Captain America: Civil War (2016)
April 30, 2016 11:16 PM - Subscribe

Political interference in the Avengers' activities causes rift! There's a 100% chance of punching! Stuff blows up! Cameos galore! The Black Panther gets into the fight, as does the man only known as "Underoos" and all your favourites, but when it comes down to it: when Captain America throws his mighty shield, at Iron Man (all jets ablaze, while fighting and smiting with repulsor rays) will the cool exec with a heart of steel yield?

Captain America: Civil War - 8 lingering questions answered.
Where does it leave the MCU?
Post-credits scenes explained
Civil War review

But is it any good? Yes, says The Guardian, 'Damn-near-perfect' says someone else ... and of course, it's really a bit of biffo between John Stuart Mill and Kant.

(And, lest we forget, it's based on a comic "event" of the same name).
posted by Mezentian (220 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
I just saw it and I did enjoy it, far more than that other movie about superheroes punching each other.

For what it's worth, this is at 81% on Metacritic, 94% at Rotten Tomatoes and 8.7/10 at IMDB, which all fair.
posted by Mezentian at 12:07 AM on May 1, 2016


My friend thought Black Panther was silly, but I have been a fan since Wonder Man wore a safari jacket, so I thought he was a great, and that car chase was genuinely well filmed, which isn't something you can say for a lot of car chases.

The movie is far from perfect (the sheer scale of destruction is problematic), and the film grinds to a halt when he first meet Spidey (Did we need that scene? We did not.) and I did come out of it feeling like I wanted to see more of a Captain America movie than we got.... (Yes, I wanted to see the Serpent Society film for real) but it's a solid, mostly fun family film (well, the number of people who brought really young kids seem to think it is), but my one major criticism is that this is more Marvel: The Movie Part 13 than Cap 3.

But, mostly, the not-Cap characters worked, I bought them all and their motivations, although perhaps they were a little too happy to pummel the ever-loving tar out of each other for slim reasons.

But, on the other hand, it seems unlikely we'll get moments like "Men's Casual Wear with Vizh" or "Cooking With Vizh" in the Infinity War movies (I assume we will get more Greendale cameos, though), so it's a net plus.

And this whole idea that the UN whipped up the Sokovia Accords without the Avengers apparently knowing seems to be a major plot hole. As is the whole idea of putting Thunderbolt Ross in charge of the Avengers. He's made bad choices of his own, like unleashing the Abomination. Oooops.

But I continue to ride the Marvel hype train while the wheels fall off the DC Murderverse.
posted by Mezentian at 1:11 AM on May 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


I want someone to write a comic that effectively consolidates all Stan Lee's cameos into one Stan Lee who has to be all things to all people, all the time, and how he juggles going from strip club MC to FedEx courier to Hugh Hefner/Larry King impersonator.
posted by tracicle at 2:46 AM on May 1, 2016 [10 favorites]


I enjoyed this tremendously. I thought it was far superior to age of Ultron the plot made, in general, a lot more sense and the pacing was much more even. The action scenes were also less chaotic and monotonous. Well shot and put together.

Once again, the movie left me desperate for a black widow movie. That scene at the start in Nigeria where she kicked twelve kinds of arse? Amazing.

I was always team tony. I wonder if they are gonna make him alcoholic like that run in the books. Black panther was well done. Spidey was nice, though the scene at his house was one part that didn't really need to be in there and felt a bit shoe-horny to me.

The villain was okay. I thought a little bit unbelievable in that his plan was based on a awful lot of luck to bring about the downfall of the avengers. Scarlet Witch is also far far too powerful.

But nonetheless a great movie, very fun and enjoyable.
posted by smoke at 2:56 AM on May 1, 2016


I really enjoyed this film. Much better than Ultron. Actually, I think the Avengers movies are really pitched at a different level. As odd as this film was - it basically was an Avengers movie with the team that was set up at the end of Ulton - it did focus pretty squarely on Bucky and Cap and that made it work. Their relationship was at the heart of it all, though the revelation at the end about Tony's parents was a great twist of the knife.

So this felt like a film that was the emotional pay off to a lot of the preceding MCU films in a way the Avengers films haven't been. And, in a way, it's an end to Peggy Carter's story too - though please bring Agent Carter back for season three, ABC!

The lack of a Black Widow film is now utterly insane, given that this film just introduced two "new" heroes, who already have films lined up. ScarJo has done her time supporting everyone else, give her her own film. But no, Black Panther and Spider-Man get movies and Captain Marvel is still three years away. WHY?

I'm glad the Russos are in charge of the Avengers: Infinity War films. This franchise keeps going from strength to strength.
posted by crossoverman at 3:57 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I also preferred this to Age of Ultron, it felt like there was more room for uncertainty in terms of where it would end up. There was a decent amount of character building, and unlike some reviewers I didn't feel I was being asked to become more familiar with too many characters at one time.

I could kind of see Captain America's point about the inevitability of the power of the Avengers becoming problematic if under the control of something like the UN security council, both in terms of being applied and being held back. However, given that his first act after the accords are signed is to brutalise a large number of policemen in defence of a wanted criminal its difficult not to buy into the argument that he is in fact arrogant and contemptuous of the ordinary people and thinks the super powered should have special privileges, even if he doesn't verbalise that.
posted by biffa at 4:57 AM on May 1, 2016 [11 favorites]


Well paced, engaging and funny in the right bits. Coherent too which is more than I could say for Age of Ultron's Underpants.

And yet. There was a point in the second act where I started calculating exactly how many hours of associated media I had to consume to understand the ins and outs of who the fuck everyone was and why I should care and who the hell else they were talking about and catch all the tie-ins.

My lazy accounting comes to 10 directly associated films, so lets say a minimum 20 hours there. Plus Agents of Shield (which I gave up on after 3 episodes because as much as it pains me to say it bored the pants off me). SO maybe, what, 30 hours at this point. 40? Just spent watching super dudes punch the crap out of each other?

And that's ignoring the Sony Spiderman drivel and it's not counting the loose spin off Daredevil and the spin off of the spin off Jessica Jones and we are now up to weeks of time I could have spent holding down a real job like an adult.

Yep, literally weeks of my life and attention that was being demanded just to keep up with the plot of a fairly silly popcorn movie. AND I HAD DUTIFULLY CONSUMED ALMOST ALL OF IT. I am now living in a even crappier future Brave New World where media brand loyalty is incubated in a tub and dictated at adolescence.

I'm not sure where this rant is headed. I guess my question is just how much of a chunk of my goddamn media attention pie are you demanding, Marvel? Because I really actually do have a damn job and other shitty non Marvel movies and TV to watch.

Also where is my damn Black Widow movie you pricks I need my fix.
posted by arha at 6:15 AM on May 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


And, in a way, it's an end to Peggy Carter's story too - though please bring Agent Carter back for season three, ABC!

So say we all.
And, Howard needs to meet Maria. The difference between TV's Howard and Older Howard is just more bizarre than Teen Tony.

On the other hand, technology is now at a point where they can do a realistic, if creepy, Teen Tony.

(I am sorry for reminding people of that plot from the comics).
posted by Mezentian at 6:22 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


So, Civil War tackled the same problems Batman v Superman did and basically had the same driving plot point: a villain playing to heroes against each other. The (a)morality of superheroes. But, it had better drawn out characters, better dialogue and it managed to be less stupid about it and quite a bit more fun - Civil War managed to balance the struggles of heroes with the comic elements which largely worked (though agreed that Spidey was forced in there and unnecessary). Complex enough, I'd say. Compared to BvS, it's fantastic, sure. And compared to Ultron.

Don't get the incredibly high ratings and stellar reviews though. Because of a big BUT, at least from my point of view. It managed to render what are supposedly the high point of any superhero movie into an excruciating experience: the action scenes. Yes, there were some creative moments (especially at the airport) but - and this has been a problem with most Marvel stuff - it's just too damn fast and cannot be followed. I don't know, I just closed my eyes during several action scenes cause all I could really fathom was something flashing on the screen. Saw it in IMAX, too, which should make things better not worse, I guess - didn't anybody else have that problem? Or am I just expecting that every action movie be at Fury Road level now. Don't know.

Conclusion: nice balancing of tragic and comic elements, perfect tone for a superhero morality play; excrutiating visuals during action scenes.
posted by sapagan at 6:23 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


it's just too damn fast and cannot be followed.

Aside from a little shakey cam near the start, personally I followed the action perfectly fine (although how many staircase fights must we have, Marvel?).

Compare that to, say, the Transformers films (although my brain there is trying to keep track of the "plot" and "characters" as well).
posted by Mezentian at 6:32 AM on May 1, 2016


Yeah, nothing can be compared to Trans"formers" on that front.
posted by sapagan at 7:05 AM on May 1, 2016


I found the whole 'we need to be reined in' speech from Tony a bit hollow.

1. New York. Well, SHIELD - a multi-government agency backed by the US Government and reporting to the World Security Council - had an alien artifact, and lost it to a hostile alien, and the Avengers - a bunch of civilians - saved New York and the world, including from the US Government when it tried to nuke NYC.

2. DC. SHIELD is infiltrated and hopelessly compromised by terrorist organisation. Can't see how that's the fault of superhumans. The 'enhanced individuals' (actually just Captain America and a bunch of skilled normal people), save the world from SHIELD ineptitude. Again.

3. Sarkovia - well, Tony screwed up and created a hostile AI, which the rest of the Avengers then had to save the world from. OK, that one is on Tony, and by extension the Avengers.

4. Lagos. Terrorists storm a government facility. Security is non-existent. Law enforcement or military is nowhere to be seen. Avengers have to step in to stop a bioweapon being stolen. Scarlet Witch limits damage from a bomb that would otherwise have taken out a whole marketplace and likely brought down the entire building.

Tony needs to be reined in - Sarkovia was beyond the pale. The world governments need to fix their shit. But everyone else is cool.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:57 PM on May 1, 2016 [15 favorites]


You forgot.... um... whatever happened in Thor (no, really, it's a blank beyond the Hawkey cameo), and that time the alien species from Asgard invaded London for reasons.... so I think SHIELD was mostly blameless there.
posted by Mezentian at 12:01 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


given that his first act after the accords are signed is to brutalise a large number of policemen in defence of a wanted criminal its difficult not to buy into the argument that he is in fact arrogant and contemptuous of the ordinary people and thinks the super powered should have special privileges, even if he doesn't verbalise that.

Was reading this comment and started thinking, what would heroism without privilege look like? Civil War is asking us to imagine that a privileged person can also be good which seems kind of paradoxical in our times (privilege/elite = corruption). But perhaps imagining a superhero that is not somehow privileged would be even more difficult. Heroism and privilege necessarily go together. A hero needs to be elitist; I don't mean rich, simply better (in judgment, abilities, etc.) than the ordinary people. Can we think of a member of the elite as being pure (non-corrupt) in their heart and actions? If not impossible, it's nevertheless extremely difficult.
posted by sapagan at 1:05 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


given that his first act after the accords are signed is to brutalise a large number of policemen in defence of a wanted criminal its difficult not to buy into the argument that he is in fact arrogant and contemptuous of the ordinary people and thinks the super powered should have special privileges, even if he doesn't verbalise that.

This is rather unfair. Those cops were sent to execute someone he knew to be innocent (he is told that they have been ordered to shoot Bucky on sight). That's problematic in and of itself. And they were woefully unprepared to do so. Not only did he protect Bucky, he tried to make sure Bucky didn't kill the cops.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:17 AM on May 2, 2016 [9 favorites]


You forgot.... um... whatever happened in Thor (no, really, it's a blank beyond the Hawkey cameo), and that time the alien species from Asgard invaded London for reasons.... so I think SHIELD was mostly blameless there.

Thor was just hijinks in New Mexico with no mass destruction. Thor 2 - well, sure, but that was still Thor - an Avenger - saving the world from an alien attack. Where were SHIELD? Or any other military or law enforcement. Nowhere, that's where. SHIELD sucks at life.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:22 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


(I was surprised at the low number of comments, but am I right in understanding that this still hasn't gone on general release in the USA?)

Yes, one of the good points for me was that the film has its protagonists seemingly act out of character, yet when you think about their narrative arcs their decisions make sense (or at least, are comprehensible). Steve Rogers broke free of being a propaganda act to become an actual soldier; later, when he awoke to a world in which he was very isolated, he threw himself into being SHIELD's lead operative only to learn that SHIELD had rotted from within. The repeated lesson he's learned is that doing the morally right thing is more important than following questionable orders, and so it's hardly surprising that he has grave reservations about placing himself under external control yet again. For that matter, even before the Vienna incident, Rogers must have been thinking that it was all too likely that sooner or later the UN would send him after Barnes.

Tony Stark, by contrast, has been his own man from the outset, very reluctantly brought into the Avengers Initiative and clearly bridling in the earlier films at the control SHIELD tries to impose on him. And then New York happens, and the events of Iron Man 3, and finally Sokovia. It's not entirely clear what the wider perception in the MCU world of the Sokovia incident is, but given that Stark is neither in prison nor being sued into a stain on the floor his role in creating Ultron seems to have been very much covered up or glossed over. Stark is shaken by his encounter with the mother of a Sokovia victim because he is smart enough to know that he was arrogant and negligent and that people died as a result. In the circumstances, it's entirely believable that he converts to the idea of oversight, and we all know what people say about the zeal of the converted. Stark needs to believe that he is right, even when he has changed his mind about what 'right' is, and that's why he is shaken again when it becomes apparent that he and the rest of the Avengers have been set up. (And that makes him particularly emotionally vulnerable when Zemo drops the final part of his plan on him.)

Another comment I saw was that both Rogers and Stark are falling prey to their own inner blind sports. Rogers is so convinced of his own principled stance and that he is on the side of right that he refuses to give adequate weight to the other side's reasonable arguments. Stark, meanwhile, is so used to being the most intelligent person in the room that he forgets at times that just because he has come to a conclusion it does not mean that the conclusion is automatically right. (A flaw I've observed in a number of extremely smart people I know.)

So yes, you might be surprised watching the film at who does what, but it all fits with what we have seen of them in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 movies.

As for the others:

Team Rogers
Sam Wilson - clearly idolises Steve Rogers as the ideal of what an American soldier should be, and will follow him anywhere.
Clint Barton - cynical and suspicious, was evidently always more loyal to Nick Fury than SHIELD, and views Rogers as Fury's protégé.
Scott Lang - expressly taught by Hank Pym not to trust the Avengers and, in particular, Stark.
Wanda Maximoff - fearful, after Lagos, about what future she has under the Sokovia Accords, especially when it becomes apparent that she is under what amounts to house arrest.
(Bucky Barnes is of course on this team because they're the only people in the world not out to kill him.)

