Captain America 3 - Discussion and reviews (SPOILERS in tags until May 14th!)

[denstorebog]

Someone suggested a separate thread for reactions and discussion to Cap 3, but to be inclusive, we'll keep spoilers in tags until May 14th.

Ladies and gents, my review of Cap 3, and my comments on the power of the hype train, expectations, and the human hivemind. Well, kind of.

I've been looking forward to Civil War ever since its announcement. Like many, I've felt that the MCU was ready to move on to a new tonal phase after the goofy fun of the Thor and Avengers movie, to a slightly more 'dangerous' note represented by Winter Soldier, where the literal stakes were high, but the emotional stakes were higher. What better combination to continue this progression with than the Russo Brothers as directors and the Civil War storyline as the plot?

As the reviews started rolling in - Rottentomatoes lists 40+ of the first reviews as positive and 1 as negative - my expectations got even higher. I read a lot of the reviews and did detect a slight undercurrent in many of them. That the movie was good but not all it could be. That the movie had high ambitions but didn't dare go all the way with them. That there were a lot of characters but the directors just barely managed to juggle them all. And reading this, I kinda forgot to ask myself, "where have I seen this before?", to which the answer would have been "the Age of Ultron reviews, which were also stellar in the beginning, glossing over any flaws, until the cracks started showing".

I remember getting out from Age of Ultron and thinking "wow, this was a great movie ... wasn't it?" With each subsequent viewing of it, I came to realize that no, it really wasn't, but sometimes we're able to want to like something so hard, we filter out the details that don't match the desired picture. In the end, AoU turned out to be not stellar, but anywhere between a decent and a good flick, depending on how willing you are to overlook some flaws that, frankly, would be big enough to sink other movies.

Well, with Civil War, I think I felt the backlash from having already been through the motions of high expectations with Ultron. Because already on my first viewing, I was constantly aware of the Big Damn Flaws that I wanted to ignore so hard with AoU. And I'm extremely skeptical that Civil War will be remembered as the masterpiece it's currently hailed as. When reality sets in and Civil War is no longer the next big thing, I think a lot of people will rate it in the lower half of the MCU roster. This is painful to admit, because I really, really wanted to like this movie.

There are two main flaws in Civil War, but they leave a gigantic footprint on the entire viewing experience. What baffles me a lot is that while a lot of reviews point out these flaws, but gloss over them as minor details, other reviews explicitly praise the movie for avoiding these flaws so deftly. And this is one of the reasons I strongly suspect the CW will not maintain its position in the long run, because I feel that said flaws are indisputably right there on the screen for everyone to get progressively more annoyed by over time.

They are:

1. The movie does not handle its huge cast brilliantly. In fact it handles the huge cast a lot worse than AoU (and this comes from someone who felt that this was definitely one of AoU's main problems).
   
   If you thought that the Maximoff twins, Vision, Strucker et. al. were underutilized in AoU, oh boy, you're in for a ride. I get that the intention was to get a lot of characters in on the conflict here, to show the scope of things, but the consequence of this choice is absolutely fatal to Civil War (and bodes extremely unwell for Infinity Wars). Here's the gist of it: Civil War probably introduces as many new characters again as AoU did, including future headliners Spider-Man and Black Panther. However, it also brings back goddamn near everyone else except Thor and Banner, and this happens at a time when the MCU already has a lot of underdeveloped characters hanging around. Wanda is once again left to do a bunch of insane hand-wringing as her main contribution, and Vision gets only a few lines at all which add absolutely nothing to our understanding of him. Think about this for a moment. Wanda and Vision are currently supposed to be actual members of the Avengers squad, but they're completely left by the roadside in this one. I can honestly say that I don't care a rat's ass for either of these two, and I think most people will agree. That's pretty terrifying for the Avengers franchise going forward.
   
