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| Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely |
Alo Party Peoples.
I want to know what happens when Marvel releases a bad movie, and I'm not counting lackluster but serviceable entries like The Incredible Hulk or Iron Man 2, or the eternal redheaded stepchild that is Agents of SHIELD, I mean something that really, genuinely sucks. It has to happen sooner or later, the law of averages demands it, but Marvel Studios is such a well oiled machine at this point that they might be able to just absorb the loss and keep on rolling like nothing happened. They've created their own almost natural cycle, turning hype into investment into stories back into hype so efficiently that even if Doctor Strange turns out to be a total dud, all the worldbuilding and fanservice and such that was put into it would just be absorbed back into the system and any remaining ill will would be swept away by Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming less than a year later.
It's entirely possible that Marvel Studios achieved that Rocky/Star Wars/James Bond point where what they do occupies such a specific niche in the popular culture that it's impossible to apply the same metrics of criticism that you use for everything else, but with the added bonus that the Internet has sped up the cultural cycle of engagement that the gap between "I'm getting kind of sick of this." and Oh, hey. This is back and I remember why I liked it to begin with." that used to take years for genre works like those mentioned above, the gap between Die Another Day and Casino Royale, between Attack of the Clones and The Force Awakens, between Rocky IV and Creed, can now happen within the few months between Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. We've lost the ability to forget; anything that becomes even remotely popular now is just going to stick around, forever, and the interlinking continuity and endless self-perpetuating storytelling of comic book superheroes could not be better suited to that new reality.
Captain America: Civil War is the clearest possible signal that Marvel not only realizes their dominance, they've embraced it wholeheartedly; there's no point in pretending that the story could end here, so instead they'll remind the audience why they've become attached to these characters and this iconography and this setting over the past dozen films and entice them with the promise of a dozen more to come. It's not a great film despite being a comics adaptation or despite being the third Captain America film or despite being part of an established vassal state of the Disney Empire, it's great because of having all those things to draw from and build upon.
You already know the outline of the story from the trailers, the Avengers inadvertently cause massive civilian casualties during a routine peacekeeping mission, and by now the novelty of having superheroes running around unchecked has worn off with enough of the public that the United Nations drafts the Sokovia Accords, meant to reign in the actions of "enhanced individuals". Some of them are for it, others are against it, and Captain America becomes even more against it when a terrorist attack during the signing of the Sokovia Accords is blamed on the Winter Soldier, aka Cap's old friend from the war who'd been brainwashed into becoming a cyborg assassin for HYDRA, he thinks he's innocent so he goes rouge to find the real culprit, and the prince of the reclusive African nation of Wakanda dons the ceremonial armor of the Black Panther to hunt down and kill the Winter Soldier to avenge his father.
I was hesitant to embrace that, the trailers were making it out to be "Avengers 2.5: Civil War" and I worried that this would be the point where Marvel Studios finally fell into the same trap that Marvel Comics did, where the demands of maintaining the continuity of the broader meta-narrative overrode and overwrote the individual storylines. Sure, it's nice to not have to wonder where the rest of the team is during a solo adventure for once, but were we going to get the lite-version of an Avengers movie at the expense of a good Captain America movie? And while Civil War is definitely a follow-up to The Avengers, and for that matter a more fitting thematic successor to that film than it's own sequel was, this is definitely still a Captain America film. Civil War is about tension between doing what your emotions tell you is right and just in the moment, and doing what does the most good in the long run, and no Avenger better embodies that dilemma, "freedom of" versus "freedom from", than the embodiment of America's self-image that is Captain America.
Except, perhaps, for Tony Stark, who's personal failings and not having any Avenging to fall back on is letting his personal demons consume him all over again. He knows all too well that letting powerful weapons out into the world unchecked leads to disaster, and he won't let it happen again, even comparing unrestrained superhumans to nuclear warheads. The two make perfect foils for each-other, and the conflict between the two drives the entire film. Even when all the cards are on the table and there's no logical reason for them to keep fighting, the fighting doesn't stop because the emotions are still running hot and all the hidden secrets and crippling flaws that came to the surface have risen above the mechanics that brought them out, and that kind of stuff doesn't just go away once the inciting incident has receded. That's heavy material even for a "serious" film, let alone one where the return of Spider-Man* is a huge selling point.
And while it's a given that most "serious" critics will give Civil War the backhanded passive-aggressive dig that it's "great for a comic-book movie", having the pre-existing cultural zeitgeist and past dozen films worth of lore and backstory to draw on is what lets Civil War exist as it does, something that certain other studios could stand to learn. It's a serious meditation on civics and interventions and human nature, but it's also a great follow up to The Avengers and a gloriously gonzo action film that contains some of the most ridiculous but most engaging action sequences ever put to film as an emergency "pump up the audience" button. It is Marvel Studios at their most crowd-pleasing, most refined, and most powerful, and while I'm not entirely sure if it's their best work, it's the best example so far of why the whole experiment was worth setting up in the first place.
Have a nice day,
Greg.B
FINAL RATING: 5/5
*Tobey Maguire is always going to be my Spider-Man, but Tom Holland is fantastic in his own right.
*Tobey Maguire is always going to be my Spider-Man, but Tom Holland is fantastic in his own right.
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