Team Stark
Rhodey Rhodes - is going to follow apparently rational orders from duly constituted authority because he is a loyal serving officer.
Vision - is going to follow apparently rational orders from duly constituted authority because he is the antithesis of Ultron and must prove that to himself and everyone else.
Natasha Romanoff - has sympathies with both sides and is torn between them.
Peter Parker - in awe of Tony Stark.
T'Challa - aligns himself with Stark because he wants to kill Barnes.
posted by Major Clanger at 2:21 AM on May 2, 2016 [30 favorites]


Incidentially, the Red Thoughts Consort has now noted my 'bold anti-SHIELD stance' and is seemingly disapproving.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:29 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Major Clanger, that's a great analysis.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:32 AM on May 2, 2016


Yeah it comes out in the US on Thursday. Glad to hear it's good!
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:42 AM on May 2, 2016


I always thought she was a good sort, red thoughts. As soon as they said, "UN" they had me. I was also pleased because one of my big criticisms of Ultron was the thoughtless carnage and shallow portrayal of non-US cultures/places. Little did I know they had a plan!
posted by smoke at 2:58 AM on May 2, 2016


Wanda Maximoff - fearful, after Lagos, about what future she has under the Sokovia Accords, especially when it becomes apparent that she is under what amounts to house arrest.

There's also the mutant (er... Inhuman) = Jewish/Gypsy experience, but maybe I'm projecting that from her comic back story.
posted by Mezentian at 4:07 AM on May 2, 2016


I think there is at least one hint at that in the film.
posted by biffa at 5:17 AM on May 2, 2016


I've just been for a second time (yeah for Bank Holiday weekends) and I really enjoyed it. I think emotionally I was always on Cap's side, but logically it does seem there should be some oversight to a team that goes into various countries and acts how they think is right.
Let's not forget that they are an American-based team of super-soldiers, I mean, do we think that covert operations by the states in foreign countries are a good thing? (I'm a non-US being, so mileage may vary).
However the way the accords are introduced seems very rushed and not at all rational, as His thoughts were red thoughts pointed out, most the shit went down under some sort of govt. control. Albeit, control that had actually been hijacked by Hydra, hence Cap's reluctance to follow orders.

I guess that Sharon's funeral speech is at the essence of the film. If everyone is telling you something, but you don't believe that is the right thing to do, is it you duty to stand firm and say no? Steve Rogers has *always* thought so, he has always been about standing up and doing the right thing, facing down the bully, no matter the cost to him (and I have to say I really liked that call back to the first Cap film in the final fight). But then again, what if you aren't right, what if you are the one who is wrong? And you've just become a fundamentalist?

I also now demand a Black Widow movie, and a Scarlet Witch one, I really want more Wanda!
posted by Fence at 9:46 AM on May 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


However the way the accords are introduced seems very rushed and not at all rational, as His thoughts were red thoughts pointed out, most the shit went down under some sort of govt. control. Albeit, control that had actually been hijacked by Hydra, hence Cap's reluctance to follow orders.

Although, to be fair, it would be fairly difficult to distinguish between a government that has been hijacked by Hydra, and a run of the mill government these days.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:21 PM on May 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Although, to be fair, it would be fairly difficult to distinguish between a government that has been hijacked by Hydra, and a run of the mill government these days.

Make Hydra great again!

(Damn, I'm out of vodka, and it's budget night).

I guess that Sharon's funeral speech is at the essence of the film.

I'm trying to remember (and what in the film it was bugging me about Sharon's speech (it was a bit Joss from Firefly, but not) and with some googling, I found what it was based on:

"Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — "No, you move."


It's from Amazing Spider-Man #537, written by the great JMS. It feels like great JMS speechifying.

Come on, you call heard it in Sheridan's voice just then, right?
posted by Mezentian at 1:49 AM on May 3, 2016 [10 favorites]


Scott Lang - expressly taught by Hank Pym not to trust the Avengers and, in particular, Stark.

Additionally, Scott Lang was introduced in his own movie as a convicted criminal who'd broken the law to do what he felt was right- in that case, stealing money from a corrupt company and returning it to ordinary citizens. It's also suggested that he pulled off several other less noble thefts, but that's the one the movie focuses on. He committed three more serious thefts over the course of his film and the end result of that was a rich friend giving him superpowers and him joining the Avengers, so he's definitely not shy about breaking an unjust law at the drop of a hat.
posted by sandswipe at 4:54 PM on May 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


I just saw it. I can only form the following emotions right now:


SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Also:

ALL.
THE.
FEELS.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:10 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Saw it this evening (woo hoo 7pm Thursday shows).

It was really good. The emotional weight of the story was the gripping and it made everything else much more compelling. I was surprised how emotionally dark and this film was in comparison to other films in the MCU. A hero had been tortured and brainwashed into killing another hero's parents and the third hero is torn between them. Rhodey's injuries up the stakes. Zemo's rationale's reminded of the film The Peacemaker. The terrorist in that had similar gripping rationales, where he had lost his family due to another country fighting in his, so he was determined to destroy everything else. That's not pretty, but it is a common human reaction.

Black Panther and Spider were fantastic, those characters were completely nailed and owned. But I am disappointed that there wasn't a lot of time for the Black Widow. She's always been a major part of Avenger's movies and this one lost a little something by her diminished presence. Hell, where all the female Avengers? The lineup at airport was kinda sad, so many dudes (mostly white) and just two women. That's a sad state of affairs that Marvel is taking its sweet time in fixing.

But overall, really enjoyable movie. The 2 /12 hours flew by, even though it felt slightly long. But it worked and I look forward to seeing it again at some point.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:53 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, Cap looking up with Peggy Carter's granddaughter is a weirdness that wasn't needed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:54 PM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


Just got out of the theatre 30 minutes ago, loved it, thought there was a perfect amount of Spider-Man, but I was trying to puzzle out Zemo's actual plot on the bus ride home, and here's how it works, I think.

[MAJOR SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY, FOR SERIOUS]

1. The Avengers have been sort of responsible for killing my family, and I'm really mad about that.
2. I also happen to know that the Winter Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents, I guess?
2a. In a place where there are video cameras taped to trees taping midnight murder killings
3. So for Phase One of my plan...
3a. Find the guy behind the Winter Soldier program and get proof of (2) from him. Failing that...
3b. Find his secret code book and decode it to get the Winter Soldier's secret control codes
3c. Disguise myself as the Winter Soldier and bomb the crap out of the UN
3d. Forcing a massive manhunt for the Winter Soldier, wherein Captain America will help the Winter Soldier but Iron Man will be super mad at Captain America about...
3d. ...and the Winter Soldier will get captured, at which point
3e. I will kill and disguise myself as a SHIELD-trusted clinical psychologist, and
3f. Build and EMP and suss out how to disable the entire city's power grid, including SHIELD's ultra-secure facility
3g. Infiltrate SHIELD disguised as the clinical psychologist
3h. Time the EMP to detonate when I'm supposed to interview the Winter Soldier
3i. Use the control codes to activate the Winter Soldier and ask where the evidence from (2) is
3j. Which is obviously something he knows and can share with me
3k. Escape!
4. Phase Two of my plan can now go into action, in which...
4a. I travel to wherever the Winter Soldier said I should go,
4b. Under the assumption that Captain America has again saved the Winter Soldier and the two are at liberty and following me
4c. And blow my own cover in the Berlin Murder Hotel
4d. Which Tony Stark will find out about and realize he was wrong way up in 3d
4e. And know where Cap and Bucky are going and follow them
4f. To where I have been led by the Winter Soldier and where the evidence is findable and intact and in good shape
4g. And Cap and Bucky and Tony will all arrive at more or less the same time
4h. And I will find a super secure place to hide while they all agree to watch the tape I've found from the midnight murder killing tree camera on a still-functioning VHS player
4i. And they'll watch it to the end without Cap or Bucky smashing the TV or VCR or whatnot
4j. And Tony will get super mad
4k. And they will be mad at each other and maybe fight!


...that is a hell of a plan.
posted by Shepherd at 8:03 PM on May 5, 2016 [50 favorites]


Also, as a black guy, it was really pleasing to see Black Panther brought to life.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:20 PM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


Just got back. LOVED IT. It was everything Age of Ultron failed to be.

Random thoughts:
I think I read that ScarJo was pregnant while they were filming this? So I think the extreme shaky-cam fight scenes for her, in particular, at the beginning were to disguise that it was her stunt double even more than usual this time around.

While I absolutely enjoyed the Spider-man reboot here, WE NEED A BLACK WIDOW MOVIE. I call shenanigans on Marvel's sexism, ugh!

I was completely confused by the revelation of Zemo's plot because the whole time I thought he was descended from Nazis and was trying to rebuild a non-Hydra Nazi empire and that would have honestly made way more sense than his VCR Retribution plan.

I thought that Chadwick Bosman was an excellent Black Panther and I look forward to the Black Panther standalone! But I felt like there must be only one South African dialect coach in the movie business because he sounded exactly like Idris Elba's Mandela and that was super-distracting.

I'm a little sad that Bucky went back in cold storage; I assumed that Wakanda would be able to fix his arm and his brain with all their fancy secret tech. Though I'm guessing that's exactly what will happen when a future plot demands it?

BRB, off to find all the fanfic of the Steve-hires-Nelson & Murdock-to-defend-Bucky fanfics!
posted by TwoStride at 8:32 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ironic that Secretary Ross was the one pitching the Sokovia Accords, since Ross was the one ultimately responsible for destroying a chunk of Harlem in The Incredible Hulk.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:43 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Just saw it, thought it was fantastic. (I still haven't seen BvS yet, and I thought that it was striking that at least one of the reviews--Jamelle Bouie's in Slate--explicitly and favorably compared it to that movie.) A few random thoughts, prompted in part by some of the comments above:

- I thought that the Russos were in fine form here. The opening scene was very good in that it had a bunch of the relatively-lower-powered people (with the exception of Wanda) on a mission, and trying to minimize casualties by doing so, and actually relatively successful in that; yeah, the bomb went off, but that was way better than both what happened in the comic and what could have happened if the super-Ebola or whatever it was got loose.

- Similarly, I thought that the scene with the grieving mother was much better than the comic version.

- The speed of the action making it difficult to follow helps emphasize how extremely good people such as the Black Widow and Cap are at what they do, and helps make them as impressive as the people who can use jumbo jets as baseball bats. And you can always slow down the video replay later and see just how well these stunts were performed, as I ended up doing more than once for TWS.

- Spidey was used very well, and I liked the scene with Stark showing up at his house a lot more than I liked the scene with the kid in IM3. (I also like the fact that we finally have an Aunt May who looks old enough to be Peter's aunt, not his grandmother.) Slightly freaked out that he's running an original Macintosh, of all things, but it kind of makes sense for a kid who doesn't have a lot of money to recycle old tech (although they could have just given him a generic PC box with a CRT).

- Giant-Man! But only as a short-lived emergency option for Scott Lang.

- Despite this really being sort of an Avengers movie, there was still enough of Steve's core group (Bucky, Sharon, Sam) to keep it Cappish. A little disappointed that we didn't get a Samuel L. Jackson cameo, also was kind of hoping that we'd see Natalie Dormer in old-lady makeup at Peggy's funeral. Kind of jazzed about there being a Cap-led team HQed in Wakanda; wondering if Tony's team will do something with that Pym tech that they took off of Lang. Also wondering if Cap will go Nomad, and what will happen to his original shield.

- Also wondering if Zemo's survival will eventually result in a Thunderbolts team.

Anyway, great flick and looking forward to future installments.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:11 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Lots of thoughts after that but one subtext that stood out to me was the idea that vibranium was taken from Wakanda by a white industrialist, turned into a tool for a white super hero, and even got American iconography on it - - all without really acknowledging its origin from an African country (likely under dubious circumstances). It made me happy to see Black Panther using vibranium in his suit.
posted by toomanycurls at 11:07 PM on May 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


Also wondering if Cap will go Nomad, and what will happen to his original shield.

The Captain, maybe?
Really, this is a great chance for Cap 4 (if there is one) to give is (a) less Winter Solider and (b) a Cap movie about Cap trading punches with Johnny "USAgent" Walker, but then I am one of the few people who enjoyed that character in West Coast Avengers.

- Similarly, I thought that the scene with the grieving mother was much better than the comic version.

Luke Cage's mother!

I still haven't seen BvS yet

I don't want to tell you what to do, but you know what this movie flew by? BvS is more, um... you know the time distort you suffer while watching the Transformers films? It's like that.

Also, as a black guy, it was really pleasing to see Black Panther brought to life.

As a white guy from neither the US or Africa, it was also really pleasing to see Black Panther brought to life. He's always been one of my favourites, and I think they're going to kill it with the solo film.
posted by Mezentian at 2:07 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, I'm really pleased America has gotten to see Captain America: Civil War at last.
posted by Mezentian at 2:12 AM on May 6, 2016


Yeah, us and China were the last markets to get it, title be named. The idea was to the two largest markets hyped for it by having the rest of the world talking about it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:39 AM on May 6, 2016


Weren't you already hyped?
Because I think you'd be hyped.

Then again, I'm not a Hollywood exec, so what do I know?
posted by Mezentian at 4:26 AM on May 6, 2016


Saw it last night. Very good movie!

I don't want to spend too much time comparing it to Batman vs Superman -- my family heard me do that for two hours already-- but it was SO much better. Funnier, better written, and the motivations of the characters actually made sense.

More importantly, BvS had two heroes who, in one way or another, didn't want to concern themselves with regular human morality. They're both sick of the world and starting to get a bit nihilistic. It was just depressing.

This movie, on the other hand, was DRIPPING with morality. Both sides of the "war" were motivated by a desire to help people. They didn't like fighting each other, and showed mercy. Even the outsider hero (Black Panther) made a decision to show mercy that neither Batman nor Superman would have made. Even the "bad guy" is ultimately just grieving over loss.

I liked Spiderman. I especially loved the awkward scene at his house, I loved Aunt May being younger, and liked how Spiderman and Antman were constantly acting like fanboys with the various heroes. And I liked to see Spiderman without having to see Uncle Ben die AGAIN. Hopefully they'll leave that out of his movie too.

Oh, and having tiny Antman try to take down Iron Man, then a little while later have a similar scene where regular-sized Spiderman was trying to take down Giant Antman... and the Empire Strikes Back reference... hilarious.
posted by mmoncur at 5:03 AM on May 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


Finally saw it last night--we have my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary to go to this weekend and the nearest movie theatre is in Oshawa, nearly an hour away--and OMFG.

All the yeses. Chadwick Boseman stole the show for me as T'Challa. He was incredible. (IMDB has informed me that he grew up 30 min from where I did, we are the same age (even same birth month; he's two days after me.)

I have done nothing with my life.

