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

Cafe Society
61

Dude, nobody read that thing, except maybe Steve Rogers 'cause he doesn’t sleep. It was a clear MCU analogue to the US Patriot Act. It was sitting in someone’s safe wating for an event like that happened in Logos so they could spring it on the Avengers. There are good odds that it had origins in some faction of Hydra, or someone else who wanted to control the Avengers for their own purposes.

There has always been talk of making a Black Widow movie. There is certainly enough backstory, and Scarlett Johannson could credibly carry a lead role (the ridiculous plot of Lucy notwithstanding). But for fuck’s sake, Marvel/Disney won’t even make a Black Widow action figure. It’s a shocker that they’re actually going to devote one film (out of more than twenty) to a headlining female character. Technically, Wasp gets to co-headline the Ant-Man sequel, but who really cares about the Wasp? Her biggest contribution so far has been punching Paul Rudd in the face repeatedly. Black Widow, on the other hand, has had a pretty key role in both Avengers films and has been around since Iron Man 2, predating Thor and Captain America.

Frankly, her backstory would probably made better material for a Netflix series both in depth and tone, but would probably require some degree of tie-in and appearances by at least Hawkeye and Nick Fury to make it work. Marvel/Disney will greenlight a Hawkeye movie before Black Widow, and that guy is never getting his own movie 'cause he just isn’t that interesting.

Stranger

62

Zemo is a villain, but he isn’t a supervillain.

63

You vastly over estimate the % of people who read comics. You could ask a full theater and be lucky to find one.

64

Which is kind of refreshing, actually. The biggest weakness of the Avengers is their inability to unite for a common cause until they are faced with world-ending threat. And in their lack of cooperation is something anyone could exploit; not just the puckish Loki but even a really determined and resourceful normal human. It’s the kind of good, almost plausible drama that Age of Ultron was missing. (Oh, the way to defeat the kill-bot we created is to make a better kill-bot, 'cause we’re mad scientists and we’re going to own it? Even Robert Downey Jr. can’t sell that premise.)

Really? 'Cause I heard dozens of clearly comic book fans squeeing, name-dropping, and otherwise punctuating every new minor character, ability, and easter egg in the film, to the point that it was pretty annoying. When Giant Man made his appearance I think some poor girl may have gotten inadvertently pregnant due to the simultaneous ejaculation of so many comic book nerds. Heck, I’m not a comic book reader and I understood the references and nature of Wakanda from some cursory browsing on the Internet.

Stranger

65

Call it fighting the hypothetical, if you wish. Marvel can tell me that Wakanda and the Inhumans are powerful nations, but that does not prevent me from holding them in contempt and wishing they would just go away.

(If the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Wakanda aren’t such a bunch of shitbags, I’m willing to reconsider.)

I don’t. I would have liked to have had a proper Nazi Red Skull in the first Captain America movie, but I don’t think he has any place in the modern day Marvel universe, even if they hadn’t bowdlerized him.

66

Saw the movie and had fun. It had a lot going on yet was much more streamlined and watchable than Age of Ultron so I’m glad they learned something from that. While I rationally agree with the Spider-Man criticisms, from a viewer standpoint I knew well who Spider-Man was and so didn’t view him as a 15 year old kid Stark was dragging into the fight. Black Panther was done pretty well – “Dude who dresses in a cat costume” is a pretty hard sell. Speaking of, someone should let Mr. Panther know that leopards have round ears, not little pointy ones like a house cat.

On paper, both Cap and Stark seem to have good arguments but I think it was significantly watered down as a viewer by how incompetent every government organization seems to be in the Marvel movies. Every film seems to have a plot or subplot about the US military or Congress or SHIELD or whoever being the problem but now let’s make them the gatekeepers.

67

Yeah, '91 makes sense, but the car his parents were driving threw me off.

It was a little strange at the end the way they had Zemo contained. He’s not a supervillain, but they were treating him like one.

I’m with team Cap as far as the accords. Apparently when you sign you give up the right to a lawyer and due process. Not signing anything like that. As others said, the government seems pretty incompetent and anyone with a few resources can infiltrate it and do whatever they want. I think part of the reason Tony signed was because he can’t stop flying around blowing things up but he doesn’t want to feel guilty. If it’s government authorized, he can blow things up and it’s not his responsibility.

68

Dude took down the Avengers. That’s plenty super for me.

69

Even when they highlight one of them, they involve multiple characters (specially Cap’s, IM is more IM-centric - hey, just like the dudes inside the suits!).

70

The problem with the whole premise of the Civil War is the entire Marvel movieverse. In real life, having international oversight and accountability for a superpowered paramilitary organization is probably a good plan.

The issue is that in the Marvel universe everyone who isn’t either a superhero or a close friend of one is either fundamentally incompetent or evil. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Shield, the UN, etc needs to be vulnerable for the premise to work. The plots would be different entirely if the nations of the world could handle most of this stuff on their own.

The other fundamental flaw is the need for our heroes to be heroic. The premise of this movie is “heroes keep accidentally blowing stuff up, so let’s reign them in even though the supervillains will just keep blowing stuff up.” It’s kind of a nonsensical solution.