   It gets worse, though. If Civil War had just been about getting the band and all the groupies back together to fight some Dark Dude, fine, no problem. Give each hero a cool introduction and a couple of one-liners and moves, let the audience pump their fists, then get them out again. But this is Civil War, the prime example of character-driven superhero fare. Remember the marketing? Whose side are you on in this complicated moral dilemma? Well, believe it or not, but there seems to be no actual connection between the characters' personalities and their choice in the matter. Cap's stand is believable enough from what we know of him, but Stark's decisions in the film require a bit of quick hand-waving and some sudden guilt trips thrown in early on. And the rest? I honestly challenge you, after you exit the cinema, to tell me why Wanda, Vision, Falcon, War Machine and Black Widow chose the specific teams they did. Their rationales are in the movie somewhere in a literal sense, but only in the form of one or two lines that could have been spoken by any other character. As for Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Spider-Man, it seems that their choice of team is based solely on who got to them first. This is one of the areas where I feel that a lot of reviewers are praising something that literally does not take place during the movie's running time.
   
   The saddest thing about this is that it would have been so easy to cut half of these characters without any sense of absence on the audience's part. Half the principal cast are literally there to partake in the airport set piece that you've probably heard a lot of wonderful things about. Again, I have no idea where this comes from. The airport scene is a pretty by-the-numbers Avengers fight sequence, but it also highlights the completely random reasons the various characters have for fighting. They exchange a few lines, throw each other around, then end up in new constellations and fight some more. There's absolutely no sense on a personal level why any of them are going at it.
   
   And that brings me to the second Big Flaw That Hurts Civil War Fatally:
    
2. Tonal dissonance. This is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be, or rather, wants to be two things at once. As a result, the viewer is constantly required to shift back and forth between two completely distinct modes, and what happens on the screen becomes incoherent.
   
   Okay, let's face it: The concept of Civil War is an uphill battle to begin with. After 11 or 12 movies of unbridled mayhem and city-leveling showdowns, the political powers-that-be suddenly decide that enough is enough, and all the main characters start growing a conscience out of nowhere. The triggering event for all of this (5 minutes into the movie) is a great example of the dissonance of the entire movie. During a routine mission, Wanda tries to defuse a potential catastrophe, but ends up causing civilian deaths. This is shown as an explosion that takes out an entire floor what looks like an office building. As soon as it happens, the action stops, all the main characters go into silent shock mode, and the music tells us that something awful has just happened. The problem is, to the audience it looks like just another of the hundreds of exploding building we've seen in every MCU movie. But this time, things are different, because Civil War requires everyone to start Reflecting On Stuff, and the main characters are in on this fact from the very first act. To the viewer, however, it runs contrary to everything we've been conditioned to ignore in these movies so far. That particular building, those particular civilians, were especially important, because they were Plot Civilians.
   
   However, the tonal problem gets progressively bigger as the movie strains to be both the somber and reflecting take on the cost of vigilantism and the fuck-all-blockbuster of the year. Mere minutes pass between a quiet talk between main characters about how wrong they've been to involve civilians in their personal struggles - and then a high-speed, inner-city car chase that sees wrecked cars everywhere. Armed policemen who do their job trying to bring the Winter Soldier to justice get the good old fist-to-mouth from Steve Rogers that sends them flying into brick walls or down staircases. Again, it is a genre convention that they'll probably just wake up with a headache later, because this is a family action blockbuster, but the rampant destruction and fighting is weirdly out of place in a movie that keeps asking us to question it.
   
   The aforementioned airport scene is not only problematic because of its many characters, but also because we have no idea what we should feel. The stakes are generally unclear from beginning to end. Are these guys fighting for real and for deep, personal convictions? Are they just having fun? One moment, Spider-Man will apologize to everyone he trashes around, and Black Widow will look all concerned as she punches Hawkeye and asks him if they're still friends. Ah, so they're just having fun. But then the movie reiterates that this is a dilemma with no easy answers and deadly stakes, and the political drama takes over for a while. Until the next goofy fight where everyone seems to be having a good time with each other. The movie wants to be Avengers, and it wants to be Winter Soldier, but it steps on its own shoelaces in its attempts to be both and because of the many, many shifts between the two.