I don't think I have any complaints at all about the film. Obviously, I enjoyed this so much more than Age of Ultron. The Russo Brothers keep things tight, interesting, and compelling. Whedon just couldn't manage that in the overstuffed 2nd Avengers film.
posted by Kitteh at 5:06 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


What an awesome movie. I don't even like comic books or action movies, but I live for Steve and Bucky and their angst. The characters were all so well written and engaging (except for Vision, why are we supposed to care about Vision?), the Russo brothers really nailed this. I was not expecting to like Spidey because I hated the Spiderman reboot back when it was Toby Maguire, but this Spidey was charming and fun. I'm on board for more comic book movies, just take my money, Marvel!

Can someone please reassure me that we are going to see Bucky again? I was not expecting that post-credits scene, and I'm going to have some emotional problems if he's not going to show up in the Black Panther movie and Infinity Wars.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:17 AM on May 6, 2016


Whedon just couldn't manage that in the overstuffed 2nd Avengers film.

The fascinating thing is that I think Civil War was more stuffed, but it didn't feel like it. Sure, the movie was long at little over 2 1/2 hours, but it pretty much flew by and a lot of ground was covered. Whedon is obviously no slouch when it comes to storytelling, I wonder what the difference was that made Civil War work so much better? It might be that Black Panther and Spidey were much more compelling new characters, as opposed to Vision and the Maximoff twins.

Weren't you already hyped?
Because I think you'd be hyped.


Yeah, I was hyped. I was so hyped that this point, my biggest problem with Marvel films is the huge marketing push they do, which seems to infect every inch of media I might consume. Civil War's relentless commercials have me seriously thinking about giving a DVR, because Jesus was that too much.

But the really curious thing about this movie is that it broke the Avengers, the team is scattered and on the run and there's no real clue about what happens next. It's almost like now would be a really sweet time for someone to come to Earth and start, I dunno, taking some things.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:28 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Can someone please reassure me that we are going to see Bucky again?

Sabastian Stan has a 9 picture deal with Marvel.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:30 AM on May 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


All the yeses. Chadwick Boseman stole the show for me as T'Challa. He was incredible. (IMDB has informed me that he grew up 30 min from where I did, we are the same age (even same birth month; he's two days after me.)

You can play Shuri in the Black Panther movie, if you have acting chops (unless his bodyguard was her, but I doubt that), or you could play White Tiger (please can I have a Mighty Avengers movie, Marvel?).

There's still time!
posted by Mezentian at 6:37 AM on May 6, 2016


Yeah, I was hyped. I was so hyped that this point, my biggest problem with Marvel films is the huge marketing push they do, which seems to infect every inch of media I might consume.

Based on io9, it seems they released about a dozen clips/commercials since I saw it a week ago.
That does seem silly.
I've stopped watching clips beyong the trailers (mostly - the chance to see BP in action was too much)... and my TV seems to be spewing X-Men Apocalypse ads for M&Ms and some energy drink constantly. Those suck

I am considering skipping X-Men unless the reviews are amazing.
posted by Mezentian at 6:41 AM on May 6, 2016


why are we supposed to care about Vision?

Because he's basically the helpful, can-do JARVIS from Iron Man 1-3 incarnated in a robot body, with a certain amount of emergent angst about fitting in with others (those sweaters!) mixed with a teensy-tiny crush on Wanda. On top of it, he isn't sure if he really has a soul, or if it's just an illusion of the tacky yellow gem stuck to his forehead. Which is to say that I related to him immediately.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:44 AM on May 6, 2016 [15 favorites]


Just got out of the theatre 30 minutes ago, loved it, thought there was a perfect amount of Spider-Man, but I was trying to puzzle out Zemo's actual plot on the bus ride home, and here's how it works, I think.

Yeah, the plot doesn't work if you examine it in any detail. If Zemo has the tape of Bucky kililng Howard Stark and his wife, why not release THAT? Because that is actually Bucky and he's murdering a noted world icon, that puts Bucky on the outs with everyone. Maybe because it wouldn't inspire a global manhunt like a UN bombing would?

No matter, the plot works thematically, i.e. emotionally, so I'm willing to forgive a few plot holes. Zemo's rationale and what he really wants to do (discredit super types and have the Avenger tear themselves apart) makes a lot of sense. That's also what Ultron tried and failed to do. Poor Bucky, that dude is gonna be a head case. They might have written themselves into a corner with the revelation that he killed Tony Stark's parents, brainwashing or no. Maybe he should join the Guardians of the Galaxy?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


The fascinating thing is that I think Civil War was more stuffed, but it didn't feel like it.

They built very, very well on previous movies and precedent.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:56 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


I loved Aunt May being younger

I just looked it up, and Marisa Tomei is 51! Which is not only a testament to great genes, but she's also exactly the same age as Robert Downey, Jr., which makes me wonder if they cast her specifically as a potential love interest for Tony. He is going to be in Spidey: Homecoming, after all...
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:02 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


(except for Vision, why are we supposed to care about Vision?)

In my 30+ years of reading comics, I don't think I've ever met rabid Vision fan. Vision in the MCU is probably the most charismatic version I've encountered.

Loved the movie, loved the humor, loved the action, loved the subtle fan service (especially Cap's famous speech being adapted into Peg's eulogy), and especially loved Spider-Man. The new actor seemed to meld the best parts of the previous portrayals: Maguire's dorky Peter Parker and Garfield's motormouthed, quippy Spider-Man. I still prefer the ASM2 costume, but goddamn it was good to finally have the ol' Webhead where he belongs.

The Dr. Strange trailer looked a million times better on the big screen, too.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:34 AM on May 6, 2016


In my 30+ years of reading comics, I don't think I've ever met rabid Vision fan.

Oh, hi there. *waves*

(Fan through the Byrne White era too).

I hear Vizh new comic has fans too.
posted by Mezentian at 9:39 AM on May 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


Tomei and Downey apparently dated back in the 90s.
posted by snofoam at 9:42 AM on May 6, 2016


In a perfect world maybe Aunt May and Tony Stark hooked up in the 90s, too.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:55 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


And perhaps in A Different World, Aunt May might have spent a year in college with Denise Huxtable.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:43 AM on May 6, 2016 [8 favorites]


So I went to see it, and posted on Facebook,
So, I did get off my arse and find trousers and go and see Captain Yankees Polite Conflict. On the way home I realised that Im significantly older than Spidermans dad. Im not sure how Im going to deal with that knowledge, though I suspect it will involve beer of some kind.
Which is true. A friend asked whether it was fun (fun is an important to hand over money to see a film, though not quite as unbuyable as Paul McCartney seems to believe, and these were my replies:
After about an hour or so, yes. Still not interested in Glum Man with Metal Arm, but the new Spiderman is excellent. The last third kind less fun, some interesting character inversions, though quite mild stuff. Its not so much a film as a series of things happening, but as soon as they stop talking with furrowed brows those things become diverting.
Though its interesting that both Iron Man and Captain America have chums who are just like them, but they have guns.
At this point my friend calculated that that meant about ten minutes to half an hour of fun, and I replied:
It doesn’t quite work like that... OK, the first bit is the setting up bit, and although it does have some hitty explody bits in it, is quite talky. It would have a ten-year-old shifting uneasily in their seat and fumbling with their action figure. But I wouldnt say its bad - sort of like the Winter Soldier stuff but done a bit better, I think. Then theres a bit in the middle that has Peter Parker and Scott Lang, and its a lot funnier (especially Peter Parker - in some ways its an extended advert for the Spiderman movie. Worked for me). Then the last bit has the Cap / Bucky / Iron Man three-way and the denouement, which ought to please people who complain about the Saving the World in Every Movie thing - actually quite small and personal. It wont, because those people just love to complain, but it ought to. Theyve got really good at seamlessly introducing characters and quickly sketching them out - Peter Parker here, but also TChalla, King and official superhero of Wakanda. I watched the last Avengers movie and Fury Road on the same day, one after the other, and the Avengers really suffered by the comparison. I suspect this would, too - its still baggy and overstuffed, but a lot of things its overstuffed with are excellent. And some of them are a lot of fun.
posted by Grangousier at 1:33 PM on May 6, 2016


"I don't care. He killed my mom."
that's cool, Marvel, just leave my heart to die here on this rock by the side of the road
posted by nicebookrack at 4:08 PM on May 6, 2016 [12 favorites]


Tomei and Downey apparently dated back in the 90s.

To be fair, I think Downey dated everyone in the 90s.
posted by crossoverman at 11:19 PM on May 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


IM EMOTIONS

MY BEAUTIFUL MURDER POPSICLE

MY BRIDE

GIVE ME BACK MY BRIDESICLE
posted by poffin boffin at 12:40 AM on May 7, 2016 [11 favorites]


i assume the next aunt may will be played by selena gomez and then after that maybe an embryo
posted by poffin boffin at 12:41 AM on May 7, 2016 [5 favorites]


The airport civil war fight scene was the funniest fight scene I've ever seen. Thank gawd for Spider-Man.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:27 AM on May 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


i feel like they knew? they really knew how stupid that one trailer shot looked, the one of all of them tinily running at one another, so they were like "let's just make this fucking ridic, get that kid and his onesie"
posted by poffin boffin at 10:40 AM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Probably not, they can't just toss those scenes together, takes planning
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:50 AM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


It felt mediocre to me. I could only really feel the stakes getting real with the video reveal at the end. Till then the movie was mostly hollow. There were a couple of bright spots - Spidey and Black Panther that kept it from getting completely boring till then though. The whole bit about more super soldiers didn't do anything for me and there was no sense of urgency created towards stopping them or Zemo.
posted by asra at 1:57 PM on May 7, 2016


Okay, l have more in depth thoughts on this:

I have had zero interest in Yet Another Spider-Man Reboot. I'm sick of with great power, Uncle Ben, dead girlfriend again. However, damned if this Spidey as Tony's new protege/happy fanboy wasn't a delight on screen and in the airport scene. SO awesome. Giant Ant-Man and Star Wars analogies, all the talking and the web-slinging, Clint and Natasha being "We're still friends, right?", so great.

I think it is reasonable to wonder if Tony is going to date Aunt May.

This movie has a lot of lines that sound normal on a page but are hilarious in context. Such as asking to move the seat up and getting a "No." Also, "bird costume?" "Everyone's got a gimmick now." "So, you like cats?" "That thing does not obey the laws of physics at all!" "It's your conscience."

Peggy's death emphasized really well that Bucky is Cap's only link to his old world now, so he'll move heaven and earth and hold back a helicopter (while gaping at his own bulging veiny arms) to do it.

"Tic-Tac" as a nickname. Refusing to thank Redwing or give it a little pat on the head. Here, throw this truck! I thought it was a water truck! "Is there anyone on the team hiding any fantastic last-minute revelatory superhero powers right now? Because now would be a good time to show them! Anyone?! I am open to suggestions!" And "Are you new at this whole fighting thing? There is usually not this much talking!" And "Tony Stank" is probably Stan Lee's best cameo.

Cap finally kissing Sharon while his best friends get happy brotastic smiles in the car was adorable.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:40 PM on May 7, 2016 [15 favorites]


Uhhh, Peggy had passed away mere days before that
posted by Apocryphon at 4:11 PM on May 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


I saw a BvS review that touched upon how 9/11 affected Hollywood movies, and the repercussions of blockbuster after blockbuster with huge, bombastic, deadening Baysian explosions and clouds of smoke. I don't know what the conclusion is, but that scene where Thunderbolt Ross highlights all of the collateral damage left in the wake of the Avengers' operational history? The MCU must be having its own 9/11 every year.

Which is why I'm glad the ending of this movie did not end in a bombastic, CGI-saturated urban explosion fest, but a deeply personal fight. At the end Iron Man and Cap were literally trying to murder each other, and that was painful But it felt real. It felt more real than all those explosions of the past, giant edifices falling from the sky, Hollywood's answer to Toho Studios' use of kaiju to recontextualize and deal with their nation's trauma with nuclear attacks, put together.

The conversation outside the snow base was also a neat spin on the ending to Watchmen, too.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:23 PM on May 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


Watched this today with Mrs. Fleebnork and god damn did we enjoy it. I suppose I don't have anything noteworthy to add among the previous comments, but Spider-Man joy, Paul Rudd stole every scene, and this was so much more fun than BvS. Whoo!
posted by Fleebnork at 8:02 PM on May 7, 2016


Just saw this movie, and I loved it! So much better than the comic book Civil War story. In this movie the heroes were divided in a realistic and understandable way, with neither side being wrong.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:26 PM on May 7, 2016 [4 favorites]


"Cap finally kissing Sharon while his best friends get happy brotastic smiles in the car was adorable."

They weren't smiling. Falcon was just giving him a cool "uh huh" nod, like guys sometimes do.

And oh yeah, Spider-Man was great! "Have you guys heard of this really old movie called Empire Strikes Back?"
posted by Kevin Street at 8:28 PM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Giant Ant-Man was delight and I really dug how much slower he moved from being more massive. It was a great visual contrast with everyone else zooming around.

Nice that an airport was deserted too!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:36 PM on May 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


Shepherd: "...but I was trying to puzzle out Zemo's actual plot on the bus ride home, and here's how it works, I think.,, "

Yes, that's about it. The only major change I'd make is to swap out SHIELD for the generic international law enforcement taskforce. As far as the movies are concerned, SHIELD is dead and gone.

I think Zemo found out about the Winter Soldier by decoding all that HYDRA data Black Widow released into the world in Captain America 2. It looked like he had a hunch Winter Soldier killed Tony's parents, but needed proof. Lucky for him there was a video tape.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:54 PM on May 7, 2016


I enjoyed Spidey's light-hearted introduction and contribution to the airport fight. Though I don't have much of a feel for Wanda's personality at this point. And while I could have used more Cap + Nat, Cap + Bucky was the point, so I won't complain. I loved them together in Siberia. They both need big hugs after this.

Marvel really should make short films about the impact of recurring violent disasters on society. They cold do a series! Imagine being Cap's therapist, or an insurance adjustor, or a religious leader trying to work aliens into the dogma, or one of the many young kids named Thor.
posted by esoterrica at 8:56 PM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


The whole bit about more super soldiers didn't do anything for me

Of course! Communism was just a red herring.
posted by nonasuch at 9:46 PM on May 7, 2016 [4 favorites]


The whole family saw it this morning, and we loved it. I'm glad that the conversation about the Accords was more nuanced than the trailers lead us to believe, and I'm sorry that that conversation got lost in another round of "all of these folks are fucked up about their families", but that was my only complaint. Otherwise, I loved it - the dialogue and humor, the realistic ache of people who love each other suddenly finding themselves hurting each other, the action, all of the freaking surprise appearances (I flailed when we got Hawkeye and when we got Antman). It was so good and I can't wait to see it again.

