Review- CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
(ACTION/SCI-FI)
4 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Chadwick Boseman, Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, Tom Holland, Daniel Bruhl, Paul Rudd, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, William Hurt
Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of violence, action and mayhem.
147 minutes
Verdict: Marvel Studios' most emotionally-charged and morally complex movie to date is also their best since the first Avengers, bursting with fully realized characters, kinetic action spectacles and Marvel's signature humor.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR IF YOU LIKED:
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER  (2014)
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER  (2011)
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON  (2015)
MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS  (2012)
IRON MAN 3  (2013)

Tony Stark/Iron Man: "I don't trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old-fashioned."

Steve Rogers/Captain America: "Well, let's just say you haven't seen it yet."

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, the third movie in Marvel Studios' Captain America series, but also thirteenth in the overarching "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (which ties together movies of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, the Avengers and others), is a major lynch pin in the series, evolving the franchise and taking full advantage of Marvel's unique brand of long-form storytelling.  It's also Marvel's most morally and emotionally complex movie to date, and their best new movie since MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS in 2012.  Inspired by, but in no way tied down to, Marvel Comics' 2006 storyline Civil War, the movie explores the idea of superheroes' negative impact in relation to being forces for good, collective good in contrast to individual will, and retaliation as justice, all within a sprawling, globe-spanning, colorfully fantastical epic full of spectacular action, humor and at least a few emotional gut punches.
A year after the events of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), better known as Captain America, is leading his team of Avengers in Nigeria to prevent the supervillain Crossbones (Frank Grillo) from obtaining and unleashing a biological weapon, when recent Avengers addition Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, accidentally causes a destruction to a nearby building, resulting in a number of bystander casualties.  This accident proves to be the final straw in a series of incidents of devastating collateral damage caused by Avengers and other superhero missions with world leaders now calling for registration and regulation.  The international legislation divides the Avengers between those in favor of oversight, led by a guilt-ridden Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), and those against it, led by Cap.  Further complicating things is Rogers' determination to redeem his friend James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who spent decades as a brainwashed assassin known as the Winter Soldier and is now wanted to answer for his crimes by nations around the world.

Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who previously wrote CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER), the movie brings in a number of other recognizable faces into the battle for superhero sovereignty versus responsibility, including Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), James "Rhodey" Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Ruidd) and the Vision (Paul Bettany).  Even William Hurt as General-turned-Secretary of State Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross from the mostly ignored bastard child of the MCU, THE INCREDIBLE HULK shows up.  Then there are the new faces, namely T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), aka the Black Panther, and a familiar face made new in Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), making his MCU debut.  Spidey's entry into the story is a little unjustified, but once he gets going, this new iteration (resembling the character's design from 1994 limited series Marvels by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross) is a fresh and distinctly young at 15 years old (Holland is actually 20, but he'd convince for 14), mixing in a humorous new element to the Avengers, but one that's more innocent than snarky.
The MCU has so far emphasized fun, feel-good "popcorn entertainment" that could be accused of lacking substance, but CIVIL WAR is as much an intelligent moral debate as it is fast, funny blockbuster action.  Somewhat similarly to DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES a couple of years ago, CIVIL WAR presents a fantastical conflict that is real as can be at its roots, because both sides are understandably right from where they're standing.  Perhaps it helps that Marvel doesn't have to deal with its typical pitfall of weak villains, because there isn't a clear-cut villain in this story; the conflict is between heroes, ones that we've been able to get to know over the course of several previous movies.  Actually, there's Crossbones, who is a blast during his relatively brief screen time, but he's not this story's villain.

Both sides are given legitimate cause and credibility; the Vision, the "purest" of the Avengers, advocates oversight in order to stem the escalation of cataclysmic events that has accompanied the emergence of superheroes (a meta-comment on the nature of this sub-genre), but Captain America is not wrong in his concern for the changing agendas of this proposed oversight, and certainly past experiences have taught to suspect authority.  Iron Man is devastated by the knowledge of human casualties that result in the course of their missions, some indirectly caused by their own doing, such as Stark's security program Ultron going rogue, and notes that a lack of regulation makes them insufficiently different from the people they fight.  There are more personal motivations too, as well as personal conflicts, that all tie into this stew of philosophies and emotions now boiling over.  Captain America and Iron Man have always been at each others throats, ever since they first met in THE AVENGERS, with Stark resenting Rogers for having been friends with his emotionally distant father, and Rogers put off by Stark's recklessness and irreverence, but above it all, they respect and trust one another.  CIVIL WAR is the culmination of their relationship and of their multi-film individual arcs.  Where they were when each was introduced, they would have likely been on swapped sides of this conflict; Captain America, the "soldier", idealistic and thoroughly unselfish, and Iron Man, the narcissistic solo act, defiant and cynical.  But over the course of Iron Man's five movie appearances (not including his cameo in THE INCREDIBLE HULK), the self-assured playboy has gone from flagrantly thumbing his nose at a Senate committee and proclaiming that he'd "privatized world peace" to a more cautious man who has a hard time with the idea that he can't save everyone, shaped by the trauma of delivering a nuclear payload into deep space in the Battle of New York and the realization of his own follies.  Once a morally unaccountable weapons manufacturer, he's now haunted by the effects of his life that allowed innocent people to be hurt while he profited from war and under-the-table deals because he didn't care enough.  As Peter Parker explains his own choices to Stark, if he has the power to prevent bad things from happening, but he doesn't, and then those bad things happen, it's his fault; another variation on the well known "with great power comes great responsibility" speech.  Over the course of Cap's four movie appearances, he's gone from a perfect soldier, the man who follows every order according to his conscience and lays down on the proverbial wire to let the other men crawl over, the man who literally threw himself down on a grenade, to rogue who answers to his ever-potent moral compass but who doesn't trust the authority of a bureaucracy that may attempt to use him on behalf of hidden agendas in the name of security and order.  As a company man, Cap carried out missions for S.H.I.E.L.D., but the agency meant to make the world safer proved to be compromised at its core by the beating heart of 20th-century fascism.  After that, he's no longer the kind of man to readily take orders.  But even at this irreconcilable philosophical divide, they're both still heroes, so there's no easy answer whose side to root for in the conflict that inevitably results in a spectacular superhero battle royale.  It's no clear answer for the audience or the characters, and in the fight that pits friend against friend, most of them are still not trying to seriously hurt the other, so when inadvertent but severe consequences do rear their ugly head, it's a shock.

