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

[The BlackBear]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

 

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and Falcon and the Vision need to take a hard look at their actions.

 

Spoiler

What did Falcon do that he shouldn't have? He dodged an attack aimed at him, not his fault it hit War Machine in the most vulnerable part of his body, after which he immediately dives to try and catch him. And Vision was clearly troubled at the end.

 

[denstorebog]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

It makes you wonder if Stark would have been better contacting that super strong black guy or woman who wanders around Hell's kitchen? Even Daredevil would seem a less dubious choice but as it is (Stark doesn't know they MCU doesn't want to acknowledge TV shows) he seems to go solely for power.

Oh shit ... this would have been an absolutely perfect place to cross over to the Netflix series. Because the more you think about it, the more silly Spidey's recruitment seems. He's a kid with no connection to the current events, he's untrained, and most of all, he has no ideological connection to Tony's point of view at all - in fact, he could just have easily have joined Cap if he had gotten to him first. After all, Spidey explicitly talks about the virtues of acting on your own, which he has already been doing a lot, and his statement about how you can't just sit and not do anything echoes Cap's earlier sentiment about "a situation going south". Yeah, Spiderman may have been cool, but he didn't make sense in the context.

Now, I don't see DD or Jessica making any more sense on Tony's side, being vigilantes themselves, but I think Luke Cage could have worked. After being under the Purple Man's control, you can easily see why he'd want to fight for regulation. And it would be a lot more realistic that Tony would know about him, given his involvement in recent explosive affairs. And Luke is very unlikely to get hurt in a fight which is all about apprehending someone without harming anyone.

Marvel's marketing department would never allow Luke Cage to take precedence over Spidey, but it would have been more awesome in terms of logic and crossover potential.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

While I agree that recruiting Spidey seems a bit bizarre.. they did such a good job with him that I can totally overlook it. 

[The BlackBear]

But Luke Cage at this point just wants to keep his head down, he doesn't want to get involved. JJ and DD are too concerned with their little spheres of influence. And while they may be sort of known Spiderman has been more high profile, is more powerful (if not just in raw strength in agility and equipment,) and clearly is interested in getting out there and helping out.

[red snow]

34 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

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What did Falcon do that he shouldn't have? He dodged an attack aimed at him, not his fault it hit War Machine in the most vulnerable part of his body, after which he immediately dives to try and catch him. And Vision was clearly troubled at the end.

 

I'm not blaming him so much for dodging (although my take on the scene was he was using the vision to take war Machine down- because falcon is badass) more I think everyone was treating it as a game until someone was really hurt

6 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

But Luke Cage at this point just wants to keep his head down, he doesn't want to get involved. JJ and DD are too concerned with their little spheres of influence. And while they may be sort of known Spiderman has been more high profile, is more powerful (if not just in raw strength in agility and equipment,) and clearly is interested in getting out there and helping out.

It would have also been a pointless scene. It would be nice if Luke Cage season1 has a scene where Cage comments on that crazy stark guy trying to recruit him.

10 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

While I agree that recruiting Spidey seems a bit bizarre.. they did such a good job with him that I can totally overlook it. 

I think if Stark hadn't known who Spidey was it would have been better. Ultimately he should have benced the idea as soon as he knew he was a minor.

Holland reminds me of a young Jamie Bell

[mormont]

Saw it last night, finally. A few thoughts.

First, I thought the motivations for each character were explained fine. The thing about it is this, and I'm going to part of this in spoilers:

The film ultimately isn't actually really about the moral question in the way that has been suggested by some of the marketing. That's the inciting event, but really it's the source of disagreement only between Cap and Tony, and to a lesser extent one or two others. Mostly, though, the others find their sides dictated by loyalty, and that's the real theme of the film.