As with AoU, there are parts of the movie that work. Cap and Iron Man never get caught up in the silly playground-fight tone that pervades the feuds between all the secondary characters. With these two, you get the sense that shit is real, and their final reckoning does carry a punch despite the tonal deroutes of the preceding 120 minutes. Black Panther is good enough to warrant a closer look. Spider-Man, I guess, is great if you're into the kind of film that he represents (goofy, silly, pubescent fun). But why they chose to inject his particular kind of innocent tomfoolery into this of all movies, I will never know.

Bottom line: I want to like this movie. In fact, I want to love it. I want to believe what I just experienced was influenced by my need to pee throughout at least half the movie. But I know that that's not the case, and I know that like most people, I'm generally most forgiving during the first watch. Based on that, I suspect that I will rank Civil War in the lowest third of the MCU time over time, and that while others may be more forgiving, it will not be considered the groundbreaking superhero movie that many early reviews are painting it as. I'm seriously reconsidering the joy I felt knowing that the Russo brothers would take over for Whedon in Infinity Wars, because while IW will be an overcrowded mess like both CW and AoU, I'd rather have it be a coherently goofy mess than one that shares CW's identity crisis.

Really curious what other resident MCU fans thought.

_____________

The random, spoilery stuff:

 

 

 

- Finally, goodbye to Peggy Carter, one of the most ubiquitous MCU characters. I liked how the vague text message came out of nowhere, and let the audience deduct the meaning for a bigger emotional impact.

- Holy shit, they went there with Cap and Sharon. And so shortly after Peggy's death. Well, I guess there's always another Carter in line. This is a romance that's going to be hard for me to watch.

- What the hell happened to Crossbones? Gets electrocuted and says "that's not how I work anymore"? Creepy guy.

- Zemo's plan was up there with Ultron's in terms of complicated schemes. "I'll kill an interrogator and mail an EMP device in a box so I can perfectly time a shutdown of the city's electricity so I can get the prisoner out of prison again so he'll probably end up with Iron Man in a Siberian bunker where I will play them a conveniently filmed video and watch everything go to hell between Iron Man and Cap. Oh shit, I really hope all three will be at the bunker at the same time."

 

 

[Vels]

I pretty much agree with the opening post. It felt very flat for me.

I didn't understand Steve's point of view - as an enlisted soldier he would have had to have followed orders and gone where he was told. Why is following the UN's orders any different? It sounded like he wanted to be a mercenary (with a conscience) instead of a soldier.

I thought Ant-man was the funniest part of the movie. Spiderman was pretty lame to begin with but got better during the fight scene. 

The most interesting character for me was Black Panther - having read this thread and peoples excitement to see him in action I was looking forward to this the most and I wasn't disappointed! His background needed to be fleshed out more but I understand that this wasn't the movie to do it.

[denstorebog]

To be fair, I should probably point out that I really liked scenes like Stark's introduction to Peter, as well as the car chase. While I still feel it was weird to see it so soon after all the somber talk about civilian casualties, it was pretty well done and much more in like with the Russos' style from Winter Soldier than the airport extravaganza.

BTW, a question regarding the ending:

 

 

I didn't catch whether the Sokovia Accords were still in effect at the end. I mean, I guess they had to be, right? The 117 countries didn't have a reason to change their minds, and it seemed like Cap and the freed prisoners were going into hiding, so I suppose the Accords are still going to be around in Doctor Strange. Otherwise it'll be kinda disappointing.

 

[Bastard of Boston]

Granted, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm always interested in reviews. I noted your initial issue with the way the movie handles the cast, and I wanted to mention that -- above all else -- this was a Captain America movie. The Russo bros spoke about being cognizant of that, so if the consensus turns out to be that the cast was underutilized, I don't feel like it's an indictment against the Russo bros and Infinity War. This movie was intended to be Civil War through Cap's lens. I didn't dislike AoU, anyway, and think that it's the nature of the beast. With the expanded universe, all characters aren't going to be created equally -- inevitably, some will always be treated as just being along for the ride. The only way around that would be to disband the Avengers and just do solos.

[denstorebog]

The issue for me is that all these characters are there, but their reasons for participating in the conflict are very superficially explained, or not at all. I don't feel their presence is justified by what they do in their scenes (which is mainly to go at it in cage fights against other characters in various pairings). They seem to be there for their skills and superpowers in the fight sequences rather than as actual, motivated characters.

