Captain America: Civil War - Seen it! [spoilers ahoy]

Cafe Society
281

Ahhh…nice.

I would say they portray him as far, far more powerful than this. Inconsistently. There is still an implication that he is not bulletproof, yet he can go rip robots to bits (in the Avengers movies) and go toe-to-toe with Iron Man, a guy who battled Thor pretty creditably, and who has been shown to be able to easily shrug off bullets, throw vehicles around, etc.

But then when Cap is solo, I think they dial his strength down and dial down the strength of his opponents as well. I understand the dilemma they are facing; but when I was a kid in the '80s reading Avengers comic books, ISTR their not giving in to this temptation. Cap was along because of his leadership skills, but he never did *anything *offensive to speak of. He would just hunker down behind his shield to fend off all the energy blasts and whatnot, while yelling out commands to the others.

282

Coming back around, I may have missed something: after Zemo activates Bucky and high-tails it to the location of (a) the other Winter Soldiers and (b) the videotape, that woman who’s been bringing coffee and bacon to his hotel room discovers the dead body of the psychologist he impersonated, right?

Which makes sense; Zemo presumably wasn’t going to haul a corpse through the hallways and down the elevator and out through the parking lot or whatever, so he left it in the bathtub. Okay. Sure. Whatever. I’ll go with that.

But it’s kind of a plot point that the other big important thing found in that hotel room was the Mission-Impossible-esque facemask of one James Buchanan Barnes.

So . . . what’s up with that?

I’m not willing to credit Zemo with deducing it’d lead Tony to show up just when Bucky and Cap do; granted, that’s what happened, but was that really supposed to be the plan? And even if I accept for the sake of argument that, yes, Zemo got Bucky off the hook for bombing the UN due to knowing he could then get Tony right back on Bucky’s case – who else cares? Leaving that disguise behind instead of destroying it means the general public, and T’Challa, just learned Bucky was framed and they were wrong to want that super dead? How does that help Zemo’s cause?

283

He’s neither bulletproof nor knife proof, since Bucky shot and stabbed him during the final fight in Winter Soldier. But yes, the Iron Man who took a tank shell without even damaging the suit in the first IM should have been able to easily handle anything a barehanded Cap could dish out.

Not only that, he actually precipitated her finding the body and mask by ordering breakfast just before he entered the Siberian base. So maybe he was trying to get Iron Man back on Cap/Bucky’s side? Maybe to make the final reveal even more of a betrayal? Otherwise we’re back to the “he planned to have Cap, Bucky, & Tony show up at the base simultaneously” plan, and I hate that.

284

This seems reasonable to me. Like the trick with the helicopter: I figure that the world’s strongest man could probably legit do that for, like, three of four seconds, or whatever. But having the maximum strength that a human being could have, combined with the maximum endurance that a human being could have, combined with the maximum durability that a human being could have, makes for an entity that could perform feats of strength that otherwise appear superhuman. At least, that’s the way I see it. But, then again, I don’t spend a whole lot of time trying to deconstruct the physics in comic book movies: I prefer to suspend disbelief, and accept that I’m watching something that exists in a universe where this shit could happen.

Hawkeye really did say it best: none of this makes any sense! I just try to remind myself that I’m not watching a documentary.

285

But Marvel really encouraged us to think of their heroes this way back in the '80s when I was a kid. (And although I stopped reading comics by the time that decade ended, I have always had the impression that their movies have not really Incorporated much of the changes that have occurred over the past couple decades.) They had a series of comics which were later collected into almanac style books that had a page or two on each character, very precisely delineating all of their powers, including the precise amount of weight they could lift (press), noting in the case of the Hulk that this was variable and potentially infinite depending on how angry he got. My friends and I totally ate this up with a spoon, going through and figuring out who could beat whom, kind of like it is with the numbers for D&D characters or something like that.

286

I have less problem with him grabbing the helicopter with one hand and the building ith the other and ‘holding it’ then I do with the idea of him grabbing the ‘leg’ of the helicopter in flight and pulling it back to earth with out the aid of holding onto something.

287

Maybe he had a big breakfast? :smiley:

288

[Peter Parker]

Also, his shield does not obey the laws of physics at all.

[/Peter Parker]

289

Perhaps that was a commentary on the real world fact that a lot of people refuse to change their beliefs once they’ve made up their minds. The existence of the disguise might be enough to convince Tony or T’Challa that Bucky had been framed and was innocent. But when Tony tried to convince Ross, he just brushed off the new evidence as unimportant. And we can assume the general public would have followed Ross’s example: everyone “knows” Bucky Barnes is a terrorist and they don’t want to hear any wacky conspiracy theories about him being framed.

So Zemo probably anticipated that some of the superheroes would be convinced of Bucky’s innocence and defend him, which would put them in conflict with establishment opinion. It would be a case of “Look at those supers sticking up for one of their own. Stark wouldn’t turn Wanda Maximoff over to the police and now he’s claiming Bucky Barnes is innocent.”

290

It was actually exactly to make sure that Tony Stark would wind up at some point in the Siberian base and see the videotape. If not simultaneously with Cap, then at some point later. The important thing was that he see the tape.

291

Just put it on YouTube! Or send it to every major news network, by e-mail! You could FedEx one copy to Tony Stark, and another to Tony Stank!

Besides, that news broadcast about the wig and facial prosthesis doesn’t tell Tony anything about the Siberian base; Tony only learns that because Sam has been captured, and knows where Steve was going, and trusts Tony enough to tell him, but only if Ross is for once not listening in.

292

That bugged me a bit - but it kind of works if it is the chopper is just applying enough power to slowly lift up. Then Cap grabbing it would be enough to bring it back down.