Falcon, for example, picks his side purely out of loyalty to Cap. Ant-Man comes with him because Falcon is his connection, but also because of Scott's loyalty to Hank, which is the root of his dislike of Tony. War Machine also picks his apparently out of loyalty to Tony, though he gets a belated scene where it's clearer that he actually agreed with Tony and would have fought on that side anyway. Natasha seems to be more persuaded by Tony's arguments but switches out of personal loyalty to Cap. T'Challa picks his side out of a desire for revenge, but also out of loyalty to his father's memory. Hawkeye mainly seems to be motivated by personal loyalty to Cap. Spidey is loyal to Tony too, because of all that Tony does for him in the film - the money, the new costume, but also the personal attention and respect.

Vision is an interesting case as he seemed very much persuaded of the case for regulation but there are strong indications that he is also loyal, at least, to his creator - and possibly more than that. How much control does Tony still have over him? Will his romantic feelings for Scarlet Witch give him more independence, or are they the sign of a growing independence? Scarlet Witch herself, meanwhile, is an exception because she picks her side out of Tony's patronising mishandling of her.

But overall, the driving force of the plot is Steve's personal loyalty to Bucky. The Accords are just the backdrop. They could have been left out and the film would still have been workable purely on the basis of Bucky being framed and the teams dividing over bringing him in.

This makes sense to me but is also interesting as it suggests the Accords are something that the studio wanted as a factor in the movies going forward, rather than being just the driver of the latest film.

A couple of things I disliked:

I don't mind reimaginings of characters usually, even fairly radical repurposing, but there is just no earthly reason to have called Daniel Bruhl's character 'Helmut Zemo'. OK, I can see the need to avoid yet another villain with a Nazi background but  he takes nothing at all from that character in the comics. His origin, motivation, appearance, background, skill set, beliefs, behaviour, all are completely different. The only thing he has in common with the comics character is, well, being an enemy of Cap. That was pointless.

It's a tough row to hoe, but the initial 'let's-blame-the-Avengers-for-collateral-damage' arguments felt thin. Once you got past them to the 'oversight vs independence' argument, the film made sense because both sides were presented as reasonable, and I'm not saying it's unbelievable that some people would blame Tony for the Sokovia casualties, for example. I just felt that this was accepted too easily. We live in a world where the concept of collateral damage is pretty well understood and I couldn't see for the life of me why Ross would blame the New York casualties on the Avengers.

The platform scene inserted for the inevitable video game.

Finally, there were, what, seven female speaking parts in this entire movie? And most were minor. Two of them consisted of a single scene. One was a single line. Going forward, it would be nice to get more female superheroes from the Marvel roster: it's glaringly obvious when you line up each team of six and they have one token female on each side.

Anyway, nitpicks aside, I really enjoyed the film. Felt the mix of humour and drama was well handled: the new characters looked terrific: the action scenes were amazing and so well done: and I never felt the pace flagged or the film was too long. Really fantastic. I agree it's not the best Marvel film, but it's very definitely in the top third, not the bottom.

[red snow]

RE Mormont's nitpicks. It's a real shame they couldn't have worked Captain Marvel into this one - like you say, there's a dstinct lack of women. I guess it was more pressing to have Black Panther present but a superhero working directly for the military could have also worked. It would have also made more sense out of Civil War 2 comic which i can only assume is out to grab the attention from the film, yet paradoxically doesn't even manage to have the film characters on the respective sides.

[DaveSumm]

I don't mind them leaving out the Netflix characters. They're mostly concerned with the plight of Hells Kitchen, not of the larger world, and far less likely to care about this argument about Bucky. Plus, is Luke Cage actually strong? I thought he was just indestructible? That's a clincher; I can picture Tony asking Friday who's on the radar that could help them out, she points out Daredevil (who's appeared in the media, but I don't believe JJ or LC have...?) but notes that while he's damn good for a blind guy, he's not actually any stronger, he's not a superhero. Spidey, meanwhile, has actual powers. Plus, you'd think Tony had seen the footage and already started thinking about how he could design him a better costume.

Convenient that I don't think they should be included, cos we all know even if they should have been, there's no chance at all it would have happened. The bars so low now that one single line ("I considered the blind guy you've got running round Hells Kitchen but I need someone a bit more......unique") would have me jumping out my seat. I'm still deeply troubled by the Russo's "wait, there's fish oil in Agents of SHIELD?" line, it seems literally no one even glances at the script to make sure there's nothing incompatable. It's only a matter of time before something incongruous comes up, that's if you don't include the actress appearing in both this film and LC (or IF? I forget which).