No matter how much you like the movie, I don't see how you can argue that this isn't true for Wanda, Vision, Hawkeye, Ant-Man - and to a certain degree Spider-Man, who does get developed properly, but whose rationale for becoming part of the conflict is rather thin. Even Black Widow is really hard to get a fix on in terms of motivation, and she's one of the primary characters.

I'd have preferred a smaller cast with more depth. You mileage may vary.

[The Wolves]

19 hours ago, Vels said:

I pretty much agree with the opening post. It felt very flat for me.

I didn't understand Steve's point of view - as an enlisted soldier he would have had to have followed orders and gone where he was told. Why is following the UN's orders any different? It sounded like he wanted to be a mercenary (with a conscience) instead of a soldier.

Isn't Steve very wary of the government and the UN at this point in time? After Hydra and SHIELD is it really that's uprising that he doesn't want to just follow what the UN tells him to do? 

[Winterfell is Burning]

Easily the best MCU movie yet. One of the few movies in the MCU that really takes the advantage of the emotional weight of everything that happened in those previous films and makes things feel like a culmination of all that came before. It's also a very unique blockbuster in terms of both asking some big questions (how much can you trust the government to protect people? can you trust people with God-like powers to do what's right?, etc) and not answering them, choosing to leave the answer to viewers.

Both Evans and RDJ are superb here, Tom Holland is also pretty good as Spidey, and pretty much everyone else is fine, although some characters didn't had that much to do (seems obvious Martin Freeman had some scenes cut, for example).

My only real complaint is that the scenes between

Tony and Spidey in Aunt May's apartment

last waaaaay too long for them to work.

 

[The Mother of The Others]

12 hours ago, Leap said:

will also downgrade my rating from a 9 to an 8-8.5

Should I raise mine up to 11 to compensate?

I've decided not to see it.  

Enjoying the reviews so much this time that the movie would only get in the way.

[Ruhail]

Really liked that unlike the comic it didnt feel the need to give Cap his own way all the time.  9.5/10

[Mladen]

7 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Enjoying the reviews so much this time that the movie would only get in the way.

I am afraid this will turn into Marvel's version of SW Episode VII and nobody will be allowed to not like it

[denstorebog]

37 minutes ago, Risto said:

I am afraid this will turn into Marvel's version of SW Episode VII and nobody will be allowed to not like it

Plenty of people now don't like SW VII and are very vocal about it. It's usually just after the dust settles that opinions start becoming more balanced. For what it's worth, I'm hoping (and expecting) to like it slightly more on second viewing, once I see it without unrealistic expectations.

[red snow]

sounds like the film was faithful to the comic in terms of there being no character based logic to why the vast majority chose a particular side. It really boiled down to "who do we want to see fight" and then they had to ensure they were on separate sides.

1 hour ago, Risto said:

I am afraid this will turn into Marvel's version of SW Episode VII and nobody will be allowed to not like it

 

31 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

Plenty of people now don't like SW VII and are very vocal about it. It's usually just after the dust settles that opinions start becoming more balanced. For what it's worth, I'm hoping (and expecting) to like it slightly more on second viewing, once I see it without unrealistic expectations.

So is it a complete retread of Iron Man 1 or a complete retread of Avengers? How many more MCU films are going to feature a helicarrier as an important part of their plot?

Here's a good one (I haven't seen the film this is just guessing/joking) - "There's no way that Spidey as a teenage superhero with no training could beat Captain America in a fight. Such a Gary Stu"

That sounds about right.

I'm with the OP in that I'm going into this one cautiously after AoU and it could be a case of "once bitten twice shy" as I usually enjoy the MCU films at the cinema. Maybe now I know where the flaws are I'll spot them quicker.

I think there will still be a lot of fans deciding liking BvS and Civil War are mutually exclusive so there will be a lot of praise for CW (because they hated BvS) and a lot of shitting on CW (because they are pissed BvS got bad reviews). Such are comic fans transcending into movie fans.

[Pliskin]

I loved it. Probably the best MCU film to date (and I really like Winter Soldier).