It's no spoiler either that eventually Cap and Iron Man comes to blows directly, and the fight is surprisingly brutal, physically and emotionally, in comparison to what has come before in the MCU.  Both sides come from powerfully emotionally charged perspectives, and you feel for both, but each blow is harder than the next, and fracturing of the bond between characters is palpable.
It's definitely Marvel's most emotional movie.  That's not to say it's particularly sad, although it often is, but it's more intimate and emotionally driven than what they've done before.  It's deeply rooted in its characters, so each divide and longing between friends is substantive.  The movie benefits greatly from the groundwork previously laid by other movies in the franchise, but is ruthlessly efficient in laying its own ground from the moment the movie starts, introducing each character and the background to their motivations early on while in the midst of ongoing action, never feeling like exposition.
For all its emotional punch, it's never less funny than we've come to expect from Marvel's movies, and some moments are full-blown hilarious, especially in the aforementioned superhero battle royale where Ant-Man and Spidey in particular bring a lot of goofy mirth to melee.  It's really weird that the Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony, who directed this and WINTER SOLDIER (and who will direct the next two Avengers movies), have overseen a lot of the best action in the MCU, in spite of their sitcom backgrounds (fans of the cult favorite Community, which the Russos co-created with Dan Harmon, will be delighted by another cameo/easter egg) and in comparison to a stable of filmmakers who would presumably be more qualified.  The action is another step up from WINTER SOLDIER and is fast and kinetic with great chases and character interplay, well-placed sped-up footage and impact, and though more emotionally/psychologically than physically, has some pretty rough moments.
I've never felt the argument that Marvel's movies looked like "glorified TV" as opposed to "cinematic" holds much water, even if they have had such problems in terms of narrative, but CIVIL WAR, shot by WINTER SOLDIER cinematographer and Neill Blomkamp's collaborator Trent Opaloch, does significantly shake up the MCU visually, even if they haven't gone "experimental" yet.
It's great, but that doesn't mean there isn't room to improve.  Composer Henry Jackman's orchestral score is grandiose, but a more melodramatic score to accompany the onscreen melodrama would be preferable, and even as the movie gives the staling franchise a good, hard jolt of freshness, Marvel still has a couple of bad habits left over from comic books that need to be upended, and this might not have been such a bad place to try that.

Regardless, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is a landmark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a great blockbuster film in its own right.  It's unfortunate and little awkward that this comes little over a month after Warner Brothers/DC's BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (which itself was vying for this release date before capitulating to Marvel), because the silly old DC vs. Marvel rivalry factors into a lot of fans perspectives on the films, and some DC fans even suggesting that Marvel bribed (real) critics who panned BATMAN V SUPERMAN.  Thematically, both movies tremendously similar, on the basic conceit of superheroes fighting superheroes, but also addressing issues of oversight and regulation, collateral damage as a result of protecting humanity at large, disillusionment in the light of a seemingly never-ending fight, and so on.  So why does CIVIL WAR triumph so spectacularly while BATMAN V SUPERMAN fails with equal fervor?  It's nothing inherent to the characters, and both sides have delivered their share of howlers and masterpieces, but Marvel has the advantage of a handsomely established background for their characters and the world the live in thanks to a dozen earlier installments.  Even more importantly though, Marvel shows a great deal of affection and sympathy for their characters, and it's contagious.  With BATMAN V SUPERMAN, there's actually a sense of disdain, or at the very least, detachment, from the character of Superman, the motivations are muddled and the result is one of negative emotions all around.  There are many other problems with that movie, but that, I feel, is the core of the problem.  CIVIL WAR doesn't make it easy to pick a side.  Your favorite character might very well be fighting for a side you disagree with, but you feel for them and understand them, and while you can't really pick one to cheer for, you certainly don't want either to lose.  It's a world where evil exists, but not in a conventional comic book form, and still can be vanquished.  It's also full of joy and fantastical, escapist thrills that could be pulled straight from the pages of a comic book, while its strength lies in its emotional authenticity.  I absolutely love MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS.  I think it's the studio's peak film so far, but to be fair, I've had six years to live it since it first opened in theaters.  Suffice it to say then that CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is Marvel's best movie since that.

Images via Marvel