This ‘Civil War’ Didn’t Even Hit Cold War Status
The Marvel Cinematic Universe now has 13 films under their umbrella. I’ve wholeheartedly liked one of them. Following the press screening for ‘Civil War‘, I can add another to the “do-not-like” list. First off, I’m not saying these are badly made movies; they are greatly produced films that gross tons of money. There’s just something that irks me. All the things that bother me are found with this new film.
First and foremost, this will dip into spoiler territory so back-away now if you don’t want to know any major plot points from ‘Captain America: Civil War‘.
One of my major gripes since the first ‘Iron-Man‘ was Marvel does not supply a good enough villain for any of their movies. With the exception of Loki, each villain is handled like a complete joke with no serious power. While Tony Stark may have seemed like an antagonist, the real threat was still supposed to be Baron Helmut Zemo. Let’s not even get started with Crossbones being killed off before the first act was finished. Even if Crossbones never kills Captain like he does in the comics, at least having his character alive would have kept that threat out it there for me. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that no one dies in this movie expect geriatric Peggy Carter & wasted villain Brock “Crossbones” Rumlow?
This leads into another one of my major problems with MCU films. There is no reason to ever take the movies seriously. To me, there is no weight to the films. I can’t care about a film when I know that no serious moves will be made. By the end of ‘Civil War‘, no one of importance is killed off for me to be worried about the next villain. Comics are known for killing off and bringing back characters at the drop of a hat. If you would have even killed off a character like Falcon or War Machine to bring them back in a later movie, I would at least know all bets are off. But alas, that moment in the trailer where you think War Machine is dead in Tony’s arms only ends up him being paralyzed…until he’s walking again before the credits roll.
You know what else was there? That signature Marvel Studios comedy I hate.
What really takes me out of a bad-ass fight scene is the need to pause for a joke every couple of minutes. It worked for ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer‘ and ‘Spider-Man: The Animated Series‘ but it really distracts me here. While I don’t like their inorganic humor, there was some legit funny scenes. The first scene between Tony Stark & Peter Parker shows how amazing Tom Holland will be when he gets to lead his solo ‘Spider-Man‘ movie. Also, there is a moment in the massive airport fight scene that Hawkeye comes face-to-face with Black Panther. Hawkeye goes to introduce himself & Black Panther hysterically brushes him off with a casual “I don’t care”.
Now that I’ve mentioned him, let me talk about my favorite part of ‘Captain America: Civil War‘. T’Challa a.k.a Black Panther! The King of Wakanda is treated with such grace that I applaud The Russo Bros. for taking their time to introduce this character as amazingly as they did. While fans would have loved to see more background about his powers, I think they explained enough about his suit to hold me over until his 2018 solo film. The amount of ass-kicking he does in this film is ridiculous. I feared the fan-favorite Spidey would overshadow T’Challa but they allowed him to play a major role without taking away from the main stars.
Another issue I had was two of the most logical & intelligent men in all of Marvel history throwing out logic when it really mattered. First being Steve Rogers throwing all caution to the wind when it comes to saving his boyfriend Bucky “Winter Solider” Barnes. He even admits when he hears the man’s name, he freezes up. Captain literally caused a war between two factions because he wants a piece of his old life.
Another logical man thinking with his heart over his brain was Tony Stark. Like the true egoistical brat he is, even when the “evil genius” Baron Zemo lays all his cards on the table…Stark still attacks Bucky for killing his parents. He knows Zemo set this up for him to turn against Cap & Bucky, he knows that Bucky was a brain-washed frozen caveman for Hyrda, he knows that this won’t solve anything but he still continues to fight. Even when his A.I. tells him that he can’t do this, he doesn’t listen. I’ve always wanted Tony to show more heart in these films but not something this weak. I don’t like the character but he’s better than this.
Look, I knew I wasn’t going to love ‘Civil War‘ but at least I didn’t hate it as much as I originally thought. The Russo Brothers obviously have made Captain America cool and they juggled nearly 13 superheroes pretty well but that wasn’t enough to shake this from being just another Marvel movie.