23 minutes ago, red snow said:

sounds like the film was faithful to the comic in terms of there being no character based logic to why the vast majority chose a particular side. It really boiled down to "who do we want to see fight" and then they had to ensure they were on separate sides.

Some are more justified than others. But what do you mean by vast majority? The sides were pretty much equal.

Spoiler

I guess, for Spidey, it was very artificial. Why would he side with Tony (since he's a fan of both of them) apart from the fact that it was Tony who went to him first and made him his suit?

But Black Panther had a pretty consequential plot driven reason. And I loved how it concluded. It's just a shame that his father's death happened during this film and not during his own mytho/origins film.

Ant-Man was naturally distrustful of Starks, since he was pretty influenced by Pym.

Vision as a pragmatic AI's choice made sense.

Black Widow always has been a government agent, so... but she trusts Cap, so naturally betrays Tony at some point. It was fine and logical.

For Hawkeye... yeah, that's one I don't really get. But okay, it might be the only artificial one with Spidey.

Sam and War-Machine are the side-kicks, so, pretty natural too.

No, really, I don't think it was bad in that respect.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

I loved it. Probably the best MCU film to date (and I really like Winter Soldier).

Some are more justified than others. But what do you mean by vast majority? The sides were pretty much equal.

  Reveal hidden contents

I guess, for Spidey, it was very artificial. Why would he side with Tony (since he's a fan of both of them) apart from the fact that it was Tony who went to him first and made him his suit?

But Black Panther had a pretty consequential plot driven reason. And I loved how it concluded. It's just a shame that his father's death happened during this film and not during his own mytho/origins film.

Ant-Man was naturally distrustful of Starks, since he was pretty influenced by Pym.

Vision as a pragmatic AI's choice made sense.

Black Widow always has been a government agent, so... but she trusts Cap, so naturally betrays Tony at some point. It was fine and logical.

For Hawkeye... yeah, that's one I don't really get. But okay, it might be the only artificial one with Spidey.

Sam and War-Machine are the side-kicks, so, pretty natural too.

No, really, I don't think it was bad in that respect.

Just an English fail. I meant most of the characters picked any particular side for no apparently logical reason. So most characters. Not that the sides were skewed.

[Pliskin]

My bad. Anyway, my spoiler was a reply to what you meant.

[DaveSumm]

I loved it. It juggles the cast as well as I can imagine is possible in a film with this many people, and one which is primarily about Captain America (it's just barely a film about him, I'd say). It's quite a gear shift from the others in that there's barely a villain, and the main rivalry takes centre stage. I was actually caught off guard when it ended as I assumed there had to be one last airborne big brawl, but there wasn't. There are zero scenes which felt tacked on by Marvel execs like in AoU. It manages to paint the most detailed picture yet of the world that the MCU exists in, and what the consequences are of it. It embraces all the films that have come before and doesn't pander to an audience that hasn't seen them; references are casually mentioned so you truly feel this exists in this world and not in its own bubble like some MCU films can.

I disagree the reasoning wasn't laid out for why each side was where it was......maybe the odd exception. The majority are dealt with in the initial discussion about the accords at HQ (Cap, BW, Falcon, Stark, Vision, SW, WM are there I think) and then there's a few 'recruits'; Spidey just got basically made a superhero by Tony and owes him a great debt, and wants to impress him (and is just a kid doing what he's told, ultimately), Black Panther has an extremely good reason to be opposed to Bucky's side, Ant-Man's mentor has raised him on 'never trust a Stark' plus he's a criminal. Hawkeye is probably the flimsiest, but the scenario in which he finds SW explains it enough for me. Any more lengthy discussions about the reasoning (and there's plenty already) would drag the film in places, and it was very well balanced as it is.

Up there with the first Avengers for me, maybe better, I'll have to digest and re-watch to decide.

[ab aeterno]

2 hours ago, Pliskin said:

I loved it. Probably the best MCU film to date (and I really like Winter Soldier).

Some are more justified than others. But what do you mean by vast majority? The sides were pretty much equal.