We've also agreed that "would you have signed?" is the new "flight or invisibility?"
posted by joycehealy at 9:48 PM on May 7, 2016


It's funny how both sides used child soldiers. Tony Stark literally recruited Peter Parker as a child soldier. So much for U.N. oversight!
posted by Apocryphon at 10:53 PM on May 7, 2016 [4 favorites]


I really wish this was actually two separate movies, one that runs with the Cap 2 tone all the way through and one a really good Avengers sequel, but they did a hell of a good job mashing those two movies together into one, much better than I was expecting.

I do feel like the airport scene fell a little flat setting-wise, and maybe that was due to some of the seams that showed when mashing the two stories together? Like, an evacuated German airport is fine as a setting in a Cap 2 style movie, but in an Avengers movie it's a little underwhelming. I think in a straight Avengers sequel we'd get something like Cap's team engaging in a big setpiece heist bit against Tony's to get some plot critical thing in Stark Tower or The Raft or some other big setpiece (and a heist or infiltration would really better justify Ant-Man's presence, too!).
posted by jason_steakums at 11:04 PM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


To be fair, I think Downey dated everyone in the 90s.

As did Tony Stark . . .
posted by chainsofreedom at 8:43 AM on May 8, 2016


In fact they dated each other. And that's OK.
posted by ardgedee at 12:56 PM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


I totally lost my shit at Giant Ant-Man, because something about his costume design made me think of Ultraman. And so I kept having visions of Ultraman fighting Marvel heroes.

I've been watching a lot of tokusatsu series of late (Kamen Rider Amazons is excellent!) which has made me pay attention to fight choreography, and Black Widow's in the Lagos scenes really wowed me. Her moves were both acrobatic and efficient, where she attacked with every advantage she had with no wasted movement. It was very different in style from, say, Captain America's, which was move bashing and slugging his way through.
posted by needled at 1:06 PM on May 8, 2016 [7 favorites]


"So, do you like cats?
posted by angrycat at 1:24 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


In fact they dated each other. And that's OK.

If Robert Downey Junior had had the opportunity to date Tony Stark, I suspect it would have been game over. That's some timeless love shit right there.
posted by Grangousier at 1:57 PM on May 8, 2016 [8 favorites]


"So, do you like cats?
posted by angrycat at 1:24 PM on May 8 [+] [!]


Eponysterical!
posted by TwoStride at 3:20 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Just saw it and was highly impressed. Marvel keeps knocking it out of the park. This was a movie that would have been so easy to get wrong, as DC keeps doing. But the mix is perfect with the new dark elements, the new characters, the old familiar stuff getting mashed up in new and unexpected ways. The battles could have been tedious but were mostly about as long as they needed to be to get it across. Ant-man provides a big distraction, Peter Parker meets Howard Stark, and Black Panther learns the futility of revenge. The best compliment I can give the movie is that it didn't feel 2.5 hours long at all. I was fully engaged the whole time. Each Marvel movie seems a little different from the one before, exploring new thematic realms. I suppose this goes back to something I observed around Avengers 2, which is that Marvel isn't a movie studio doing a movie interpretation of a comic book, it's a comic book company doing a comic book interpretation of what a movie should be. And that's a new and in many ways wonderful thing, because one thing comic books got right decades ago was this long form multi-epic story format. I can hardly wait to see how Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ties into it on Tuesday.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:13 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


I enjoyed the movie, but admit I was a bit let down because of all the people who said it was better than Winter Soldier (and a few who dubbed it the best of the MCU movies period). All I needed to know was that it was better than Ultron, which it definitely was, but I wouldn't place it at the top of the heap at all. Top five, probably. Maybe.

Black Panther's arc was so strong - I wanted to keep watching him. It was perfect in the way that Iron Man was in his first (and third, I think) film, and Hulk's story threads were perfect in Avengers - just a really strong statement of "this is who this character is" that seemed right. But I admit I'm a little burned out on the Bucky/Steve thing - while I like both characters I'm kind of tired of it being just about the only thing I see whenever I dip a toe into fandom (which is pretty often, so I have only myself to blame.) So while I was interested, I was actually more taken by Bucky and Sam being adorable.

I really love Tony and wish he and Pepper weren't broken up or whatever it is they are, because she is such a good stabilizing force for him. However, I liked him in this movie a lot, especially since I think Iron Man 3 was so good about his character development and then Ultron sent it in a direction that really irked me...I'm still mad about it. But this was a more balanced movie than I feared it would be. Genre conventions mean that oversight by any government entity will be poisoned by HYDRA, etc, so a plan like the Accords could never work even if it makes the most sense. Well, either that or countries racing to develop their own superheroes.

My interest in the MCU is shifting a bit, and I may not be on the train for much longer, but this was a welcome comeback from Ultron so maybe I'm not as out as I thought I was.
posted by PussKillian at 7:49 PM on May 8, 2016


I need an extended cut of this movie that features Sam and Bucky stuck in a car together for about twelve hours.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:58 PM on May 8, 2016 [23 favorites]


I saw this on Friday night and loved it, especially because it was emphatically NOT the movie I was half-expecting and half-dreading. Instead of superheroes punching each other because the title demands it, this was a movie about people arguing and disagreeing and reluctantly coming to blows. The human aspect - these guys are friends, even though they are on opposite sides of a bitter argument - gave it a lot more emotional depth.

I haven't seen BvS and don't plan to, but the flattering comparisons Civil War is getting seem to boil down to that human element. And being light on its feet, not ponderous and boring.

The one weak link - and I think it was a really weak one - was the staggering absurdity of the villain's plan. The comment from Shepherd upthread really sums it up well for me. A villain who was capable of orchestrating this symphonic masterpiece couldn't come up with a better plan? It beggars belief.

Other than that, though - well done!
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:11 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Other thoughts:

I appreciate the amount of time it takes for Cap and Iron Man to really come to blows in the movie - the fact that they tried to compromise and reason with each other makes it a lot better. Everyone seemed to be somewhat reasonable, and everyone seemed to care for each other, even at the end. Black Widow showing up at Peggy's funeral to support Steve, Clint and Natasha checking that they're still friends, Sam immediately trying to fly down and save Rhodey. People joke about the comics being a bitter breakup, but the movie actually felt like one.

I liked Spider-Man (which was a shock) and Black Panther (which was not), but I do wish that another film could have been taxed with introducing those characters. The film did will with the bloat, but I think the version without those intros would have been better and more focused.

Though I also want to see the scene where Tony explains to Peter that they're going to be fighting Captain America.

I imagine the reason why Tony and Pepper was on the outs is because Pepper would have put her foot down on this nonsense and had them all straightened out in about five minutes.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:17 PM on May 8, 2016 [10 favorites]


I was gonna say the same as RedorGreen, that my only real problem with the movie is, as Shepherd documented, it has one of the worst instances I've ever seen of a villain cackling, "Aha! I planned this all along!" about something he could not possibly have planned.

And it was so unnecessary. The movie could easily have had all the same events. Just let Zemo's plan be to actually revive the evil super-soldiers. Let Tony, Steve, Bucky, and T'Challa team up to defeat them, and then Zemo does the reveal about Tony's parents as a gambit to set them against each other and make his escape.

Well, you'd have to tweak it a little more to preserve the final scene where T'Challa renounces revenge and prevents Zemo's suicide. That scene (and T'Challa's entire arc) was really strong, and I loved that they didn't end with the villain killing himself.

But wow, that airport scene is the best fight between two super teams ever filmed, as good as some of the best group fights in comics. And it works for the same reason it works in the comics; with serial fiction you've had time to get to know and care about all the actors. The teams of villains in the X-Men movies (for instance) are nobodies. As hackneyed as it is to have heroes fighting each other, watching Steve and Tony fight is WAY more interesting than watching Tony fight any of the villains in any of the Iron Man movies.
posted by straight at 11:10 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


I also like the fact that we finally have an Aunt May who looks old enough to be Peter's aunt, not his grandmother

But canonically, Aunt May is old enough to be Peter's grandmother (which is not at all uncommon). I actually felt sort of skeeved out to see such a young woman pretending to be Peter's Aunt May. ("Wow, Peter, your Aunt May's kinda hot." "Shut UP, Ted.")
posted by straight at 11:15 PM on May 8, 2016


Zemo's plan was pretty darn detailed, but other than the fact that he pulled it all off solo (and that he somehow knew how and where to intercept the UN interrogator) it doesn't seem all that unlikely to me. And it was always about not just revenge, but poetic revenge. Destroying the Avengers by making Iron Man feel the same kind of helpless rage that Zemo felt.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:17 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


I really liked this movie, despite the fact that it was more of an Avengers movie than a Cap movie. I'll spare you all my frankly excessively tl;dr thoughts about it and save it for my LJ/DW/tumblr.

I don't think I've seen anyone mention it yet, but the thing that I absolutely loved about the movie: Steve gave up the shield. I am on record as being extremely full of emotions about Steve Rogers and the sadness that is his life, and part of what I've always found tragic about him is that Steve-the-person gets so thoroughly subsumed by Captain America. Steve gave up everything to the altar of Captain America, both his life and his death. He's consistently made the choice to put his duty first, to keep fighting, even though he's, like, dying inside because he's got nothing but the job.

The one constant throughout his movies has been that the one thing he hasn't been willing to sacrifice is Bucky. He more or less took up the shield to save Bucky in Cap 1 (rescuing Bucky and the rest of the 107th is the act that takes him from being just convenient propaganda to being Captain America), and here in Cap 3, he gives it up in part for Bucky. He drops the shield without a second thought, and walks out with his best friend instead. And while my shipper heart is thrilled at the romantic implications there, that's actually secondary to how much I love that this act represents Steve choosing himself, Steve Rogers, over Captain America. This is Steve remembering/realizing that he's more than the shield, more than the job. It's a kind of selfish act, to be sure, but that feels like a goddamn triumph for a character who's been so relentlessly selfless for such little reward. Plus, I think it complicates his character nicely without making him some grimdark antihero.
posted by yasaman at 8:20 AM on May 9, 2016 [23 favorites]


But also note that Steve ends the movie hanging out with the one guy on earth who could make for him another vibranium shield.
posted by straight at 9:14 AM on May 9, 2016 [15 favorites]


This is like only the fourth or fifth most complicated Baron Zemo master-plan.

In the comics, Zemo had a plan to put together an "all new" superhero team that were actually well known villain mercenaries, the Masters of Evil, and one volunteer actual hero, Jolt. Even though she was a full-time member of the team and an obsessive superhero fangirl, success would mean keeping her in the dark (along with the public) for the better part of six issues. This was all a ruse to gain public trust and to get access to secret Avengers and Shield files and tech as an "ally," which he would then use to blackmail superheroes and build superweapons.

It. Worked.

The guy likes to think ahead and cover the angles. Perfect for a Super Villain.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:01 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


True! That doesn't negate though that when Steve dropped the shield, he did it with the full awareness that he might never be getting it, or any new version of it, back. I have no idea what Steve's endgame was when he walked out with Bucky: leave an injured Tony, take the jet, and go...where exactly? He didn't know T'Challa would offer them sanctuary. I mean, good thing he did, because otherwise I guess Steve was just gonna go on the run with Bucky, bust his teammates out of the Raft, and then, idk, just continue to be a fugitive vigilante I guess?
posted by yasaman at 10:04 AM on May 9, 2016


I had the same question about Steve's endgame, it worked out well for him but it could easily have gone another way. Also, how does Tony get out of Siberia if his suit is all busted up and the jet is gone?

I would really enjoy reading some fic that disregards the mid-credits scene and involves Steve, Bucky, Sam, and maybe Natasha being fugitive vigilantes. Mostly because it breaks my heart that Bucky is back on ice. I also need to know that Bucky's backpack made it through this ordeal ok, and he'll get his notebooks back when he's defrosted. The world needs a Falcon/Winter Soldier buddy comedy stat.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 10:11 AM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Also, how does Tony get out of Siberia if his suit is all busted up and the jet is gone?

Probably the same way he got out of that cave in Afghanistan back in the first Iron Man.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:24 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


qcubed, I tend to elide any in-depth real-world political analogies, because that way lies madness and wondering how the world of the MCU hasn't collapsed into total anarchy. But I definitely think that was part of the intent, to show the dangers of both Steve's exceptionalist/individualist take, and Tony's work-with-the-system take.

However, and I don't know how purposeful this was, I think it's almost besides the point to debate whether Steve or Tony was "right" given that General Ross's role sort of undermines any good faith take on the Sokovia Accords. Ross is for some reason given unilateral control over how the Accords are implemented, and I have no idea why Tony or anyone would trust him at all given how Ross treated Bruce Banner/the Hulk. Steve's decisions may lead to shit going wrong all over the place, but his unwillingness to trust authority is entirely rational and justified. This is the guy who found the last organization he worked with was full of secret Nazis, who heard the World Security Council give the order to nuke New York, who was laughed at when he requested a lawyer in this movie. I'm a little annoyed that all this stuff let's us side step the very real, very fascinating debate that was otherwise simmering at the core of the movie. I mean, I know an hour-long policy debate about superhero oversight was never going to happen, but it's kind of what I wanted.
posted by yasaman at 10:29 AM on May 9, 2016 [14 favorites]


Steve and Bucky leave in T'Challa's jet, leaving the one they "borrowed" from Tony behind for him.

That last fight scene really bummed me out. I understand Tony got blindsided, but the villain straight up tells him, "My only goal is to make the Avengers fight each other as punishment for letting my family die when they fought Ultron," and Tony still lets himself get manipulated into trying to just straight-up kill Bucky right there on the spot.

Tony's made too many mistakes, both at the strategic level with Ultron and at the level of letting himself pilot a deadly war machine when he's in no condition to do so. He doesn't deserve to be Iron Man anymore.
posted by straight at 10:36 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


I do think that Steve Rogers' refusal to bow to authority is completely earned given what's happened in the Avengers and Winter Soldier movies; and I think that Tony Stark's essential capitulation to oversight has been earned through the Iron Man and Avengers films.

Yeah, I think this is why Civil War really works. I was very dubious about it when it was announced, because I always thought the comics version was nonsense, and couldn't see how they'd make it work with the MCU where the issues of mutants and secret identities aren't even really on the table. I think they did more or less the best job possible with it though, even if I did want a somewhat meatier exploration of the oversight issue. As it is, I think the principles/policies got too lost amidst the personal stuff.
posted by yasaman at 11:02 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]




I think the real question about Civil War is: Why was Howard Stark driving a 1970s Cadillac in 1991?
posted by entropicamericana at 11:38 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Captain America: Civil War is the Emotional Pinnacle of Superhero Movies

Heh, wait until Infinity War!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:39 AM on May 9, 2016


Why was Howard Stark driving a 1970s Cadillac in 1991?