[red snow]

Luke Cage punched/walked through a wall and was able to go toe to toe with someone who is super strong so I'd say he was more than indestructible.

Given the film isn't about superhero registration they were getting away with it sticking with characters within the avengers film. By adding Spidey they bring up the wider question. A more organic way would have been to have Spidey under Stark's tutelage already and then it would be slightly less worrying he was brought into the fight. But we'd have lost the intial meeting which was fun. I guess with these films sacrifices have to be made to keep cool scenes in and ultimately I'm cool with that.

[Pliskin]

55 minutes ago, red snow said:

But we'd have lost the intial meeting which was fun.

 

Spoiler

They could have kept the meeting if they had Spidey under Iron Man's tutelage before, but without revealing his Peter Park identity. And then you basically get the same scene with Tony inviting himself to Peter's house and Peter trying to hide that he's Spidey, without success.

 

[Veltigar]

I enjoyed it for what it was, but I didn't think it was all that great in the end. The action (especially the further we progressed), the acting and the humour were great, but the plot was awful. Personally, I felt like they were really straining to make Cap and Tony fight, while in real life, there would be no question about who was in the right (Stark).

I felt that Cap's arguments were unreasonable, didn't make sense given his background (he was a soldier after all and if any of the current crop of superheroes has ever been in the pockets of the government, it would be Captain America for Christ sakes) and were pandered to by the directors. I think Tony on the other hand, was made to be a bit of an idiot. The way Zemo so easily played him and the rest of the free world was incredibly farfetched. 

Zemo is another villain wasted. Normally, that doesn't bother me much beyond the fact that it's pretty damn bad, but they actually wasted a really interesting motivation for a villain with Zemo. I also really hated the fact that he needed to easily fit into this black-and-white Marvel verse.

Spoiler

Of course he was the commander of a Sokovian deathsquad (aka an SoB first class). Why couldn't he have been a diplomat or a baker or a philosopher or whatever. He had to be a warcriminal.

Same reason why the villains in Winter Soldier couldn't just be government types run amok (and thus a clever comment on the NSA). No, they needed to be evil Nazi's. Positions like that just ensure such a big lack of nuance. It's boring. 

[red snow]

36 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I enjoyed it for what it was, but I didn't think it was all that great in the end. The action (especially the further we progressed), the acting and the humour were great, but the plot was awful. Personally, I felt like they were really straining to make Cap and Tony fight, while in real life, there would be no question about who was in the right (Stark).

I felt that Cap's arguments were unreasonable, didn't make sense given his background (he was a soldier after all and if any of the current crop of superheroes has ever been in the pockets of the government, it would be Captain America for Christ sakes) and were pandered to by the directors. I think Tony on the other hand, was made to be a bit of an idiot. The way Zemo so easily played him and the rest of the free world was incredibly farfetched. 

Zemo is another villain wasted. Normally, that doesn't bother me much beyond the fact that it's pretty damn bad, but they actually wasted a really interesting motivation for a villain with Zemo. I also really hated the fact that he needed to easily fit into this black-and-white Marvel verse.

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Of course he was the commander of a Sokovian deathsquad (aka an SoB first class). Why couldn't he have been a diplomat or a baker or a philosopher or whatever. He had to be a warcriminal.

Same reason why the villains in Winter Soldier couldn't just be government types run amok (and thus a clever comment on the NSA). No, they needed to be evil Nazi's. Positions like that just ensure such a big lack of nuance. It's boring. 

Totally agree that the villain could have been a normal guy and would have worked far better - although he'd still be stuck with a stupid plan.

[mormont]

No. The point of the villain is that he is ruthless. Yes, he has a motivation that others share. But he will do terrible things that they won't because of it, due to his training and background. Yes, you could go down the 'we're-all-one-bad-day-away' route, but that's been done to death and anyway raises huge problems about his insider knowledge and training. Besides,

it needed to be credible that he might be after the other Winter Soldiers for nefarious purposes.

