Captain America: Civil War is a 2016 production from Marvel Studios. The film is directed by the Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony with the script written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The movie sees almost all heroes return, with two new arrivals as well. That means that we will see Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Sebastian Stan, Elizabeth Olsen, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Bettany, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd and Anthony Mackie alongside new arrivals Chadwick Boseman, Daniel Brühl and Tom Holland. The movie scores a 7.8/10 on IMDb and received a 75 Metascore.
A Summary
A team of Avengers with Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Vision (Paul Bettany), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) are on a mission in Lagos, Nigeria. Former HYDRA agent Brock Rumlow, now known as Crossbones has been performing terrorist attacks.
In the end, Captain America has Crossbones pinned down but after a comment on Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) Steve freezes for a second. That gave Crossbones the time to push a button which triggers his bomb vest. Scarlet Witch can contain the blast, shooting him up in the sky but loses him next to a hotel, where the blast blows up the whole floor.
This explosion was the final straw for world leaders. The Sokovia Accords are drawn up, which states that the Avengers will be supervised by a special panel. That means they will only be allowed to act if the panel gives permission and if they don’t want to sign, they’ll have to retire. The decision of whether or not to sign causes a rift between the Avengers.
In Vienna, world leaders have gathered for the official signing of the Accords. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Rhodes, Vision and Romanoff have agreed to sign, with the others holding out. Romanoff meets the prince of Wakanda, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) at the convention. During a speech of the king of Wakanda, T’Chaka, an explosion occurs, killing the king. Video footage seems to show Bucky Barnes as the perpetrator of the explosion.
Steve finds Bucky before the police do and together they try to escape the police as well as the Black Panther, prince T’Chaka. After an extensive chase and fight, the three of them are surrounded by police and War Machine. They get arrested and transported to a government facility. There colonel Zemo (Daniel Brühl) shows up disguised as a psychiatrist to talk with Bucky. He acquired some documents on the Winter Soldier and manages to brainwash him with certain words. A fight breaks out, ending with Captain America, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, who regained conscience.
Meantime, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) was asked by Rogers to get Scarlet Witch from the Avengers facility, where she was being guarded by Vision. As Steve learns that Zemo is after other Winter Soldiers they make plans to leave for Siberia and stop him. Falcon gets Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) to join the team and they head for the airport. There they meet all the other Avengers, Iron Man, Black Widow, Vision and War Machine who teamed up with Black Panther and a recruit from Tony, Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man (Tom Holland). At the end of this fight, Steve and Bucky leave with a Quinjet after Black Widow switched sides.
In the aftermath, Tony learns that Bucky was framed for the Vienna explosion. After a stop at the prison where the Avengers are kept, he leaves for Siberia to meet up with Captain America. In Siberia, the three of them find that the other Winter Soldiers are killed. Zemo had another plan all along. He acquired footage from one of Bucky’s mission during his service. Zemo shows the footage the three of them, revealing Bucky killing Tony’s parents.
Tony fights Bucky and Steve after learning this new information. It ends with both sides heavily injured. Iron Man tells Captain America that he is not worthy to hold the shield which his father gave him. Steve drops the shield and leaves together with Bucky. Meantime, Zemo was captured by Black Panther, who also followed Steve but learning the truth about the killing of his father had no beef with him. Rogers break his friends out of prison and together they stay in Wakanda.
The Story
I feel the story lacks in a few departments. Zemo isn’t a convincing villain if he could be seen as a villain at all. The fight between Captain America and Iron Man probably should be seen as the main threat in this movie. And that is a good pay off to tension which has building between the two ever since they met. I don’t get why you would throw Zemo in there at all, the story between the rift in the Avengers is more than enough for a good story.
Just like in Age of Ultron they decided to throw in as many heroes as they can, only leaving out Thor and Hulk. And I feel they did do a better job at managing a large number of stars than they did in Age of Ultron. Characters like Black Widow and Ant-Man are pushed more to the side as they should be in a movie like this, where their importance is humble. That gave the main characters more screentime to develop a, after all, lacking storyline.
The story does provide a nice entrance for newcomers Spider-Man and Black Panther. The scene where Tony is at Peter’s house is really funny and T’Challa instantly proves to be a powerful man. Although I would think it isn’t very king of Wakanda-like to start chasing someone on your own with government permission.
The Characters
While the movie does a better job at managing a large number of heroes, the choosing of sides did feel a bit off to me. Bucky and Falcon joining Steve is logic as is Rhodes and Romanoff joining Tony. The other characters made some questionable decisions though. The movie starts with some character-building between Wanda and Vision, seemingly getting along. And then they both join different sides. I also didn’t think Hawkeye would fight against Black Widow. Ant-Man, Spider-Man and Black Panther were all new to most of the characters, so them joining randomly seems alright.
Captain America – Iron Man
The two of them are the best part of this movie. The long-teased rift between two completely different ideologies was only a matter of time. The Sokovia Accords may not have been the best plot-device to cause this rift though. I feel like Captain America would be the one to listen to the government and Iron Man the one who wants to work on his own, as he has always done. The lack of belief in their motivations causes unwanted sentiments towards the movie.
Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
Bucky is the main cause of problems in this movie. His mind isn’t completely his own and that causes some trouble when Zemo brainwashed him again. That creates a quite weird character who wreaks havoc, but can’t remember what he did afterwards. The problem with Bucky is that we’ve seen him wreak havoc before. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he is one of the main antagonists as well, which looks to me as a lack of originality.
Zemo
He doesn’t get enough screentime for that, although his motives are quite reasonable. Only thing is, aren’t there thousands if not millions of people who could or should have the same feelings? What are those people doing and why is Zemo the only one fighting the Avengers?
The Production
As with all big-budget Marvel movies it proves to be a good feat of production. Especially the airport scene was great to watch and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. The visuals of Wanda using her powers to keep a control tower from falling are stunning. As for the writers’ department, the movie isn’t of great heights, just as most Marvel movies as they are to action-based for that. The Captain America quote ‘I can do this all day’ returning does prove to be an impactful moment.