  Reveal hidden contents

I guess, for Spidey, it was very artificial. Why would he side with Tony (since he's a fan of both of them) apart from the fact that it was Tony who went to him first and made him his suit?

But Black Panther had a pretty consequential plot driven reason. And I loved how it concluded. It's just a shame that his father's death happened during this film and not during his own mytho/origins film.

Ant-Man was naturally distrustful of Starks, since he was pretty influenced by Pym.

Vision as a pragmatic AI's choice made sense.

Black Widow always has been a government agent, so... but she trusts Cap, so naturally betrays Tony at some point. It was fine and logical.

For Hawkeye... yeah, that's one I don't really get. But okay, it might be the only artificial one with Spidey.

Sam and War-Machine are the side-kicks, so, pretty natural too.

No, really, I don't think it was bad in that respect.

 

 

I actually thought Spiderman made sense siding with Stark, for a couple of reasons (in addition to the fact that he's somewhat in awe of Tony and quite young.

Firstly, Peter Parker fits into Stark & Vision intellectual/scientific side of the argument. Tony is not only the one who he has the most in common with (Banner being absent), but also that they both have more of a logical or scientifically based outlook compared to Cap's more purely idealistic one. Tony isn't pro government, but he's come to believe that he can't just do everything on his own and that his own judgement doesn't give him the right to do whatever he pleases - which was what he did previously up until the end of Ultron. Despite recognising the dangers involved, he feels that they don't have the right to impose their will on others, even if they believe in what they are doing, because he views that as irresponsible. 

Which leads to the second reason- with great power comes great responsibility. Now, you could read this one either way, saying, as Cap does, that giving control of the Avengers to the UN dilutes responsibility, or you could take the view that it's irresponsible for the Avengers to intervene wherever they see fit because of the human consequences of those actions, like Tony does. Spiderman choosing Tony's side of that argument feels right to me, given his conflicts between duty/responsibility and the people he cares about.

ETA: I'll add my voice to the positive camp, and I'd go maybe 9/10 (on a Marvel/Superhero movie scale). I'll have to watch a couple more times, but I think it's probably my favourite MCU movie now.

I was impressed how they made the two sides a genuine debate, rather than the usual nod to "grey areas," but where one side is so obviously portrayed badly that it's almost pointless.

Also impressed how I ended up siding pretty solidly with Stark et al. rather than Cap.

[Pliskin]

1 hour ago, ab aeterno said:

Spoiler

Which leads to the second reason- with great power comes great responsibility. Now, you could read this one either way, saying, as Cap does, that giving control of the Avengers to the UN dilutes responsibility, or you could take the view that it's irresponsible for the Avengers to intervene wherever they see fit because of the human consequences of those actions, like Tony does. Spiderman choosing Tony's side of that argument feels right to me, given his conflicts between duty/responsibility and the people he cares about.

 

 

Spoiler

I don't know. I kind of see it the other way as you said. When he explained his line of thinking "When things happen and you have that power and you do nothing, you're responsible", to me it kind of joins Cap's line of thinking. That the individual supes is responsible. But yeah, both interpretations are possible I guess.

Anyway, just nitpicking. Let's not scatter our positive voice It was awesome!

[ab aeterno]

9 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

 

  Hide contents

I don't know. I kind of see it the other way as you said. When he explained his line of thinking "When things happen and you have that power and you do nothing, you're responsible", to me it kind of joins Cap's line of thinking. That the individual supes is responsible. But yeah, both interpretations are possible I guess.

Anyway, just nitpicking. Let's not scatter our positive voice It was awesome!

Haha, yeah.

But then to turn it around, Mr. Stark says you're wrong but you think you're right. That makes you dangerous." What is really being responsible? Doing what you think is right regardless of the consequences, or acknowledging that you don't have the right to impose your beliefs on others by doing so? It's certainly grounds for fun debate, but I think that's a positive for the movie.

 

[ants]

Thought it was easily the best MCU film since Winter Soldier. Went in having avoided all spoilers and trailers, and really enjoyed it. Especially the bad guy, who was more fleshed out than probably any villain since Loki. And very hard to say who out of Cap and Stark was in the right.