[RumHam]

8 hours ago, red snow said:

 

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Especially considering Stark had Spidey go after Winter Soldier - the person IM wants to bring in because he beleives him a cold blooded killer. It also left a bitter taste in my mouth how he "fired" Spidey - that seemed really cruel even if the subtext was that Tony had realised it was a mistake to involve a kid.  It just hit me when Peter was all "but Mr Stark" - like someone who's hero has just told them they are a disappointment.

 

Huh, I didn't read it like that at all. I thought the "you're done" thing was just because he was hurt.

[Calibandar]

I thought it was a very disappointing, and above all else, a very dull film.

I can honestly say I liked Batman vs Superman more and that will be telling for most. I am rating this well below both of the Avengers film and well below both Thor films. About on par with the Iron Man films, which are barely 6 out of 10 stars in my book.

Reasons ( many of which align with Denstorebog):

1) The unbelievable slow start of the film with all the discussions from boring characters about immensely uninteresting things. It sets a tone of deep dullness that the film can hardly compensate for afterwards. It wants to be a serious film, which it isn't and it never gets going. An hour into the film and we were lamenting the long running time.

2) A silly villain with a silly plan, and one that was, in any case very uninteresting to watch.

3) Characters like Wanda and Vision just seem off. Either that is because they do not get much time ( Vision) or because their powers and their character are never accentuated ( Wanda), it just does not work.

4) That said I did not mind the inclusion of characters like Spiderman and Antman, that worked fine. Hawk Eye is in there because they need cannon fodder. Did not care one bit for Black Widow as usual.

5) I don't understand why Iron Man takes the position he does. It feels so clearly as designed just to create conflict. I would actually think he would be the one to take Cap's side. It seems like they are just doing stuff. As for the others, as the OP says, they don't really go into it.

6) Bucky Barnes: Not a great character, and we see much of him here. 

 

 

[DaveSumm]

13 minutes ago, RumHam said:

 

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Huh, I didn't read it like that at all. I thought the "you're done" thing was just because he was hurt.

 

Yea, I assumed that was 'you're done for today'.

 

10 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

6) Bucky Barnes: Not a great character, and we see much of him here. 

I disagree with your other points, but this does touch on one issue I had.

Spoiler

We never really have a definitive scene where Bucky is confirmed as not being under the influence of his brainwashing, and fully 'reunites' with Steve. Cap suspects he remembers at the apartment, and then later they're reminiscing about a few things, but considering their friendship is the common thread through all three movies they really needed a scene where they reconnect properly. I think Bucky could be a good character (and if they really are planning on having him take over, he'd better be) and I don't fault the actor, but he seemed either in brooding 'Winter Soldier' mode or on the run from someone.

 

[red snow]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

No. The point of the villain is that he is ruthless. Yes, he has a motivation that others share. But he will do terrible things that they won't because of it, due to his training and background. Yes, you could go down the 'we're-all-one-bad-day-away' route, but that's been done to death and anyway raises huge problems about his insider knowledge and training. Besides,

 

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it needed to be credible that he might be after the other Winter Soldiers for nefarious purposes.

 

Good points too. I guess he had to be in a connected position to know such programs even existed too.

[Balerion the one eared cat]

Pretty much agree with everything Channel4s-JonSnow said (and many others, he just took a lot of the words out of my mouth!)

I absolutely loved it, despite it's flaws. I'm going to see it again next week to reevaluate, but I'm pretty sure it'll hold up. Like a lot of people have said, I loved that there really wasn't a clear "right" side - I still firmly believe, like I did in the comics, that the Accords are absolutely the right idea but very poorly executed. Both sides had valid reasons for their choices, to the point that my friend who is a complete Cap-worshipper, despises Tony and will find a way to criticise every action he takes, was very relieved when

 

Tony started attacking Cap/Bucky after he found out about his parents (don't think he was right but completely understood why he lost it) 

because it meant she could exclaim "Well NOW he's fighting for the wrong reasons!" Up until then she genuinely saw that Tony had a point. 