In the Metal Gear series, they do a somewhat more interesting exploration of the idea with Big Boss’ “army without borders” which starts off as a PMC that’s mostly benevolent and actually has some damn good reasons* to not be regulated, but ends with them hiding literal nuclear weapons from the UN for ethically dubious reasons. But this only works because we know that Big Boss eventually becomes a villain. It would fail if Big Boss was Captain America.

  • I mean, mercenary companies aren’t exactly the most moral thing, but the Metal Gear world works on the premise that none of the world’s superpowers can be trusted because they WILL abuse their power, and needs someone to keep them in check.

Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying it’s bad they set up Cap to be right. It was his movie, he deserves it. It’s just I feel like they had one good scene for Tony’s side to make good arguments, and then proceeded to jump into showing the entire thing blowing up in such a spectacular fashion over and over and over that it undermined that whole side’s argument.

71

Through the clever deployment of a wig.

72

There was just the one security camera.
All the shots from other angles and close-ups, all that was “flashback” footage by the Russos for storytelling purposes. The characters watching the in-Universe footage knew what they were watching but, if that one camera angle with no change in framing was all that had been presented to the movie audience, the internet would be lighting up with people saying it was ambiguous and we don’t know what really happened and secrets will be revealed in future movies and if you pause it and zoom in at the exact right second and squint you can kinda see a shadow that looks like it could be Black Cat.

The flashback footage intercut with the in-Universe security camera footage is a storytelling device to make sure the audience gets exactly the information that the filmmakers want to convey with no ambiguity. It’s presented in a stylized grainy way so that it doesn’t jump out when cut to from the security camera footage, but that’s just stylized for effect. It’s flashback. The only actual footage came from one security camera.

Winter Soldier’s instructions were to acquire the blue raspberry Powerade from the trunk of Stark’s car and to leave no witnesses. No witnesses means that the Starks had to die and Winter Soldier, being a good Employee of the Month kind of a Winter Soldier, would also notice the presence of a security camera and incorporate his “No Witnesses” instructions to include smashing the camera and retrieving the videotape.

I really liked getting a Spider-man who looks so young. Sure we were meant to believe that Tobey Maguire was in high school in the early scenes of his first Spider-man movie, but he really didn’t look it. Ditto Andrew Garfield.

The 2008 The Incredible Hulk is officially part of the MCU even though they recast Banner from Norton to Ruffalo. The Abomination survives at the end of the movie (and is referenced in the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson tells Ward “I’ll have you stationed in Alaska guarding Blonsky’s cell”), and he’s also referenced in the Marvel One-Shot short film The Consultant as the World Security Council question whether Blonsky could be rehabilitated and brought into the Avengers initiative.
The 2008 Hulk movie shows the origin of The Leader, who also survives. Apparently, his whereabouts are addressed in a MCU tie-in comic book.

It may almost seem like the MCU has disavowed the 2008 movie but then again they’ve just brought back William Hurt as General (now Secretary of State) Ross. So, I say that The Abomination and The Leader still exist in the MCU (though I doubt we’ll ever see them again).

Justin Hammer* is still alive but he’s not quite a supervillain.

Red Skull was sucked away into another… dimension? Galaxy?
I think his fate was intentionally left ambiguous in case they ever want to bring him back.

The real Mandarin has been established. In the Marvel One-Shot short film All Hail the King we find out that the real actual Mandarin does exist and he’s none too happy with Trevor Slattery’s performance as an imposter- it’s implied that Slattery mave have been killed as punishment but at the same time it’s established that the real Mandarin does exist in the MCU.

Batroc the Leaper* survives The Winter Soldier, not quite a supervillain I suppose.
And who knows if computer-Zola is still on a hard drive somewhere.

Ulysses Klaw* survives Age of Ultron, with his arm not insignificantly torn off. Could possibly rise to supervillain status once outfitted with his prosthesis if he ever returns.

Mitchell Carson* survives from Ant-Man, though probably not a supervillain.

And, of course, Thanos is still out there- but that’s as planned.
*Actually, upon preview, I see you’re counting Zemo as a supervillain. If Zemo counts as a supervillain (questionable), then Hammer, Batroc, Klaw, and Carson should count as well.

ETA: Oh, and Nebula survives from Guardians of the Galaxy

73

I think the only way Howard Stark’s age makes sense is if he was a little younger than he seemed in Agent Carter (and The First Avenger) and a little older than he seemed in 1991.

To put it in perspective, I was about the same age Tony was supposed to be in 1991, my parents had me later than most and even then my dad was just a little kid during WWII. Howard Stark is basically a fudge using Comic Book Time.

74

Well, you have to remember that the original canon had Tony Stark getting that shrapnel in his chest during a much earlier war. Once they retconned his origin to have that happen in Afghanistan, but still had Howard Stark involved in WW2… fudging became kind of required. They probably should have made that Tony’s paw-paw, or something.