Any vehicle in the garage more technologically advanced would have been disassembled by Tony.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:09 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


So is Bucky now the Winter Shoulder?
posted by Requiax at 1:34 PM on May 9, 2016 [6 favorites]


Captain America: Civil War is the Emotional Pinnacle of Superhero Movies

Okay, I really like this:

What’s impressive about the undertaking is how everyone’s points of view are entertained, and while there might be certain characters you agree with overall, no one is depicted as entirely unsympathetic or even entirely wrong.
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:51 PM on May 9, 2016


"Ross is for some reason given unilateral control over how the Accords are implemented, and I have no idea why Tony or anyone would trust him at all given how Ross treated Bruce Banner/the Hulk."

That's a good point, and I guess it's one of those things that got glossed over because they didn't have any room left in the movie. The Avengers must be aware of what Ross has done in the past. The man created a supervillain that leveled part of the Bronx! Not that different from Tony and Ultron.

As for how Ross got to be in charge of all the superheroes... I guess the practical reality of the Sokovia Accords is that the UN might ultimately be in charge of the Avengers (and everyone else, presumably), but there's no way 117 nations could decide where to send them in any practical time frame. The representatives would be debating for months. So a compromise was created where they delegated their authority to the American Secretary of State. It's probably the only reason Ross left the military.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:02 PM on May 9, 2016


As far as Steve's exceptionalism/individualism goes, I think that's actually less important than what he said to Wanda early in the movie, after the Lagos fight: he tells her that there's no such thing as a perfect, clean win, that there are always consequences and unforeseen fallout and even outright mistakes, but that you have to keep fighting anyway because the outcome would be even worse if you did nothing. Which is not, actually, a terribly idealistic or exceptionalist viewpoint at all. But it *is* very rooted in Steve's belief in self-determination-- he feels that other people cannot make hard calls better than him, when they're not the ones on the ground, but he also owns the consequences of those calls.

And it seems like Tony and Vision, in particular, buy into the idea that with the right oversight it might be somehow possible to have that perfect victory, that it's somehow possible to fight these fights and never make deadly mistakes or trigger unforeseen consequences. They both think that they can make decisions for other people, better than those people can. Vision does not even seem to believe he *can* make mistakes, and when he hits Rhodey with friendly fire it shakes him deeply.

This is a Captain America movie, and it turns out that Captain America is right: there is no perfect win, there are always unforeseen consequences, and when you take away a person's self-determination shit gets very bad very quickly. I am pretty sure Tony gets this better than he used to, now.
posted by nonasuch at 2:43 PM on May 9, 2016 [11 favorites]


User KiManiak from that Tor.com link asks a really good question: did Spider-Man sign the Accords? He almost certainly did not, because signing "Spider-Man" on a document would be meaningless, and he's not going to reveal his secret identity this early in his career. (In the comic book Civil War, Spider-Man revealed his secret identity on TV as a way of leading by example, when he was on the pro-registration side. But he later walked that decision back in a very awkward story that's still considered controversial.) Fifteen year old movie Peter wouldn't even go there, especially if he's still trying to keep Aunt May in the dark!

So Tony recruited a teenager to fight in a battle he didn't fully understand, on a side that he probably would never choose to support if he knew what was at stake.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:55 PM on May 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


Tony bringing Peter into the fight is honestly the one thing I don't think I can forgive him for. Straight up trying to murder Bucky? Bucky is my Favorite, but Tony was clearly beyond reason post-viewing his parents' death, and I have no doubt that he'll eventually cool off when it comes to Bucky's level of culpability, so that's not the Bridge Too Far for me. Like, I don't expect Tony, even genius that he is, to fully think through the logical inconsistency of blaming Bucky for his parents' deaths given the far larger scale of destruction Tony is directly and indirectly responsible for. Like yo Tony, Bucky was used as one weapon, how many did you build and let loose to wreak havoc? But recruiting a 15 year old child into his battle, when that kid has no real idea what's going on, and Tony apparently has no problem sending Peter after a person he views as a dangerous and unstable assassin? What the actual fuck, Tony. YOU KIDNAPPED A CHILD TO SERVE AS A CHILD SOLDIER, BASICALLY. This is the worst judgment call in a movie full of terrible judgment calls.

Also, nonasuch's comment gave me the epiphany that in some ways, the conflict between Steve and Tony here is a newer version of their conflict in the first Avengers: "first time you've lost a soldier?" asked Steve after Coulson's death, and Tony snapped back, "we are not soldiers!" But Steve is a soldier, and he's looking at things from that perspective: sometimes you lose a battle, sometimes innocents are hurt, but you still have to keep your eyes on the bigger picture of winning the war. Steve is familiar with the tragedies of war, knows there can be no clean, bloodless win. Tony has struggled with accepting that from the first Iron Man on.
posted by yasaman at 4:50 PM on May 9, 2016 [14 favorites]


Yeah, bringing Peter in is BY FAR the sketchiest thing Tony does all movie. He BLACKMAILED a CHILD (by threatening to tell Aunt May his secret) into fighting for him. And since I very much doubt Peter could even legally sign the Accords (hello, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), Tony then trafficked his superhuman child soldier across international borders.

C'mon, man, you just made like eight speeches about accountability and oversight. At least pretend you think they apply to you.
posted by nonasuch at 5:03 PM on May 9, 2016 [7 favorites]


The actor, Tom Holland, is 19, but the character of Peter Parker is 15.

Both Tony and Steve committed major hypocrisies. Steve's was not telling Tony about Bucky and going to suck lengths to defend Bucky from anyone, despite knowing how dangerous Bucky is.

Tony recruiting Spider-Man comes across as pretty mild in comparison.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:23 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


But to be fair, Captain America didn't know that the Winter Soldier had killed Tony's parents, all he knew was that Hydra did it by faking a car accident. And he was just trying to keep Bucky alive. It was Zemo that initiated the escape.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:35 PM on May 9, 2016


Didn't Cap explicitly admit that he knew Bucky had killed Tony's parents.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:16 PM on May 9, 2016


Here's the quote from IMDB:
Tony Stark: [about his parents' deaths at Bucky's hands] Did you know?

Steve Rogers: I didn't know it was him...

Tony Stark: [struggling to keep his temper] Don't shit me, Rogers! Did you know?

Steve Rogers: [hesitantly] Yes.

Back in Winter Soldier, when Steve and Natasha are talking to the freaky computer version of Zola, Natasha says that SHIELD would have stopped Hydra, and Zola replies that "Accidents will happen." Then he shows a newspaper clipping of the Stark's deaths. So Captain America knew they were murdered and didn't tell Tony about that. But he didn't know who did the murdering.
posted by Kevin Street at 6:29 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ahhh, thanks for clearing that up, Steve's actions make more sense know.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:42 PM on May 9, 2016


It's literally international human trafficking. Of a child.
posted by bq at 6:44 PM on May 9, 2016


Tony, like all of the finest Marvel villains, has a point. He's not wrong. He's just right in the ways Magneto and Dr. Doom are. He's known for a long time he was spiraling out of control, and desperate for ways to reign himself in, and Zemo was able to push him past that final precipice.

Steve is self-discipline. That's his best power, forget the super-soldier stuff. He knows himself, and is comfortable but vigilant about who and what he is. He is someone who has made a choice about the kind of person he wants to be, and has the wherewithal to see it through. Imperfectly, and not always successfully, but he is steadfast.

Like all the best Marvel heroes, he's completely outmatched by the villain. Until he isn't, for reasons the villain can't or won't understand.

Civil War. There is the America we are - smartest guy in the room, bulls over others with cruel humor and advanced tech. Out of control and violent and ruthless. There is the America we want to be - Relentlessly kind, patient and understanding. Fearless in the face of catastrophe, honest even when it hurts, and too damn tough to take down.

Yeah. I'm team Cap.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:37 PM on May 9, 2016 [11 favorites]


Tony Stark's dad was a major weapons distributor. It hardly seems fair to enact a personal vendetta against the soldier hired to take him out. (And if you're married to a purveyor of WMDs, you're vulnerable, too. Tony's mom had to have known the score.) That's what happens if you get into the war racket.

I would be surprised if there weren't a thousand people wishing Howard Stark dead, and rightfully so.

This movie didn't really do it for me, though I enjoyed it fine. Needed lots more Black Widow. This was a damned macho movie.
posted by small_ruminant at 9:19 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


YOU KIDNAPPED A CHILD TO SERVE AS A CHILD SOLDIER, BASICALLY

Folks, we can't have Spider-Man at all if we're going to do this. Spider-Man plays under the rules of Harry Potter or How to Train Your Dragon or any other movie where kids get to go have dangerous adventures that adults should definitely not be allowing the kids to have.

Yes, that means the tone of the airport battle is basically a different movie from everything else, and I was completely fine with that.
posted by straight at 9:33 PM on May 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


Tony is actually blackmailing Peter, tho, and Bringing Aunt May Into This, which is the single most awful of Spidey Sins. Peter is Team Cap, he just doesn't know it yet.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:53 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Spider-Man going to fight crime by himself is pretty darn different from a billionaire shanghaiing him into fighting other superheroes in a civil war. That said, it was a nice (unintentional) reference to the original awful Civil War comic books, where Tony Stark likewise screws Peter Parker over by bringing him over to his side.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:28 PM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm totally banking on Disney making a Thunderbolts movie in response to Sony's Deadpool franchise taking off and the probable success of Suicide Squad. Good call on having Zemo on hand for that eventuality.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:31 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm hoping Sony and Disney reconcile enough to make a Freedom Force movie happen. Mystique? She's the boss of a guy who controls boulders. Another who can see the future. Fred J. Dukes? On her team, and, well, the list of opponents where the Hulk has to stop and try to outwit them because the punching thing doesn't work at all is very short. Fred's on it. Also Spiral is on the team.

Freedom Force - the Super Heroes America Deserves!
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:57 PM on May 9, 2016


Fox and Disney would have to make nice, 'cause Freedom Force is X-men. Doubtful that'll happen, since the X-movies are reliable money makers, thought Apocalypse is getting trashed in early reviews.

But selling a real live Spiral would be great!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:42 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


It hardly seems fair to enact a personal vendetta against the soldier hired to take him out.

I'm sorry, my emotions about Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier mean I can't leave this alone (as an aside: poffin boffin's comment = me post mid-credits sequence, only with bonus weeping). The Winter Soldier wasn't hired to take Howard Stark out. HYDRA or Karpov or whoever maybe were, but "hired" implies that the Winter Soldier had some sort of choice, or was receiving some sort of payment. He wasn't. The Winter Soldier was effectively enslaved: he got thawed out, had his brain fried, got brainwashing trigger worded into compliance, and sent out, and then when the job was done, he was stuck right back in the freezer again.

If Tony had had time to think about it at all, I doubt he'd have pinned his vendetta on Bucky. He didn't have time to think though, and that's partially on Steve (and maybe Natasha), that they didn't tell Tony what they knew about his parents' deaths.
posted by yasaman at 9:47 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]


I have this thing where even THINKING about how much Cap loves Bucky makes me just start tearing up on the subway sometimes, so yeah, this movie was very important to me. The part where the suicide bomber guy was taunting Steve with that story about Bucky knowing who he was, and Cap’s total desolation and shock— oh man. OH MAN.

Bucky’s sad little apartment in Bucharest. Bucky buying plums. BUCKY CARRYING A PICTURE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA AROUND IN HIS “WHO AM I” MOLESKINE.

At the end, in Wakanda, when we saw Bucky’s stump I inadvertently whispered “his stump has a little HAT on it!” to my friend, and ever since I have been convinced that Cap knitted it himself, so that Bucky’s new stump wouldn’t be cold while they tried to figure out how to deprogram him.

It’s so weird to me— the one major plot hole in the whole “what side are you on” from my perspective is that Tony is Always Wrong. Every Iron Man and Avengers movie has largely hinged on his Wrongness. He’s good at building things, but his ability to be very smart and yet completely wrong is unparalleled. It is why he needs a team, but it is also why he can destroy it.

I think it’s especially interesting, because Tony clearly thinks of himself as a complicated and postmodern person, in contrast with Cap the old fashioned patriotic simpleton. Except that at every turn, Tony believes the wrong people and takes things on faith, where Cap is automatically suspicious of anyone promising clean solutions or utopias. I think it’s an interesting narrative arc— someone who lives through Hitler’s rise is going to be automatically dubious about utopian claims, but Tony never seems to understand that Cap’s reservations are about moral complexity, rather than being self-righteous or dense.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:03 AM on May 10, 2016 [29 favorites]


Yeah, Steve's response needs to be, "Tony, you're a naive fool. You trust the governments who get infiltrated by Hydra. Who send shoot-to-kill orders for an innocent man, deny him legal protections, and get duped into triggering his brainwashing again. You let yourself get manipulated into going off on a murderous rampage against the wrong man."

Tony demanding Steve give up the shield is such a great symbol of how he confuses the tool (Bucky) with the person actually responsible for wielding it. Unlike Tony and his armor, Steve doesn't need the shield to be Captain America.
posted by straight at 10:16 AM on May 10, 2016 [18 favorites]


But the premise of Thunderbolts is that Marvel Comics has a list of way more B- and C-level villains than they know what to do with that Kurt Busiek knows better than you do, so he can surprise you with characters whose identity you technically could have guessed.

The Marvel Cinematic universe has...Emil Blonsky? I suppose Yellowjacket and Red Skull could be brought back from the Microverse / wherever the space gem took Johann. And maybe I could buy Loki signing up for some kind of trick to make Thor look bad to the Midguardians. But the MCU has had very few super-villains and killed off most of them.

(This is also why the Suicide Squad movie can't even in principle deliver on some of the main appeal of that book.)
posted by straight at 10:18 AM on May 10, 2016


Oh, also, speaking of Tony being wrong about things: how many future supervillains are now moving up their world domination timelines because Tony Stark gave insane research funding to every incoming student at MIT? SOME PROJECTS ARE BAD, TONY. SOME OF THEM ARE ABOUT MURDERING YOU. DO THEY STILL HAVE TO GET IRB APPROVAL OR ARE THEY JUST GOING TO START BUILDING FLAYING MACHINES?????
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:20 AM on May 10, 2016 [14 favorites]


Oh god, please tell me that's the premise to Iron Man 4.

(I'll also accept the Spiderman movie)

Also, even as how extraneous Spiderman was in this film, I'm just so glad they skipped over his origin story. Yeah, we all know it already. We're good.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:40 AM on May 10, 2016


Oh, also, speaking of Tony being wrong about things: how many future supervillains are now moving up their world domination timelines because Tony Stark gave insane research funding to every incoming student at MIT?

