Reviews Film / Captain America Civil War

Regarding the bad points:

Let's start with the bad stuff. The movie tries to make Both Sides Have a Point, but IMHO, it fails — not by much, but enough that I take Cap's side without difficulty. I just couldn't drum up enough sympathy for Iron Man and the UN side.

I could, by seeing how the guilt has been affecting Tony, by listening to the arguments on the sympathetic ex-Avengers on his side like Vision, Widow, and Rhodey, and by Steve appearing to cause greater complications with his honest but gung-ho attitude. In fact, the movie arguably presents Tony's arguments more than Captain America's.

Second, the climax of this movie isn't at the end — it's in the middle. The 12-superhero fight in the middle of the film makes the 3-superhero fight at the end look paltry by comparison.

I think that was a better choice. Placing the bigger fight in the center was risky, but it paid off by the climax fight being the one where the stakes were the most personal and the consequences actual death. In the airport fight, nobody is trying to kill one another. In the climax fight, Tony has murder on the mind, and Cap and Bucky appear to consider it themselves.

Third, the movie has a HUUUUUUUGE wasted opportunity in the form of the six other Winter Soldiers...who are DOA when we find them.

I also preferred that choice. First, from a story standpoint, Enemy Mine is a long overused cliche that diminishes the impact of disputes among heroes. Making the heroes go to "never mind our disagreements, let's just stop and punch these guys instead" would shelve their core argument and make it pointless (basically the climax of Batman v. Superman). And from an action standpoint, sure, it's five more Winter Soldiers, but we've already seen superpowered fistfights so many times. This one would inevitably come off as less impressive than the airport battle, because these guys can't fly, can't shoot lasers, can't grow and shrink... all they can do is punch.

The minute I heard Zemo say: "You think I wanted more of you?", I knew I was in for a very different ride.

The movie tries to make Both Sides Have a Point, but IMHO, it fails — not by much, but enough that I take Cap\'s side without difficulty. I just couldn\'t drum up enough sympathy for Iron Man and the UN side.

I respectfully disagree. Frankly I was more on Iron Man\'s side, if just because he at least offers a non-perfect but existing solution-unlike Cap, who refuses the Sokovia Accords but offers no real alternative, even though it\'s obvious they can\'t continue like they do.

Second, the climax of this movie isn\'t at the end — it\'s in the middle. The 12-superhero fight in the middle of the film makes the 3-superhero fight at the end look paltry by comparison.

Agreed on that point.

Speaking of which, having Tony start on one side, then switch to Cap\'s side in the lead-up to the climax, THEN switch sides yet again to fight Cap and Bucky just feels like a waste of time.

Well, it was to make a Hope Spot.

Third, the movie has a HUUUUUUUGE wasted opportunity in the form of the six other Winter Soldiers...who are DOA when we find them. If you were going to go to the trouble of introducing them, why would you have them killed off before we even get a chance to see them in action (flashbacks don\'t count!)? The opportunity for an EPIC final battle was gift-wrapped for you...and you chucked it aside like yesterday\'s socks!

Again, I respectfully disagree with you on that point, for two reasons. One: Zemo doesn\'t like superhumans going around killing people (that\'s what he hates the Avengers for), so it would make no sense for him to awaken them. Two, both Age of Ultron and Avengers 1 had that big climax with the heroes fighting an entire army, and doing it a third time would have been dull (hell, it already was kinda dull in Ao U!), and would have taken away the superhero vs superhero conflict. So I am actually glad they subverted it and avoided doing the obvious thing.

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to discount your opinion here, just trying to respond to it.

1) The fact that you personally believe Cap is right is actually proof that the movie succeeded in properly using Both Sides Have A Point. You as an individual believe that Cap is right, but there are many, many, many people who believe the same thing about Iron Man.

2) Tony is mostly on the same side the whole movie, although the degree to which he's convinced of his own rightness does change. It seems that you're confusing "Tony thinks Steve is doing the right thing" with "Tony thinks Steve's position is right". Those two statements are not the same; throughout the whole movie, Tony believes that the Sokovia Accords are more-or-less necessary, but acknowledges that Cap needs his help saving the world halfway through. Basically, the "sides" of this movie's ideological conflict are not "Steve vs Tony" they're "Registration vs non-Registration". 2b) Are climaxes not supposed to occur in the middle? This is an actual question; I was under the impression that's normally how it works.

3) First of all, how do flashbacks "not count"? They still happened, and you still saw them. More importantly, the other Winter Soldiers were introduced precisely for this reason: they're there solely to make the audience think there will be a huge final battle (and to have a reason for the heroes to actually give a shit about Zemo), but then they die to keep the audience on its toes.

4) While I don't disagree with you factually here – Winter Soldier was undeniably larger in scope – that is not necessarily a bad thing. "Greater scope" isn't always better. Actually, I believe the Russos said that the goal was to make the movie more personal, which is fitting: the ideological conflict originates in the massive amounts of collateral damage that superheroes cause, so it would be rather hypocritical to have the Avengers destroy yet another city. 4b) Also, it's worth noting that there is currently a not-insignificant debate going on about whether or not Agents Of SHIELD is really part of the MCU, given that it essentially has no effect whatsoever on the rest of the franchise.

I am not going to stick my oar into the other debate but for what it's worth I didn't think the villain WAS pointless, though perhaps he was wasted. A totally vanilla, powerless muggle armed pretty much entirely with a mask and a book of code phrases managed to succeed in actually destroying the Avengers as a coherent and united team when Loki and Ultron both failed... that's pretty impressive.

Quite apart from which, the Avengers never seemed likely to actually resort to a punch up over the Sokovia Accords, they merely had different opinions. It was the whole business with Bucky that was the real reason it went from sitting round a table debating to fighting at an airport and that was all set in motion by Zemo.

Zemo wasn\'t pointless imo, as unlike most every other villain in the MCU, he actually SUCCEEDED (for now) in his evil plot; none of the others can claim that lol. Even the fact that they\'ll ultimately come back for Infinity War, as expected, doesn\'t change that

Also, while you may agree with Cap more, Tony is the more sympathetic character, more-or-less... not because of his viewpoint, but because of how broken he obviously is, from start to finish. He\'s hurting from his Ultron mistake, making a hard choice by pushing for the Accords despite it hurting him more inside, the obvious harder conflict by having to fight his friends physically (for something he believes is right)... and then just to kick him while he\'s down, the reveal of Bucky being behind his parent\'s death. Not to mention, it hurts when superheroes fight each other - the 12-airport fight may have been climatic, but the 3-turn-on-each-other had a personal-level gut-punch quality the former wasn\'t anywhere near, making it stand out.

Also, the Winter Soldiers\' swerve was the entire point; sometimes characters are introduced just to be killed off/don\'t do something/etc etc to divert you down the \'real\' intended path for shock value, hopefully anyway. And you gotta admit, it works to some degree, as once it\'s revealed there are more, most everyone thought Zemo would use them... but he didn\'t even think of doing so, even once he got there. It\'s a fair twist that has to be given credit

That\'s what I believe anyway