75

How old do you think he looked in the WWII movie? Someone upthread suggested 28, which seems reasonable (the actor was 33 at the time). Which would make him 76/77 in 1991.

Slattery has a bit of age make-up in the 1991 scenes in this movie and the 1989 scenes in Ant-Man. Maybe doesn’t look a typical 77 year old, but considering the youthfulness that wealth can buy I’d say it’s reasonable.

So, he’d have been in his late 50s when Tony was born which is atypical but entirely possible with a younger wife (as the wife in the movie seemed to be).

Given this math, the only time I’d say he looks off his proper age would be in the film strip footage in Iron Man 2. He looks to be early 50s but since Tony is about 5 years old Howard should be in his early 60s.

76

If he was 30 in 1945, then he would be 50 in 1965 (aka Robert Downey Jr’s actual birth year) making him 76 in 1991 Presume he made his fortune duing the war. Now if we say that Tony was home from Grad school or visiting rather than in college then we are in business.

Maria Stark’a actress, Hope Davis was 51 when the scene was shot, so say she is a youthful looking 60plus or so (my mother is 59 and looks 45, so its possible), then you have Tony being the product of a later in life marriage for both.

BTW, was’nt Tony adopted in at least one continuity?

77

Oh, and:

(…“I didn’t write the receipt.”)

78

Nah, it was a video camera.

79

Blonsky’s a good call, and I’d love to see him come back as a villain. Nebula, too. And the door is definitely open for bringing back the Red Skull. But I was thinking of established characters - by which I mean, the audience already has an idea about who they are and what they want. Characters like the Leader or the real Mandarin don’t really count, because while they’re established as existing in the MCU, we’ve never actually seen them. You’d need to spend part of the movie setting up who they are and what they can do before you can use them. Unlike, say, Ant-Man in this movie, where he shows up, fanboys on Captain America for a little bit, and then is thrown directly into a fight.

Klaw’s a bit of a halfway point - he’s clearly being setup as the villain of Black Panther, but he’s not fully established as a character yet - he still need more origin story to get him to the “living soundwave” he is in the comics. (Assuming they go that way with him.)

Zola could be brought back. Alexander Pierce doesn’t seem to think there’s a backup anywhere after Zola’s destroyed in Winter Soldier, but he could certainly be wrong. Still, hard to fit him into a fight scene without resurrecting Kirby’s original desgin, which would be tough to capture on film without looking ridiculous.

Hammer’s not a supervillain, he’s a stooge. He was only a threat because he was too incompetent to stop Whiplash from subverting his drone program. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the character, because Sam Rockwell is fantastic, but he’d look silly as hell if you put him in something like the airport fight from CW, which is the specific sort of action set piece I’d like to see these villains live long enough to take part in. Even if he built his own version of an Iron Man suit, you’d never take him seriously as a threat.

Batroc I’d count, although in the MCU, he’s just this random Algerian mercenary. There’s not much personality to the MCU character. They could give him a setup like they did when they turned Rumlow in Crossbones, but I suspect the reason he gets so few lines in WS is because they cast him for his looks and physicality, and not his acting chops.

I hadn’t realized that Mitchell Carson was a character from the comics. He got away with some of Cross’s shrink tech at the end, right? There’s potential there, but as far the MCU audience is concerned, Carson is just another Hydra jerk. Nobody’s going to be excited to see him again the way that they’re excited to see Loki again.

And, of course, Thanos. But they still need to do a lot of groundwork to establish him as a character, and not just a looming presence.

So, not as bad I’d thought, but it still gives us a pretty shallow playchest of out-of-the-box villains they could throw into a big fight scene without having to spend a bunch of exposition explaining who these guys are.

80

Just got home from this; it’s really good, probably fourth or fifth in my ranking of MCU movies. Not quite in the top tier, but the next best thing. Second best Avengers movie, for sure!

The biggest thing holding this back was the obvious move, the one that put the future needs of the MCU over the needs of the movie. There was zero need for Spider-Man to be in this, just within what was going on in this movie and what we knew about the MCU coming in. I get why it’s great for big fans of the comics, vis a vis Spidey and being a part of Civil War. I certainly get why they need to reintroduce Spidey to get people comfortable with yet another series reboot so they can print money.

… but this is a movie that’s somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes too long, and there’s 10-15 minutes of completely tacked on Spider-Man that has nothing to do with the rest of the film. They did SO freaking well with the Black Panther, introducing a new character in a way that made sense and giving him an important plot that tracked through the movie. That just made it so much more obvious how tacked-on the Spider-Man stuff was.

Loved: aforementioned Panther, Scarlet Witch, Scarlett J, Ant-Man. Captain and Bucky were more than good enough.
Felt like RDJ wasn’t trying too hard for most of it, but the charisma carries him.
They had this weird balance to strike with Vision where he had to be part of the movie because of the setup in AoU, but his power level didn’t fit too well into the fight they were trying to execute. They did well but it still felt a little awkward.

End of day, will watch again and will recommend, much better than AoU (the obvious comparison). Will always wonder a little bit about how it looked before they got the Spider-rights.