Other things I loved: the action scenes. I was jumping out of my chair, squealing with joy, because it was like watching a comic book play out in front of my eyes. Personally I think they utilised every single character's individual powers incredibly well. EDIT: Spidey! never been a fan of the other Spider-Man films, I liked Garfield as Spidey but not really the films themselves... but this really felt like the Spider-Man from the comics!

I loved that he was genuinely so excited by meeting everyone (same with Scott, actually - insects unite, I guess!) and also Sam's (IIRC) comment about there not usually being this much talking during fights had me in tears.

 

Although (as in all superhero films, let's be honest) there was a distinct lack of female characters, I think the women they did have were used brilliantly. Black Widow always has been and always will be my favourite superhero: to me she seemed to be the only one to realise that both sides still had valid reasons even after making her decision, and her being the only properly reasonable one out them, yet still being completely and utterly badass, just seemed right for her. To me she's the most human, most compassionate, most complicated and most awesome superhero out of the lot of them (which is ironic, because I'm not even sure she's had any supersoldier serum in the film canon?)

 

The scene with her and Cap in the church after Peggy's funeral... :'(

I also like that Hulk wasn't completely forgotten about (I like her and Bruce together and I stand by it - in film canon at least). 

 I also think Scarlet Witch was used well, and I like how Sharon was introduced! 

I think they did handle the big cast well - as someone else pointed out, it was Cap's film, and was meant to be focused on his fight with Tony: it makes sense, then, that they should get the most development. As for the others, I feel like Hawkeye didn't need a big part - his development came in AoU, and I feel that this was partly him coming back out of a sense of duty to Wanda because of Quicksilver, but also him just coming back to reprise all his best moments and have a bit of fun with the team he spent so long being a part of. I mean, surely it's better he was included (since this fight was ripping apart the team that was/is such a huge part of his life) than him completely sit out? They all needed to be there and have a say, no matter how small. 

Spoilery things I loved and didn't love quite so much:

 

 

VISION WEARING HUMAN CLOTHES!!!! I maybe found this too entertaining, but there was something about this god-like, semi-omniscient ethereal being trying to learn how to be a normal person absolutely hilarious and so endearing. Also the idea that he isn't even sure of what he is or the extent of his power... Paul Bettany is absolutely awesome. Also, Vision/Wanda was just toooo adorable. I honestly wasn't sure whether they'd include it but I'm SO GLAD they did.

Couple of problems I had:

1. Redwing was a robot, not a bird :'(

2. Crossbones getting killed off so soon. I mean, I'm glad he's dead, but I feel like more could have been done with him - maybe have him register and chasing after Bucky like the Thunderbolts (IIRC) in the comics?

3. Concerning that Wanda could kinda-sorta get into Vision's head - I mean, the Mind Stone went red! Surely Wanda shouldn't be able to have that much power to control it - it's one of the six most powerful objects in the universe! Setting up for a House of M film, potentially?! (I wish...)

4. Airport scene where Cap's response to "what now?" was "We fight". I feel like "now we have an honest and mature conversation and work this out properly" could have solved a few things. But then we'd have no airport fight, so I can't really complain.

That's all I can think of for now, I may update this after a second watch!

 

[red snow]

Balerion, regarding point 4

SW got her powers from that gem so she has a natural connection to it. She may even be a part of the gem in the same way that Vision is. Maybe it even explains the chemistry between the two? I hope it wasn't a random thing and is actually significant. It could certainly prove useful in Avengers Infinite or as a weakness if Thanos can control her once in posession of the gauntlet and gems

[Balerion the one eared cat]

6 minutes ago, red snow said:

Balerion, regarding point 4

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SW got her powers from that gem so she has a natural connection to it. She may even be a part of the gem in the same way that Vision is. Maybe it even explains the chemistry between the two? I hope it wasn't a random thing and is actually significant. It could certainly prove useful in Avengers Infinite or as a weakness if Thanos can control her once in posession of the gauntlet and gems

 

Hadn't thought of it like that actually, that makes a lot of sense!