They do then show Bucky adding power - but by then we’re at the edge of the building and he has the railing to grab. It doesn’t exactly work - but you get to the edge of plausibility.

293

…plus, that’s all assuming Tony is still alive!

Near as I can tell, the look on Tony’s face when he was just a guy with loafers and a silk suit and a pair of sunglasses and one armored gauntlet was meant to express that Bucky came within like one second of shooting Tony in said face; and, come to think of it, the blast that crippled (and could’ve killed) Rhodey could’ve just as easily hit Tony; and Tony is maybe the one guy on the planet who’s going to care more about the attack on Howard and Maria Stark than the attack on the UN conference…

294

There are definitely a lot of implausible triple-bank-shot deals that have to go just right. It reminds me of what I consider the only misstep in the writing of the all-time-greatest TV show, Breaking Bad: when Walt poisons Jesse’s girlfriend’s son, expecting that Jesse will think it’s Walt and come over to kill him, but then Walt will at gunpoint be able to convince Jesse it was actually Gus and join him in a plot to take Gus down.

295

So, if she had done nothing? *More *people would have died.

296

I thought they were implying that if she had done nothing, fewer people would have died but at least one of them would have been someone she cared about.

297

Look at the scene, the market is stuff full of people.

298

Zemo got to Siberia and called his overly attentive maid back in Berlin to bring his usual breakfast to his room, knowing she’d find the body. After the authorities investigated, they’d have traced the call to Siberia and sent a small army after him. Siberia is a big place though, and Bucky is the only who knows exactly where the hidden base is, and Zemo had to count on Bucky not getting killed so he could reveal the location of the base, and again the UN and every other relevant authority would send troops and operatives to the hidden base. How did Zemo guess that only Cap and Iron Man would show up instead of an army? Makes my head hurt.

299

True, but given that she threw him up against an office building and spewed glass and flame everywhere. It’s hard to say she saved anybody. Second, even if that was true, saying that she only got a delegation from a notorious isolationist culture just now taking a tentative step into the world due to incompetence is not a good line. Third, it’s hard to know exactly how many were actually in range of the blast in the marketplace versus the office building.

Now, as for Zemo’s plan, let’s all remember that if the Avengers kill each other in the process, that’s victory for him. Also, he deliberately left a trail so that Iron Man could find him. Really, Cap and Bucky being there was the lucky break involved. However, even given that, who cares?

The fight at the ending was thematically necessary to put all the players and tensions on the stage. Now, everyone involved stands fully revealed for who at what they are. Rogers, the man who abandoned his cause for his friends. Bucky, the wounded survivor. Stark, the egotist who surrendered his ego, but can’t let the past go. Zemo, the broken man with nothing more to live for. And T’Challa, who finally sees where his vengeance will lead. Does this rest on some small contrivances? Yes. Would it be a better movie in any way had they spent another two hours on exactly why and how everything occurred? No.

300

Are there, though? I mean, my whole argument is that it could’ve gone better!

Here’s how I see it: Zemo, who wants to stir up a biiiig fight among supers, starts the movie knowing the address of Bucky’s old handler, and knowing there’s a videotape of Bucky killing the Starks – and figuring Tony will do his best to straight-up murder Bucky if he sees that videotape, and that Steve is On Bucky’s Side No Matter What.

So Zemo interrogates that handler, and – man, if he gets the videotape’s location then, we bypass nearly all of the movie, right? That’s his Plan A: learn the location, get the videotape, show it to Stark, biiiiig fight ensues. And that bank shot doesn’t happen. He fails. He gets the codebook from the handler, so it’s not a total loss; but that handler won’t tell him where the videotape is.

Zemo doesn’t have Bucky’s address, so he comes up with a new plan: frame Bucky for something to make him the target of a global manhunt, with supers gunning for the guy and Steve On His Side No Matter What. I figure Zemo thinks one of two things will happen: biiiiig fight ensues, or Bucky gets captured and can be interrogated. Does the biiiiig fight ensue? No. Well, almost; T’Challa is really trying; but no.

Still, Bucky’s captured, so Zemo sits down with him and uses the phrase and gets the location of the videotape. Zemo then sends Bucky out to make trouble, and, biiiiig fight almost ensues – Bucky gets within a second of killing Tony, and T’Challa does his best to kill Bucky, and Steve is in the building and On Bucky’s Side No Matter What, and Natasha is in the building and willing to fight Bucky – but no.

Zemo starts heading for the videotape, to spark that biiiiig fight – but, suddenly, the events he’s set in motion look like they’ll bank shot into a biiiiig fight anyway, at the airport! I mean, no one is trying to kill anybody (uh, except T’Challa) – but it’s a fight between supers, so, y’know, someone grabs the wrong tanker and maybe almost kills people, and later someone gets crippled by accident, and if not for Natasha switching sides who knows what happens when she and T’Challa get the drop on Steve and Bucky? We almost get biiiiig fight…

…but we don’t; it’s still a fairly civil civil war. But Zemo finally acquires the videotape and shows it Tony – and Steve defends Bucky No Matter What, and Tony tries to straight-up murder Bucky, and that finally counts as the biiiiig fight Zemo’s been after all this time. (He doesn’t need 'em to show up in person; he just has to show the footage to Tony, and Tony will gun for Bucky, and Steve will defend Bucky; but, as it happens, Steve and Bucky and Tony all arrive, and biiiiig fight ensues.)

But Zemo could’ve gotten it with less effort if the airport fight had played out better. Or if Bucky’s escape had played out. better. Or if the manhunt for Bucky had played out better. Or if the handler had cracked under interrogation. If any of those bank shots had worked, Zemo gets the biiiiig fight he craves – but none of them do.