Captain America: Civil War

Director: Anthony & Joe Russo
Screenplay: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (based on the comic book series by Mark Millar; characters created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby)
Stars: Chris Evans (Steve Rogers / Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark / Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson / Falcon), Don Cheadle (Lt. James Rhodes / War Machine), Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton / Hawkeye), Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa / Black Panther), Paul Bettany (Vision), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang / Ant-Man), Emily VanCamp (Sharon Carter), Tom Holland (Peter Parker / Spider-Man), Daniel Brühl (Zemo), Frank Grillo (Brock Rumlow / Crossbones), William Hurt (Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross), Martin Freeman (Everett K. Ross), Marisa Tomei (May Parker), John Kani (King T’Chaka), John Slattery (Howard Stark), Hope Davis (Maria Stark), Alfre Woodard (Miriam)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Year of Release: 2016
Country: U.S.
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: Civil WarThe borders are continuing to blur in the ever-expanding Marvel Universe. The 13th film produced by Marvel Studios since the universe was born in 2008 with Jon Favreau’s Iron Man and the third in the Captain America series, Captain America: Civil War is really, in all honesty, a third Avengers film, as it picks up almost directly from the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and features virtually the entire Avengers line-up, minus a few (the gang’s all here except for Thor and the Hulk), but with several new faces added in. There is strong consistency with the earlier Captain America films, as well, as returning writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who have penned all three films in the series) use Mark Millar’s same-titled seven-issue comic book series from 2006 to extend and arguably clarify the ideological issues in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) regarding governmental and military power and the ever-shifting tensions between freedom and national security.

The civil war of the title is waged among the Avengers themselves, who find themselves ideologically divided when 117 nations sign the Sokovia Accords, named for the fictional Eastern European nation that was obliterated during the Avengers’ battle with Ultron. The Accords place the Avengers under the control of a U.N. panel, which is seen as a necessary corrective for the superheroes’ unbridled power and tendency toward collateral damage—a familiar conceit that we’ve seen everywhere from Watchmen (2009), to The Incredibles (2004), to the recent Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Billionaire industrialist Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is in favor the accords, a complete reversal of his previous tendency toward anti-authoritarianism that is born out of the guilt he feels about accidentally unleashing Ultron on the world (unfortunately, Stark’s guilt complex is one of the more undercooked aspects of the film). On the opposite side is genetically enhanced super-soldier Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans), who chafes at the idea of an international body telling the Avengers what they can and can’t do. Interestingly, this pushes Captain America even further from the established order he is sworn to uphold than he was in The Winter Soldier, as he effectively becomes a criminal by the midway point of the film.

Cap’s criminalization is centered primarily around his protection of Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who was once his best friend but was physically enhanced and brainwashed by the Soviets to be a ruthless assassin. Captain America is convinced that Bucky should be considered innocent of his crimes because he was psychologically conditioned to commit them against his will, even though he remains a potential threat because he is still susceptible to commands from those who know how to get into his gray matter and he is accused of setting off a bomb during the ratification of the Sokovia Accords in Vienna.

The tensions are also being inflamed by a new villain, Zemo, (Daniel Brühl), who has vengeance on his mind and sees that the best way to attain it is to turn the Avengers against each other. And this is precisely what happens, as Captain America’s actions split the Avengers right down the middle, with various characters siding with either Iron Man or Captain America. Stark counts among his supports War Machine (Don Cheadle); Vision (Paul Bettany), the superhuman entity he created to replace Ultron; Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), an African king whose father was killed by the bomb supposedly set off by Bucky; Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), whose history of playing both sides suggests that she may not stay entirely loyal to one side or the other; and Spider-Man (Tom Holland), who Iron Man recruits into the fray even though he is a teenage geek still figuring out his superpowers (Holland’s take on the character suggests good things for the next Spider-Man reboot). Siding with Cap are Bucky Barnes; Falcon (Anthony Mackie); Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), who comes out of self-imposed retirement; wise-cracking Ant-Man (Paul Rudd); and troubled psychokinetic Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who Iron Man tries and fails to keep out of the fray by putting her under Vision’s protection.

This squaring off of superheroes promises plenty of pyrotechnics, most of which go off at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport, where the super-smackdown commences with full rage (the two sides literally bum rush each other from opposite sides of a runway). And, while directors Anthony and Joe Russo (who also helmed The Winter Soldier) find plenty of clever and entertaining match-ups to exploit, the fun of watching superheroes pummel each other can only last so long, especially when there is so much cheating regarding their very different abilities and physiques (why, for example, can Hawkeye and Black Widow, who are thoroughly human and unprotected by armor, withstand as much physical abuse as supercharged Captain America or armored Iron Man?).

Like The Winter Soldier, there are a few more action sequences than there need to be and the ones we get go on too long; it feels like the Russos were determined to make sure everyone got their money’s worth, even though the real entertainment factor is in watching the various personalities clash. Granted, they’ve been clashing since the gang first got together in The Avengers (2012), but at least then they were ostensibly fighting for the same cause. Driven apart by competing ideologies, the superheroes reveal even more of both their flaws and their virtues. Captain America’s determination to stand for what he sees is right is admirable, even though it is potentially dangerous, whereas Iron Man’s willingness to subject himself to outside control demonstrates a relaxing of his famed ego, albeit only because he is driven his guilt. Until now, Captain America and Iron Man have always had a humorously antagonistic relationship, with the former’s red-white-and-blue purity conflicting with the latter’s narcissistic vulgarity, so watching them truly at odds with each other packs a punch.

There is a real sense of gravitas underlying the film’s central conflict, which isn’t too hard to graft onto our currently fractious political climate. Moreso than The Winter Soldier, Civil War is quite intent on critiquing the idea of the government as the best repository of power, although the viewpoint espoused by Captain America—that it should be wielded without constraint by individuals with the best intentions (read: superheroes)—is scary in its own right because it opens the door for fascists and demagogues. The Winter Soldier himself is perhaps the best example of what happens when superheroes are controlled by authoritarian bodies, which is why his preservation is so key to Cap’s ideological struggle. Bucky must be redeemed somehow by returning his individual agency. In the right/left struggle of superheroic politics, Civil War is probably best seen as truly libertarian, pushing individual morality as superior to the collective. Of course, reading too much allegory into the action poses its own dangers, both in terms of symbolic overreaching and bleeding out the fun, and if Civil War works politically, it is as a broad metaphor for the nature of government, power, and that ever elusive concept of freedom that sounds so pure, but really requires endless compromise to attain.

Copyright ©2016 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © Walt Disney Pictures / Marvel Studios

Overall Rating: (3)




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