civil War intertwines two
primary storylines: Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon
(Anthony Mackie) track down elusive assassin the Winter Soldier (Sebastian
Stan), and the continuing animosity between Cap and Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man
(Robert Downey Jr.), which finally reaches a critical mass when they disagree
over the creation of an international governing body to watch over and control
the Avengers, splintering the team into two camps – those on Cap’s side and
those on Iron Man’s. This culminates in an epic battle between both sides.
Civil War starts off with a bang as Cap and his new Avengers team comprised
of Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Falcon and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)
as they track down and stop Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo), the Hydra agent who
has now become supervillain Crossbones, from stealing a biological weapon in
Lagos. For Rumlow, it’s a personal vendetta as he blames Cap for almost dying
in the collapse of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in The Winter Soldier. This is a recurring theme throughout the movie:
deeply personal motivations for why characters do what they do.
Meanwhile, the individual
human cost of battles like the one in Sokovia at that climax of Age of Ultron weighs heavily on Tony as
do the people that died during the Crossbones mission on Cap. To make matters
worse, United States Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) meets with
the Avengers to inform them that the United Nations is preparing legislation
that will sanction their future actions. He considers them all dangerous and is
concerned that they continue to operate unchecked, showing them a greatest hits
montage of carnage that ensued during their battles. He gives them a choice:
come on board with this legislation or retire.
Tony feels guilt over the
ramifications of his actions – what with helping to create Ultron and all – and
that of the Avengers and backs the sanctions along with Vision (Paul Bettany),
War Machine (Don Cheadle), and Black Widow. Cap argues that signing this
legislation will take away their right to choose. What if the U.N. sends them
somewhere they don’t want to go or shouldn’t go? Where does it all end? Things
for Cap only get more complicated when the Winter Soldier, who is actually
Cap’s childhood friend Bucky now a brainwashed killer, is responsible for the
death of T’Challa a.k.a. Black Panther’s (Chadwick Boseman) father. Meanwhile,
the mysterious Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) is quietly plotting something big and
it involves the Winter Soldier.
While this movie seems
plot-heavy, it moves along briskly, punctuated with kinetic action sequences,
like an exciting chase through the streets of Bucharest as Cap tries to capture
Bucky alive while preventing Black Panther from killing him. It starts off as a
dynamic foot race and then ramps up to vehicles that rivals the chase early on
in The Winter Soldier. Much like with
that movie, directors Anthony and Joe Russo have a real knack for orchestrating
kinetic action sequences that create an almost palpable sense of danger for our
heroes because so much is at stake. It doesn’t hurt that they wisely enlisted
the help of Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, directors of the dynamic action
revenge thriller John Wick (2014), to
choreograph some of this mayhem.
This culminates in the epic
airport battle teased in all the movie’s trailers and ads. It is everything
they promised and more. This is easily the best action sequence in any of the
Marvel movies since The Avengers
(2012). It’s epic, visceral and loaded with several mini-battles as hero fights
hero. We also get to see the new Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and he’s everything
you’d want him to be – full of funny quips, nerdy and more than capable of
holding his own with the likes of Cap and co. only he lacks the battle-hardened
experience. This is easily the best cinematic incarnation of the webslinger
since Spider-Man 2 (2004). On Cap’s
side, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) pops up to lending a helping hand and offer a slew of
his own funny one-liners and a cool surprise in the heat of the battle.
There are deeply personal
stakes for several of the characters in Civil
War, from Black Panther’s desire to get revenge for the death of his
father, to Tony’s guilt over the death of a young man in Sokovia, to Cap and
his friendship with Bucky. All of these things are powerful motivators for what
they do in the movie and supersede accords and sanctions. Initially, there was
some concern that the inclusion of all these characters would create an overly
stuffed movie but on the contrary the Russo brothers found a way organically
integrate newcomers like Black Panther and Spider-Man and use their appearances
as a springboard for their upcoming standalone movies.
In a nice contrast to past
Marvel villains, Zemo is a more cunning, understated menace whose endgame isn’t
readily apparent and only reveals itself towards the end at a crucial moment
just before the exciting climax where Cap and Tony have it out one last time. The filmmakers mess around with the formula on this one.
Whereas Age of Ultron featured yet
another super baddie bent on world domination, Civil War features a villain that wants something that isn’t on an
epic scale. He wants revenge and has a very definite agenda that only gradually
reveals itself over the course of the movie in a wonderfully understated way
that makes quite a gut-punching impact when it is finally unveiled to our
heroes.
DC – this is how you do a
battle with superheroes. Once again, Civil
War demonstrates how far behind DC is from Marvel in terms of superhero
movies on every level. Unlike Batman v
Superman and even their own Age of
Ultron, the filmmakers of Civil War
do a great job of juggling this large cast of characters, giving everyone their
moment to say something cool/funny and do something cool or significant without
forgetting that the movie is ultimately about Cap and the arc of his character
so that he goes from being a patriot in The
First Avenger (2011) to an insurgent in Civil
War. It’s his story and it’s a personal one. It is really a marvel of
narrative juggling that succeeds where even the overstuffed Age of Ultron came precariously close to
collapsing under its own ambitions. It is quite an accomplishment and
screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely should be commended on a
good job.
So many movie trilogies tend
to end a weak third installment that tries to tie up all the loose narrative
threads created in the previous incarnations while going bigger in scale while
losing sight of what made them so good in the first place (i.e. Return of the Jedi, Spider-Man 3 and The Dark
Knight Rises). At the heart of Civil
War is Cap’s friendship with Bucky. It’s a thread that has run through all
of the Captain America movies,
culminating with this one where it is put to the ultimate test. This
relationship is also the most satisfying aspect of this excellent movie because
it is also the most compelling thing about it. Civil War manages to be simultaneously epic in scale in terms of
how what happens affects so many characters and intimate in the sense of Cap’s
journey over these movies. The filmmakers never let us forget that at its
heart, the movie is about Cap and Bucky’s lifelong friendship. That gives us
something to care about amidst all the carnage.