At this point, I'm thinking maybe they should adapt Planet Hulk, but instead of launching the Green One off-planet for the greater good, they should send Tony.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:43 AM on May 10, 2016


Oh my god, I'm so glad I wasn't the only one, a fiendish thingy. My immediate thought was "what the hell, Tony, how do you know those grants aren't going to be dumped into weapons research or other evil shit?" It's not that I necessarily think Tony would be culpable if they were, Tony's not individually responsible for other people's evil science, evil scientists gonna evil science. I'm gonna have to fanwank that those students will still have to submit non-evil proposals for review and approval.
posted by yasaman at 10:51 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


Fanfare: evil scientists gonna evil science
posted by Bringer Tom at 11:41 AM on May 10, 2016


Tony Stark: a reverse Midas whose every touch of gold turns to tears.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:46 PM on May 10, 2016


Bucky’s sad little apartment in Bucharest. Bucky buying plums. BUCKY CARRYING A PICTURE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA AROUND IN HIS “WHO AM I” MOLESKINE.

Yes.

I didn't really appreciate the tragedy of Bucky when I saw Winter Soldier. He bravely marches off to war, and then he loses his friends and his autonomy and his mind. He's either on ice or a murder machine, constantly abused into compliance. And when he finally starts to regain his self-awareness, he's pummeling his best and only living friend and has terrible memories of what he's been forced to do over the past 70 years. But the sad apartment in Civil War really hit me. That sleeping bag! And then he's so quiet and hesitant around everyone, even (especially?) Steve until they're back in Siberia. When Steve put his hand on Bucky's shoulder I thought, is this the first affectionate touch Bucky's had since 1943? The Avengers aren't much for hugging and Bucky is wary so it's possible. I'll have to see the movie again to be sure.

I don't read comics and I was very skeptical of this whole MCU enterprise, but my guy talked me into seeing Iron Man when it came out and it's all been fun and games until now. I am seriously not used to experiencing emotional investment in movie characters and this thread is helping me accept having feelings. FanFare therapy.
posted by esoterrica at 4:56 PM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


When Steve put his hand on Bucky's shoulder I thought, is this the first affectionate touch Bucky's had since 1943?

Him and Sam in the car takes on even more meaning now. For a few minutes he got to be almost normal, arguing over a seat and watching a good friend finally kiss a woman he's obviously been interested in. Sure, it was a road trip while hiding from a worldwide multinational task force, and the bright spot there was that a few of the hunters would be friends and probably wouldn't try to kill them. So yeah, almost normal.

When was the last time Bucky kissed a girl? He literally might not remember any moments of affection. It's just an abstract notion he's heard of and suspects he might have experienced, but can't remember and he knows he may never remember.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:20 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


He literally might not remember any moments of affection. It's just an abstract notion he's heard of and suspects he might have experienced, but can't remember and he knows he may never remember.

At least now he'll remember Steve helping him up off the ground and having a friend to lean on as they limp away together, even if he doesn't remember much from before he was the Winter Soldier. So many traumatic memories, and so few good memories! No wonder he's subdued and wants to go back on ice.
posted by esoterrica at 5:43 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


I hope we get some more sooner rather than later on Natasha's "you could at least recognize me" line to Bucky. I thought for sure after that line, when they were revealing more Winter Soldiers, they were going to reveal her as one.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:54 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


In Captain American: Winter Soldier, didn't Natasha mention that she'd crossed the Winter Soldier aka Bucky, but never actually met him, was only shot by him?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:31 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


I have this thing where even THINKING about how much Cap loves Bucky makes me just start tearing up on the subway sometimes, so yeah, this movie was very important to me.

Are you me?! I've developed a pretty bad habit of reading tragic Stucky fanfic on the train and I might get a little misty eyed sometimes. And then I sincerely hope none of my fellow train riders are reading over my shoulder.

I had the day off today and went to see the movie for the second time. I really felt like every Steve & Bucky scene needed to be longer, even if just even a minute for each scene, their emotional reunion felt pretty short changed, especially given how much the Russos had been hyping the movie as being a big Steve & Bucky emotional journey. Maybe if Spidey hadn't been shoehorned in at the last minute they would have had time to give the Captain America part of the movie some breathing room. Speaking of other things that were shoehorned in, this Vanity Fair review gives me life. Also, I was totally thrown off during both viewings by some of the little changes between the trailers and the movie- in the trailer when Bucky tells Steve he used to wear newspapers in his shoes, the look of affection on Steve's face was so moving, and they didn't use that shot in the movie. Disappointment!

Bucky buying plums was one of the highlights of the movie. The man just wanted to buy some plums and go back to his sad little newspaper covered apartment. That scene between him and Steve right before the police show up killed me. Those boys needed to have a longer conversation!
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:39 PM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]


In Captain American: Winter Soldier, didn't Natasha mention that she'd crossed the Winter Soldier aka Bucky, but never actually met him, was only shot by him?

I just rewatched yesterday. She as protecting someone and Winter Soldier shot said someone through her. "Bye-bye bikinis."
posted by esoterrica at 7:18 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not that these comments didn't make me tear up a little, but y'all are at amateur levels of Being Sad About Bucky Barnes here. Consider some of the following:

Remember that backpack Bucky punched through the floor of his apartment to retrieve? If you thought about it at all, you probably assumed it was just his go-bag and was full of weapons or supplies or whatever. It probably had those things in it too, but according to Sebastian Stan, the actor who plays Bucky, it's also full of notebooks that Bucky wrote in to try to make sense of and hold on to his memories.

Further life-ruiningly sad character opinions from Sebastian: on whether Bucky knows he's not responsible for the Winter Soldier's crimes, he said "he understands his circumstance but it doesn't make him feel any less responsible. The horror lies in feeling helpless. It's as [if] you wake up from a nightmare, and you have that brief moment of relief as you understand you were just dreaming, but then you realize it actually happened. You just couldn't stop it."

And because Sebastian is real dedicated to MAKING THINGS WORSE, on the total tragedy that is Bucky Barnes' and Steve Rogers' lives he said, "What makes them stand out is that it’s actually about like, two guys that are just like, trying to get used to life, and they never had a shot. They never had a chance, you know. They never really had a childhood, they never really had a life because they, you know, they were young and they were [their] only family. And then basically, they enlisted. And the war sort of like, took away their chance. So they’re just struggling to find their way and they’re the only ones that he has in that new world."

Also tumblr MCU fandom is intensely committed to making extremely emotionally compromising gifsets/photosets/fanart. Here's one of the latest ones to make me want to burst into tears. Here's one adding comics Winter Soldier agony to MCU footage. Also this one was rough for me. This one caused me physical pain. I was going to link more but just going through my tumblr tags gave me too many feelings. There's also this fan vid set to Vienna Teng's Hymn of Acxiom. I'm sure ever more horribly sad vids await us when vidders get a hold of high quality Civil War footage.
posted by yasaman at 7:28 PM on May 10, 2016 [17 favorites]


Yes! Sebastian Stan's beautifully considered character notes on Bucky break me. There's this gem, too:

“I don’t think he knows how to express his emotions,” Stan says. “It’s like the movie Taxi Driver. He’s somebody who is very alone. It’s kind of depressing! He’s someone who is piecing together a life and dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s paranoid, because he doesn’t know if he’s being followed or if he’s being watched. He has a hard time trusting himself because he’s learning about all the things he’s done that he doesn’t remember. He’s in a very isolated place, and he’s sort of like a scared animal. He’s just lost.”
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 7:42 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


I like Bucky in theory, but in practice his presence is a giant black hole onscreen.

I wish they would at least give him a haircut.
posted by bq at 7:52 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


He looks like a 90s emo teen boy vampire.
posted by Apocryphon at 7:57 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Heh. '90s are retro-cool now, at long last. (Tho still having to share the ironic limelight with the '80s) - mid-'90s guy's haircuts are cool in what few subcultures are left. Don't get too used to them as shaved fauxhawks are coming on strong. We may have to wait until the 2040's to find kids who really dig the '90s, and then only as a way to re-retro the '70s.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:01 PM on May 10, 2016


"Aunts come in all shapes and sizes."

Oh you.
posted by cazoo at 8:28 PM on May 10, 2016


Pedantic Me: Marissa Tomei is 35 years older than spiderman is supposed to be. That's a very reasonable aunt age. In the first modern Spiderman movie with Rosemary Harris the age gap 59 years, which is pushing it on direct aunt plausibility. That's a 19 year sibling gap assuming peter's mom/dad is 40.

ANYWAY. I loved the movie. Never thought i'd see such an accurate well done Black Panther (or spiderman for that matter) in a movie. That's still kinda blowing my mind.

I really appreciated that this larger political conflict eventually boiled down to something very personal. I liked the fake out of the big scene and the little scene in the trailers looking like the small fight happened first as a preliminary and the big fight happens near the end. The down scaling of the conflict was probably a hard sell to movie execs but really wonderful and I'm glad it was there.

The over arching conflict of what does violently interceding mean was great. Cap literally fought Nazis in a war that had a massive massive civilian death toll. Tony is from the age of drone assassination and world policing. Iron man believes there is a perfect solution that is free of cost, he's thought this since his first movie. Cap can't think that way, he lived through "better" being enough because bad was so terrible. A moral scale that you need to make things better even if the cost is high. Perfect as the enemy of Good. I liked spiderman more or less saying this directly to Tony.

Also I hope this movie serves as a solid gold formula for not needing a 90 minute origin story for superheroes anymore, especially ones like spiderman (who's now in his 6th movie in 15 years).
posted by French Fry at 9:41 AM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think the "recognize me" line was a nod to the fact comics wise they worked together as soviet hit agents for decades and even in this cinema world she is almost as old as him and cap as alluded to in agent charter. Also it's possible* she was lying to Cap about having been shot by WS as their only association.

*she was lying to him
posted by French Fry at 9:47 AM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I assumed Old Aunt May was a Great-Aunt.
posted by bq at 2:45 PM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was wondering what Martin Freeman was doing with an American accent and no name, so I checked. His character is Everett Ross (no relation) and is presumably going to be a big supporting character in the Black Panther movie. He seems....interesting.
posted by bq at 2:46 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Hmm, maybe Black Widow trained with or did an assignment with Bucky. That's probalby what she meant about him not recognizing her.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:21 PM on May 11, 2016


I just read a bunch of Ross-narrated Black Panther comics over the last day, and let me advise you that your interest in comics-Ross is going to correlate with how much you enjoyed Josh Lyman as a character on The West Wing. If you found yourself wondering "why are we at all interested in the doings of this mediocre white guy?" during Lyman-centric West Wing episodes then you may feel similarly about Everett K. Ross as the narrator and a main character in the comics. (Small saving grace: his anti-Avengers rant where he calls them "gaudily dressed fascists" and calls them out for being unaccountable vigilantes.) The Freeman/MCU version still seems like a useless blowhard but as long as he's just a pawn and a foil who doesn't actually matter or get a ton of screen time, I don't mind too much.
posted by brainwane at 7:38 PM on May 11, 2016


I mean, I know an hour-long policy debate about superhero oversight was never going to happen, but it's kind of what I wanted.
yasaman if there's any chance you're going to WisCon later this month then that would be nice because I'd love to meet the person who thought the exact same thing as me on this topic. (Also I sort of want a version of Star Trek: The Next Generation that is entirely meetings in the conference room.)
posted by brainwane at 7:40 PM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Tiny beautiful heart-stabbing thing that is obvious now that it suddenly slapped me in the face: Tony Stark's new charity offering money to MIT and Peter Parker is named the September Foundation. In the comics, that charity is usually named the Maria Stark Foundation, so I thought the name change was odd.

Tony named it after the "Try to Remember" song that Maria was playing when he last saw her.

oww oww oww
posted by nicebookrack at 7:49 PM on May 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


Martin Freeman as Everett Ross! I just assumed he was ol' Thunderbolt Ross - I am stunned. This is so much better. I always imagined Everett to be Black Panther's young and improvisational sidekick, but an Everett who's mid-career and just deciding to do the right thing, armed only with cynical instinct and dumb luck while T'Challa is young and fearless and hyperintelligent...

This. Just. Might. Work.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:06 PM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oh my god, I would avidly watch a version of Star Trek that's just meetings in conference rooms. Or, alternatively, Star Trek: The West Wing, Federation Edition (bonus points if it's set soon after Earth's first contact with Vulcans). Alas, I am not going to WisCon, but if you're ever in LA, I would be happy to have a whole ludicrously in-depth conversation about superhero policy over coffee or drinks or whatever.
posted by yasaman at 8:56 PM on May 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


Saw this last night. Probably my favourite Marvel movie so far (and I've not been genuinely displeased by any of them) though I personally would have gone for: more bantz between Spider-Man and Ant-Man, and more Vision and Black Panther in general. Also I would like Moon Knight and She-Hulk movies. Thanks.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:14 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I want to see a short film with nothing but sam and t'challa sending each other cat and bird memes.
posted by homunculus at 9:33 PM on May 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


Also, how does Tony get out of Siberia if his suit is all busted up and the jet is gone?

I feel like Stark would have a secret doot-doot that calls in a hoverbike from a satellite or something.
posted by turbid dahlia at 10:03 PM on May 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


There were two jets, a suit, and a truck/snow-machine used by the various parties. The suit is out of commission, and presumably Steve and Bucky took one jet, but the truck and T'Challa's jet are still there. So presumably Tony either hitched a ride with T'Challa, or took the truck.
posted by suelac at 10:35 PM on May 11, 2016


Saw it last night, five days after it opened and I feel like I'm months behind here. Anyway, I like it a lot more than I expected; it's close to my favorite MCU film just after the first Avengers. I wan't really that much of a fan of Winter Soldier so I was relieved at how much better this one was.

Really impressed at how they managed to juggle all those characters and plot points without ever seeming like an overstuffed slog like a certain other recent superhero film.
posted by octothorpe at 4:04 AM on May 12, 2016


I came out of the movie feeling weird, since it had a lot of things going for it but I was incredibly salty about many other things of which could be considered details but are potentially ruinous mines. Now that I've rewatched it, I feel like I can say more: I was shocked that Tony used 'off the reservation'. To hear such a thing in 2016. I'm not Native American or First Nations, but it's 2016 damn it.

I was also kind of put-off by the crucifix in Wanda's room. Marvel could have easily chosen a non-White woman to play a character who has (in some versions at least that I've read up on) Romani roots. Now, I know the Romani diaspora have many religions, including Christianity, but was the crucifix necessary set dressing? Myself, I saw it as further White washing. That being said, Olsen did a great portrayal of being horrified, appropriately suspicious, and courageous. I found it super cute that Cap and Wanda have been practicing, with her float-throwing him into high windows!! And who knows what else! Lmao, imagine them messing up, Cap stifling a groan, getting up and saying, "again."

