Whether it’s “Batman v Superman” or Hillary v Bernie or
Trump v the eventual democratic nominee, this has been a year of highly
publicized, clashing ideologies. Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” is based
on a 2008 run of “Avengers” comics about a government plan to register
superheroes to end vigilantism. The fictional law split the team down the
middle and for six or so issues the heroes fought on different sides of the
issue. This film takes the bones of that premise and carries over the “choose
your side” marketing hook, playing into the vaguely political, red verses blue
temperature of this year’s election cycle. The movie itself, however, isn’t
nearly as divisive or as politically minded as even the comic presented said
dispute and instead settles into the usual action blockbuster, good guy/ bad
guy stuff that easier to tell and, of course, easier to sell.
After the Avengers botched a rescue mission in Africa and
one of their own, Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), is held responsible for the
failure to psychically contain an explosion, the U.S government presents the
group with a new global initiative to have every member contracted with the
government. Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) sees the Sokkovia
Accords as a possible hindrance to the team’s overall effectiveness and
rightfully doesn’t want to The Avengers or any other super-team become
militarized. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) feels guilty about the mass
destruction involved in taking down aliens, gods and sentient robots and agrees
that it’s better for the team to play ball. They fight. And hey, Marvel has the
rights to Spider-Man now, so he fights too.
Joe and Anthony Russo, the same team who brought us the
considerably better “Captain America: Winter Soldier,” presents superhero
material with a certain amount of gravitas and grit that lacks in most of the
other Marvel films. Through the first half of the movie, while they set up their
chess pieces on their narrative board, the seeds of an interesting and
emotionally satisfying political-ish thriller are promised. Bucky Barns/Winter
Soldier (Sebastian Stan) may or may not have turned back to the dark side, T’Challa/Black
Panther is looking for retribution after losing his father during the movie’s
inciting incident, and the other team members, such as Black Widow
(Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and
Vision (Paul Bettany) all have interesting and compelling reasons for choosing
the sides they fight for. That’s why it’s all the more deflating when the movie
forgets to pay off or conclude any of the previous threads of this grounded
Boun-esque thriller and slides comfortably into blockbuster auto-pilot for the
final third, when the Russos grab their action figures and clack them together
in a big, silly fight. Whatever resolution we do get is merely there to set up a
future sequel and the battle of ideologies presented in the initial Civil War concept is somewhat easily resolved.
Reservation’s aside, before the story reveals all its cards
and before the narrative tension is eased, this movie is pretty damn satisfying
and is still somewhat sophisticated for the genre. As with any Avengers team-up
flick—and make no mistake, this is an Avengers film through and through—
there’s a lot of characters to keep track of and a lot of plates to keep
spinning, and in that regard “Captain America: Civil War,” while less
consistent, is substantially better than the previous Avengers adventures. The
plot gives up two thirds in, and Spider-Man is shoe-horned in for pandering,
fan-baiting reasons (full disclosure: I took the bait and it tastes pretty
good) but it can’t be ignored that this installment contains some of Marvel’s
most impactful action scenes and strongest performances yet.
Grade: B-
Originally written for The Idaho State Journal/May-2016
Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Captain America: Civil War"
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