Captain America: Civil War
May. 27th, 2016 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroCaptain America and Iron Man square off in a more-developed fight than Superman vs. Batman, and with more sidekicks and running plots involved. I wasn’t quite as enamored with this as the rest of the internet—though I did enjoy it—so here’s your warning about all my commentary behind the cut. I will be critical about the movie.
I think I may be getting tired of the Marvel movie formula, which consists of origin stories for characters you may not have heard of, and giant mid-plotline million-character films. This had a bunch of the same problems that Age of Ultron did, in that it resolved a storyline from one movie, continued half a dozen others, introduced several new ones and only barely managed a “beginning” “middle” and “end” of its own. It was smoother and felt less bloated than Ultron, but disguising a problem is not the same as solving it. And we have another few years and half-dozen movies before we hit Infinity War and the potential to actually resolve any major plotlines in a useful way.
I mean, I think Spider-Man and Ant-Man got some of the best lines and moments in the film, but both of them could have been removed without harming the narrative. The movie can’t decide if it’s the third Captain America movie (resolving the Bucky storyline, following the Sam and Peggy/Sharon plotlines), the fourth Iron Man movie (discussing Tony’s various feelings and relationships with his new supporting cast and making his moments with Rhodey on the same level as Steve/Bucky’s), or the direct sequel to Ultron (starring the new Avengers team and their various interactions and dealing mainly with the fallout from Sokovia). Oh, or is this really Black Panther Zero? Because yeah, T’Challa’s great and plays a good semi-antagonist role, but he doesn’t need to be there when you’ve already got Tony AND Zemo.
I applaud the Russos for managing to squeeze all of that nonsense into a single film that distracts you with everyone’s emotional arcs and some very pretty setpieces. Just like I applauded Whedon for doing it in Ultron—but remember, Whedon’s fallen out of favor with The Internet, so putting him in the same class with Our Russo and Savior is Badthink. It’s not like this also pulled a het romance out of nowhere…oh, except it did, and the audience ignored it while cheering all the queerbaiting.
Well, at least we made it through this version of Civil War without Steve dying.
I predict Infinity War will include Vision managing to de-program Bucky with the Mind Gem before Thanos rips it out of his head. Also, I give even odds that “Tony calls Steve and they reconcile” will happen well before that, just so you need to watch more interim movies to know what the hell’s going on.
Overall: Superheroes punched each other and there were lots of explosions. I had fun.
I think I may be getting tired of the Marvel movie formula, which consists of origin stories for characters you may not have heard of, and giant mid-plotline million-character films. This had a bunch of the same problems that Age of Ultron did, in that it resolved a storyline from one movie, continued half a dozen others, introduced several new ones and only barely managed a “beginning” “middle” and “end” of its own. It was smoother and felt less bloated than Ultron, but disguising a problem is not the same as solving it. And we have another few years and half-dozen movies before we hit Infinity War and the potential to actually resolve any major plotlines in a useful way.
I mean, I think Spider-Man and Ant-Man got some of the best lines and moments in the film, but both of them could have been removed without harming the narrative. The movie can’t decide if it’s the third Captain America movie (resolving the Bucky storyline, following the Sam and Peggy/Sharon plotlines), the fourth Iron Man movie (discussing Tony’s various feelings and relationships with his new supporting cast and making his moments with Rhodey on the same level as Steve/Bucky’s), or the direct sequel to Ultron (starring the new Avengers team and their various interactions and dealing mainly with the fallout from Sokovia). Oh, or is this really Black Panther Zero? Because yeah, T’Challa’s great and plays a good semi-antagonist role, but he doesn’t need to be there when you’ve already got Tony AND Zemo.
I applaud the Russos for managing to squeeze all of that nonsense into a single film that distracts you with everyone’s emotional arcs and some very pretty setpieces. Just like I applauded Whedon for doing it in Ultron—but remember, Whedon’s fallen out of favor with The Internet, so putting him in the same class with Our Russo and Savior is Badthink. It’s not like this also pulled a het romance out of nowhere…oh, except it did, and the audience ignored it while cheering all the queerbaiting.
Well, at least we made it through this version of Civil War without Steve dying.
I predict Infinity War will include Vision managing to de-program Bucky with the Mind Gem before Thanos rips it out of his head. Also, I give even odds that “Tony calls Steve and they reconcile” will happen well before that, just so you need to watch more interim movies to know what the hell’s going on.
Overall: Superheroes punched each other and there were lots of explosions. I had fun.