SHARON. Surprisingly and thankfully the movie gave her real substance and was treated as a teammate, a fully capable agent who read situations immediately and acted with urgency (esp the power outage). I'm miffed that a kiss between her and Rogers was shoehorned in because they did one thing to try to sell them as a pair an entire movie ago, a thing that Steve did that was a response to a prompt by Natasha to an agent Carter/13 who was doing her job. And after they kissed there was no more Sharon, boo! The kiss, and the silly conversation about 'she must be 100 years old now, Dot' were bits of compulsive heteronormativity Imma do without. It makes it easier to flatten her character and accuse her of merely being the love interest of the movie's title character, however untrue. I also didn't know that her words from her aunt Peggy Carter are from comic!Cap himself, and her words did well to shore up not only the audience but maybe mcu!Steve Rogers too. Thanks, Mezentian! I'm happy she got a few kicks into ws!Bucky's face, haha.

So, as much as I am a fan of Bucky, I was hoping that either he or Cap would die or get extremely injured. I guess in a sense that happened, with the metal arm and all gone (and yet another gut-shot for Cap), but I guess I wish they'd found another way to inject emotional horror without it hurting Rhodey (and by extension, dead King T'Chaka) so badly. I did, for a second fear that Steve was going to decapitate Tony but no duh it's Steve, he's not going to do that. He dropped the shield and picked up his friend who said just a few minutes earlier in a chokehold grunt of a throwaway line that burrowed deep and fast, "I remember them all." Except the fraction of screen time when he was again Winter Soldier and the 40% where he was frank and yet walled up, Bucky's face was terrified for a lot of it. I was horrified to doubt Bucky when he said, "I don't do that anymore," then the shabby flourescent-newspapered apartment goes to hell. And we see flashback later he's commanded to get that officer out of that breakdown of the other five winter soldiers. Apart from the post-credit scene, I remember afterwards that the last time he probably made a major decision of his own was in like 1944, when he'd told his friend Steve Rogers to hell with Captain America, I'm going with that guy Steve from Brooklyn. 'Till the end of the line.

To balance some of the horror, there was some greatly timed comedy, thank you for that Russos. I thank this team for their Sam-Bucky buddy comedy, ALL OF SAM'S WORDS, Spider um kiddo for both comedy and a subject for ethical alarm, for Natasha's reality checks and her particular way of comforting her friends, for T'challa's excellent character arc and getting the most poetic lines. And probably other things I can't isolate and recall right now. I know this is a Captain America movie, but about the titular character I don't know what to say except that he's ... Steve! And I'll always like Steve over most others.

p.s. boo doctor strange
posted by one teak forest at 10:05 AM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Thunderbolt Ross was the Secretary of State who orchestrated the accords. I'm guessing that's why they didn't name Martin Freeman's character - too confusing to have 2 Rosses.
posted by bq at 12:01 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wait, who's the General Ross on Agents of Shield? Different Ross? Same Ross that the movie and tv show are just using differently?

Let me know, I'm at a Ross for words!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:31 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]




yasaman, heads-up, Keith R.A. DeCandido's Articles of the Federation novel thinks it can be a cross between Star Trek and The West Wing but fails at being wonky and having awesome banter. So do not be fooled and think you have found the thing we want! It is fool's gold.
posted by brainwane at 7:21 AM on May 13, 2016


And I shall keep this in mind in case I am ever in LA -- likewise for you in case you visit New York City someday.
posted by brainwane at 7:22 AM on May 13, 2016


Also, Cap hooking up with Peggy Carter's granddaughter niece is a weirdness that wasn't needed.

I didn't think it was weird. Cap's been in the 21st century for several years at this point. I doubt he's still attracted to Peggy Carter. She's a good friend and a tie to his former life, but no longer a love interest for him. As he tells Natasha in "The Winter Soldier", he's 95, he's not dead.
posted by donajo at 1:53 PM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


He's also been honest about his attraction to her, disappointed that she deceived him, yet persisted as her friend and colleague while refusing to let his attraction to her get in the way. When she was ready to admit the attraction was mutual, he was too. If she would never let it be mutual, he would have understood and moved on romantically, while cherishing her as a friend and colleague.

This is Captain America, people. He's not a feminist, just a decent person.

Odd how that Venn diagram plays out as very close to a perfect circle...
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:56 PM on May 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think the real question about Civil War is: Why was Howard Stark driving a 1970s Cadillac in 1991?

I'm glad someone else wondered about that. I guess they figure the average young(er) person seeing this movie wouldn't know the difference? (Or wouldn't care?)

I haven't seen all the MCU movies and have no idea who Hank Pym is. But, when Ant Man dropped that line about Pym warning him to never trust a Stark my immediate thought was that Arya should fall into a Westerosian wormhole, land in the present day, join Captain America's team, and take on Ironman in order to repair the Stark family name. Because she's Tony's ancestor! Yeah, that's the ticket! When GoT is finally over, a girl can avenge the Starks in the 21st century!

The were several mentions of the noticeably absent Pepper Potts. Is Gwyneth above this kind of movie now?

Can't wait for the Black Panther movie. I think that was an excellent choice of an actor to play him.
posted by fuse theorem at 4:58 PM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


The were several mentions of the noticeably absent Pepper Potts. Is Gwyneth above this kind of movie now?

Her contract expired after Iron Man 3.
posted by donajo at 5:49 PM on May 13, 2016


I think the real question about Civil War is: Why was Howard Stark driving a 1970s Cadillac in 1991?

Because however necessary it was to set the Stark assassination in 1991 to fit the timeline with the present day, we all know that the Winter Soldier was really doin' that stuff during the Cold War in the '70s.
posted by straight at 12:49 AM on May 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think the real question about Civil War is: Why was Howard Stark driving a 1970s Cadillac in 1991?

It appears to be a 90 or 91 Cadillac Brougham (87-89 models had reflectors on the trunk, 90-92 on the bumper.)
The new Ecto-1 is also a Brougham.
posted by Tenuki at 3:17 AM on May 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


I thought it was more strange that a gazillionaire was driving a Cadillac and not a Mercedes or even a Rolls or Bentley.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:21 AM on May 14, 2016


I could see the elder Stark not approving of buying foreign cars, he was an American industrialist after all. I definitely knew a lot of people from the WWII generation who would never have bought a German or Japanese car.
posted by octothorpe at 4:03 PM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


After seeing both this and Winter Soldier the night before, I still can't shake how much I expected to hear Bucky refer to himself in the first person as "a man."

It was a nice change of pace in this one to see a whole lot less computers! It took me half of Winter Soldier to internalize that anything even vaguely computer-related in the MCU is literal Harry Potter magic, so that was a nice bonus in terms of suspension of disbelief ; )

I remain convinced that Steve Rogers is the best movie version of Superman we have today.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:09 PM on May 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


Speaking of computers, I was completely thrown out of the movie right at the start when the 1991 soviet computers had large TFT flat screens.
posted by coriolisdave at 1:00 AM on May 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Saw it yesterday, liked it a lot. As Brandon Blatcher said, it's surprisingly emotionally dark (in the final fight scene, I thought Captain America had destroyed Iron Man's power source, which would have killed him).

qcubed: That said, it's been percolating in my head that this movie could be read as a very subversive critique of the concept of American exceptionalism.

I like this take. The final scene in the movie, where Captain America has invaded an international prison to free his comrades, is almost literally a Hague invasion act.

In some ways you'd expect Captain America (a team player, respects authority, humble; fought for the United Nations, i.e. the Allies) to be on the internationalist side of the argument, and Iron Man (an egotistical individualist who doesn't play by the rules) to be on the exceptionalist side. We're sold that they take the positions they do because of the quality of the writing and the acting.

Maybe the Civil War comic book source material can be described as utilitarian (Iron Man) vs. Kant (Captain America), but in the movie, the positions are reversed. Iron Man takes the deontological/Kantian view that the Avengers need to abide by international law, presumably under the direction of the United Nations Security Council: they would have authorization to deal with global threats, like an alien invasion, but not anything smaller. Captain America takes the utilitarian view that the Avengers need to be free to act even when the Security Council cannot reach agreement; the obvious example would be NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, despite Russia's veto in the Security Council.
posted by russilwvong at 10:56 AM on May 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is minor, but as far as I can tell Tony no longer needs his power source to live, since he used Extremis to keep himself alive long enough to have the shrapnel removed from his heart at the end of Iron Man 3.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:26 AM on May 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


I like this take. The final scene in the movie, where Captain America has invaded an international prison to free his comrades, is almost literally a Hague invasion act.

The snort and dismissive eye roll from Cap when Rhodey argues that the UN has a point is also very telling. Yet Cap is THAT person, whom you can trust to do the right thing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:11 PM on May 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


OTOH, the laughter from Martin Freeman when Cap asked about a lawyer for Bucky was clearly meant to show us that Steve's suspicions were not unjustified.
posted by suelac at 2:27 PM on May 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


I really, really wish editors and directors would come to realize that fast cuts do not equal pacing or drama.

Starting with the second fight scene I began timing the length of the cuts. I never got past 10 seconds. Actually I think the highest count I hit in my head was eight. The average seemed to come in at around four or five seconds. There were a lot that hit the three-count mark. I realize that I can't be completely accurate in saying "x seconds" because I wasn't timing the cuts with a stopwatch, but even without one, that's too many too short cuts.

It's made worse because barely any (I want to say none, but there might have been one or two during the final fight) actions were shown to completion in one scene. Fine, you want to show a character being picked up, thrown and landing from three different perspectives, that's great, but it doesn't need to happen every damn time.

When you add the shaky camera and the sped-up (I think) footage to the quick cuts, every fight scene just turned into a boring, repetitive mess. Honestly, I didn't want to count the cuts, but it just happened automatically because apparently my brain needed something else to do other than watch cut-cut-cut-cut.

Yes, I know I'm getting old, and my eyes aren't what they used to be, but I swear most of the characters in the action scenes had ghosts or after images trailing after them.

I'm sure it's much simpler to cut together a fight that involves stunt people and actors and CGI effects if you can just mash a bunch of clips together, but that doesn't make it compelling. Now I'm not demanding that every fight scene be a Daredevil-in-the-hallway one-take extravaganza, but I just can't wait for movie makers to realize that a bit of variety can go a long way making action scenes much more interesting to watch.

Note to Hollywood: You've hired top-notch actors, stunt people and F/X teams. Given them a time and a place to shine. Don't undercut their efforts.
posted by sardonyx at 5:51 PM on May 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


No, you're absolutely right — Every Frame a Painting covers this phenomenon, and how cutting at the moment of impact diminishes the effect, but then most Hollywood actors also aren't trained martial artists
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:01 PM on May 15, 2016


Giant Man laughing with goofy glee kinda puts lie to the notion that the fight scene was poorly choreographed. We had the original scene where he kicked Black Widow's ass, believably and with no mention of her gender, he'd kick anyone's ass that way.

The whole scene was Scott trying to figure out how to use his new power to fight, and fucking up often, as it's his first time.

"Oh, wow, I can step on someone! They dodged, and now I am crushing a truck like it was made out of tinfoil, maybe I shouldn't try to step on people now?"

There were a ton more fights shown to us, and more that weren't, as powered were trying to figure out powereds. You know Sam and Rhodie squared off at some point, off camera. Bucky took on Vision and won at some point.

What they showed us and how they were paced were excellent. The camera zoomed in upon the small battles, and then zoomed out to show us larger-than-life happening, and evolving.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:53 PM on May 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I assumed Old Aunt May was a Great-Aunt.

Eh. She was okay...
posted by Naberius at 8:01 PM on May 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


In some ways you'd expect Captain America (a team player, respects authority, humble; fought for the United Nations, i.e. the Allies) to be on the internationalist side of the argument, and Iron Man (an egotistical individualist who doesn't play by the rules) to be on the exceptionalist side. We're sold that they take the positions they do because of the quality of the writing and the acting.

Also, consider that this is a Captain America movie, and not an Iron Man movie. In some ways I think the title character, the hero we go in expecting to identify with out of the whole pod of them* needed to be the one resisting government oversight.

Even if you haven't been watching all the previous MCU films, in which this trend is explicit and obvious, I think audiences - American audiences anyway, perhaps this is different in other countries - have long been conditioned to expect the government to be corrupt and a toxic influence in stories. It's been this way since Vietnam and then Watergate. That era switched American culture largely from expecting the government representative like the heroic FBI Agent (or James Bond) to be the hero. The government sent its best man out there to take down bad guys and protect us. After that, you had Robert Redford making paranoid conspiracy thrillers where the government was the enemy. You went from James Bond to Jason Bourne, hunted by the evil government agency who created him when he stopped doing their dirty work. You had the X-Files.

Even in cop shows, where the heroes obviously represent state authority, you went from Dragnet to stuff like NYPD Blue where cops were doing the best they could in an unworkable situation and the bureaucratic, incompetent government officials above them were at least as much of a problem as the criminals on the street.

You ever notice how James Bond always seems to have to go rogue these days? It's because he works for the government, but the government is evil. Spectre took this to its highest level yet, but Bond has been going off the reservation because his government put its own interests over doing the right thing as far back as Licence to Kill.

Basically, I don't know if you could even sell audiences a movie today in which the government is a bunch of brave and stalwart heroes doing their best to protect the country. Even in stories with a government-related hero (Madam Secretary comes to mind) the best we seem willing to accept is a good person doing their best to achieve good ends while battling a corrupt system.

That being the case, I don't know if people would have bought Cap coming down on the side of submitting to governmental oversight, and I think it was exactly the right call to make Tony's choice to do so primarily about his own personal demons rather than any ideological commitment to the idea.


*what is the collective noun for superheroes? I didn't know, so I figured Orcas were close enough.
posted by Naberius at 7:22 AM on May 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


In one way, the plot is fixed to prevent Steve from accepting government oversight. "Well of course Steve's gonna rebel if you set it up so the government is gonna shoot Bucky on sight for a crime he didn't commit."

But that's really Steve's entire point. He's theoretically okay with government oversight, but he knows that eventually there's going to come a day (whether it involves Bucky or something else) where the government wants him to do X but his conscience tells him to do Y, and he's gonna go with Y every single time. And in fact, the same is true for Tony; Steve's just being honest about it.

One possibility that wasn't considered is whether it isn't better to sign the accords, knowing you're probably going to break them if necessary, in order to acknowledge the principle of accountability. I really don't know whether saying you'll submit to authority unless your conscience tells you otherwise actually means anything more substantive than simply refusing to submit to authority at all.
posted by straight at 12:31 PM on May 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


He's theoretically okay with government oversight, but he knows that eventually there's going to come a day (whether it involves Bucky or something else) where the government wants him to do X but his conscience tells him to do Y, and he's gonna go with Y every single time. And in fact, the same is true for Tony; Steve's just being honest about it.

In a way, that’s also what Peter was saying, even though he got drafted to be on Tony’s side (largely because no one told him what was actually going on, I think). If he can save people with his Spiderman powers and he chooses not to use them, people (including Uncle Ben) die, and that becomes something he blames himself for.

So what happens when you know [X Comic Book Villain] is about to do something terrible in Prague, but the UN tells you that you don’t have clearance to go there? Do you watch thousands of people die on the news, because you didn’t have permission to at least try to stop it? Does Prague become your Uncle Ben? Can you live with that?

I also think Cap as man out of time has a lot to do with this— catching up on 70 years of history all at once means that he can see how often governments (including his own) have perpetuated atrocities, in concert with one another, with total impunity. (In Watchmen, don’t we see The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan used for government approved slaughter during the Vietnam War? Isn’t it supposed to be dystopian?)

What if superheroes had been ordered to arrest suspected communists for McCarthy? What if superheroes had been ordered to shut down civil rights protests? What if superheroes had been ordered to “suppress” dissident government leaders that all the other countries wanted silenced? Right now, in 2016, we have multiple scandals where UN peacekeepers and US allies are raping children, and it is too politically complicated to make them stop.

Cap saying no to the Accords doesn’t mean he’s saying no to any form of oversight, even. It just means saying no to the Accords, based on what they actually demand. I don’t see that as terribly unreasonable, in the context of the MCU.

(Also, re: Tony’s permanent naïveté, I thought it was funny that he was SHOCKED at the super secret villain prison. Yeah, Tony, that was always the endgame. DUH.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:54 PM on May 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


watching Steve and Tony fight is WAY more interesting than watching Tony fight any of the villains in any of the Iron Man movies.

Speaking of said villains: Iron Man 3 Villain Role Originally Written for Woman, Changed for Merchandising
posted by homunculus at 3:33 PM on May 16, 2016


Basically, I don't know if you could even sell audiences a movie today in which the government is a bunch of brave and stalwart heroes doing their best to protect the country. Even in stories with a government-related hero (Madam Secretary comes to mind) the best we seem willing to accept is a good person doing their best to achieve good ends while battling a corrupt system.

Interestingly enough, "the day was saved by the Powers that Be instead of by a plucky rogue thinker" was actually one of the main criticisms I've heard of the newer Godzilla remake, especially given that it was an inversion of how the original movie's story worked.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:18 PM on May 16, 2016


For posterity, I want to point out the movie's shining moment of Steve Rogers being an (accidental?) enormous passive-aggressive asshole, from his final letter to Tony:
I’m glad you’re back at the compound. I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself. We all need family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine. I’ve been on my own since I was 18.
Let the record show that Tony receives this letter after Steve has walked off with literally ALL the active Avengers who weren't already Tony's friends to start with, namely Rhodey and JARVIS/Vision. I'm sure that grand crowd of THREE PEOPLE makes the compound feel much more cozy!
posted by nicebookrack at 7:10 PM on May 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


Steve's "apology" is the best/worst thing, I loved it so much. Both Chris Evans and the writers/directors have said that Steve doesn't actually regret any of his actions, he just feels bad about Tony feeling bad, and about the circumstances. That is so hilariously, quintessentially Steve Rogers. I mean, poor Tony, but what a way to demonstrate the fundamental differences between the two characters. I wonder how long Steve worked on that letter to strike the perfect balance of genuine "sorry I hurt you" and "not at all sorry about literally anything else."
posted by yasaman at 8:58 PM on May 16, 2016 [14 favorites]


The sorry-not-sorry but about Tony's parents is the most hilariously aggravating non-apology. "Hopefully one day you can understand" that it was going to be really awkward for me to tell you that your parents were murdered by my brainwashed best friend, so it was easier to just hope it never came up and/or let someone else announce it in the worst way at the worst time possible?
posted by nicebookrack at 9:28 PM on May 16, 2016 [10 favorites]


But that's really Steve's entire point. He's theoretically okay with government oversight, but he knows that eventually there's going to come a day (whether it involves Bucky or something else) where the government wants him to do X but his conscience tells him to do Y, and he's gonna go with Y every single time. And in fact, the same is true for Tony; Steve's just being honest about it.

And hilariously Tony didn't even go a whole movie without choosing his conscience over the Accords! Tony admitted by his actions that Cap had a good point when he snuck off to Siberia.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:08 PM on May 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


Apparently I missed the best cameo in the movie and need to keep my eyes peeled next time.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:12 PM on May 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


huh I remember seeing the Bluth stair car and thinking something like 'Banana stand!' and then ant man said something funny and I forgot all about it
posted by angrycat at 3:58 AM on May 18, 2016


Ok, saw it a second time and noticed several things:

--Tony recruiting a 15 year old boy isn't totally nuts, as Spidy was clearly strong and able to take care of himself of Spider-Boy. His instructions were hang back and just web people up, but things quickly got out hand. Peter had already made a decision to use his powers, Tony just took it to another level.

-- The Starks were on the road on the Stark estate, hence the security camera catching the accident and killing

-- Black Panther really doesn't make many sounds

-- Black Widow had a nice role as an elder stateperson

--Tony can't help but be a dick

--Zemo's plan isn't that nuts or impossible. It's a very calculated effort to destroy the Avengers that is very well thought out. It's extremely personal.

-- The Black Panther should have had his guards all around after the bombing, just so they could have gotten more screen time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:55 PM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ezra Klein Is Wrong About Civil War (Again) - "Political pundits like to take Iron Man’s position for two reasons: first off, Iron Man is unequivocally the villain (or at least the antagonist) of both the comic and film versions of Civil War, and there’s a certain sort of contrarian glee to be had in saying “no, the bad guy of the story is right,” which is why every new Star Wars movie generates a fresh flood of why-the-Empire-were-actually-the good-guys columns despite the fact that the Empire are Space Nazis who murder billions of people both onscreen and off. The second reason is because Iron Man’s regulatory position makes sense when you assume that some of the elements of a comic book universe apply but don’t follow through wholly with the logic."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:05 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's not that it doesn't Make sense for tony to recruit Peter. It's that it's Super illegal Which in context.....
posted by bq at 7:38 AM on May 19, 2016


But it was Super Right in terms of tactics!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:07 AM on May 19, 2016


I thought everyone was SOILDLY IN CHARACTER , even Rudd had Lamg boiled down to "druggie criminal fuck up" perfect. NAT AND STEVE ARE THE BEST FRIENDS. BEST. Vision made cpaprikash wrong! He's so oddly charming in his normcore!
.
I took this as Steve finally shedding his suicidal selflessness and holding on to someone that's HIS or once and not just following orders. He's had a couple of movies where doing that has not worked out super well.

Oh my GOD Peter is ADORABLE.

Plot was mostly pointless and just to out some people in narrative cold storage, but the characters! The dynamics! The little quiet moments! Yes this is what I go to MCU movies for.
posted by The Whelk at 4:43 PM on May 24, 2016 [10 favorites]


Whelk are you drinking or just that gleeful about the movie? I mean, either is ok.
posted by Fleebnork at 4:56 PM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


BOTH. I wore my cap outfit to the movie like a dork

the staircase sequence! Lots of mileage out of that metal arm.
posted by The Whelk at 4:58 PM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]


Also, dear god everything is these movies usually boils down to someone trying to recreate the Super Serum? No one can stop themselves from the idea of an ARMY of Steves (it doesn't work that way! It amplifies things inside you! That's how you get red skulls)

so excited for Black Panther and even a new Spider-Man now.
posted by The Whelk at 5:02 PM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


I am delirious for Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman, as T'challa is amazing, and also Martin Freeman is Everett K. Ross, the befuddled everyman! Wow!

Wakanda is a very important and daring thought experiment - what if a sub-Saharan nation could have defended itself against colonialism and conquest, the same way Japan did, while embracing industrialization like Japan did? While making decisions as a nation about their place in the world more in line with the way Americans want to see themselves? It completely upends Western narratives on race and culture. Jack and Stan, sons of Jewish immigrants, had STRONG OPINIONS on racial equality, and imaginations that were ferocious. The Black Panthers were an amazingly successful WWII combat unit - all African Americans - and also the adopted name of militant African Americans seeking equality and power in the '60s. And also the name of a noble super-hero from an advanced society come to help us here in New York be more civilized.

Nice.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:13 PM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]


Lamg boiled down to "druggie criminal fuck up" perfect

Druggie? There's no indication of "druggie" anywhere in Ant-Man or Civil War.
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 5:33 AM on May 25, 2016


The Whelk was referring more to the seedy vibe that Ant-Man/Lang had at times, rather than actual druggie use.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:25 AM on May 25, 2016


I finally got to see this at the small town theater 10 miles down the road from us. ($5 admission, candy is a buck, two dollars for popcorn - movies come in late but there are pluses) Zemo's plot seemed a little convoluted for me. But the whole meditation of revenge, redemption, and grief was very powerful. The deeper I look at the whole tragedy of Cap/Bucky the sadder it gets. Thank you all for your examinations on this, which helped clarify things for me.

Banner and Thor are really the elephants in the room. There was one mention of them and a muttering of the two being the equivalent of a thirty megaton bomb. Well yeah. The Vision has some insane powers but if you want someone to really scare the living shit out of the world governments, it'd be a seven-foot indestructible monster or a Norse god. I'm still waiting for the hippie version of Thor that we saw in The Ultimates. Goddamn he was fun.

I am disappointed that the Whelk did not comment on now Cap/Bucky disrupts his pairing of Tony/Steve. All I got was a SSR t-shirt that apparently is only available through dodgy Asian dealers.
posted by Ber at 11:19 AM on June 2, 2016


Banner and Thor are really the elephants in the room.

I wish that they could have just made Deadpool's meta joke about not being able to afford to license any more characters for the movie.
posted by octothorpe at 11:44 AM on June 2, 2016


(re: Ber, At this point Tony is the the worst Ex in the world)
posted by The Whelk at 3:05 PM on June 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


Zemo's plot seemed a little convoluted for me.

Compared to Comic Book Zemo, they toned it way down.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:53 PM on June 3, 2016 [1 favorite]




‘Captain America: Civil War’ – Anti-Federalist Resurgence
Captain America, Aaron Burr, And The Politics Of Killing Your Friends
Best Of Frenemies: Hamilton/Burr/Rogers/Stark
Picking Sides in Captain America: Civil War
Superheroics as a Public Good
Tony Stark and the view from above
This is how the new Captain America movie gets global politics wrong
Modeling Politics in Marvel’s Civil War
Why do kids like Captain America?

I just watch this movie, and I really enjoyed it. I think Major Clanger is spot on, and the terrible tragedies really being Tony's, and since he's obviously the best and smartest, everyone else needs to fall in line with him.
I also agree that we don't really see a Cap/Tony friendship, or that maybe for Tony 'you living in my place and I banter sarcastically at you' means friendship.

Also super excited for Black Panther now.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:49 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


maybe for Tony 'you living in my place and I banter sarcastically at you' means friendship.

That's pretty much exactly as he's portrayed in the Iron Man movies. Allowing anyone into his space at all is a pretty big step for him.

"I don't like people handing me things, just put it down there."
posted by straight at 12:32 PM on August 11, 2016


Banner and Thor are really the elephants in the room. There was one mention of them and a muttering of the two being the equivalent of a thirty megaton bomb.

My understanding of the movie timeline is that we'll see what both Thor and Hulk were up to around this time in Thor: Ragnarok (coming November 2017). They weren't missing from Civil War, just otherwise engaged; more than likely offworld, or in another dimension.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:37 PM on December 23, 2016


A Philosopher Watches…Captain America: Civil War
More interesting, though, is that in the new film, Captain America is facing not a tyrannical government bureaucrat but one of his closest friends and allies, Iron Man. This puts a more much human face on both sides of the ideological conflict, and transforms it from the usual story of good-versus-evil or right-versus-wrong to one of good-versus-right in which both sides have sound arguments behind them
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:39 PM on February 24, 2017


Just saw this (my wife and I are finally binging the MCU under quarantine) and while I really dug it (it's basically The Avengers minus Thor and Hulk, after all, and Wanda and Natasha get a lot of meaningful screentime, which is a plus) Cap never actually makes his point.

And that's kind of a problem in a universe where Cap has been, until now, our major moral guidepost.

Basically all of the sides characters take here seem arbitrary. Tony and Natasha have both told congressional inquiries to fuck off prior to this. Now, Downey and Johansson (and Alfre Woodard) are strong enough performers to sell the idea that oversight is necessary (in Tony's case) and/or inevitable (in Natasha's case) but it's still a little counter-intuitive. But Steve's opposition to it could have used a lot more "Um, HYDRA was using SHIELD as a front and, by extension, us" while the pro-accords side could have used a lot less "Remember Segovia."

Side Note: Segovia was, by some measure, Tony's fault (or, Tony and Bruce's?) if only because they accidentally let Ultron loose. But really, nobody has their blame in the right place here. The explosion that Wanda mitigated? Crossbones' fault, not Wanda's. The murders of Howard and Maria Stark? HYDRA's fault, not Bucky's. And even a slightly charitable reading of Segovia shows that the Avengers did everything possible to save everyone there. T'Challa's the only one (eventually) pointing a finger where it belongs, which I guess makes his mercy at the end more powerful, which is good.

Which doesn't mean they shouldn't have oversight! Especially when Cap's argument as it stands boils down to "I'm your ideal and benevolent dictator." Here's one place where DC has one over on the MCU - at least Batman was dealing with a known-to-be-corrupt police force and working for the goal of his own obsolescence once they could get the system working properly. Steve is basically saying "Washington is a good president and any checks or balances in the constitution would only serve to hamper him." He's opposed to accountability on principle, seemingly, and the movie twists itself around by the end to make him right. Which is why I can't really get down with this.

Other big points, one obvious, and one less so, but both completely unremarked-upon in the movie:
1.) Cap's actions in opposition to thew accords (which are being signed so as to deal with the massive collateral damage going on) are to create stupid amounts of unnecessary collateral damage. Now, I liked Age of Ultron, but the story here would have been better served by hammering this point rather than continually harking back to Segovia.
2.) Without the accords, Stark is funding the clean-up of these battle-sites. Cap, as we'll recall, has trouble affording an apartment. As a practical matter, with Cap & Co. refusing to sign and splitting from Stark, they are doubly just leaving their wreckage for others to handle.

In short, Steve is pretty plainly wrong here, in principle and in his own actions. The movie then twists itself to make him right on the immediate facts (because Thunderbolt Ross is imprisoning the folks who just destroyed an airport helping a fugitive escape but we like them and know why they were doing it blah blah blah.)

So this was fun but ultimately very frustrating, I thought.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:04 PM on May 1, 2020


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