After a dozen films, many of them smashing successes, one of the most legitimate criticisms levelled against the Marvel Cinematic Universe – now entering “Phase Three” in that grand plan known only to comic-book deities and movie-studio moguls – was that the villains were never half as interesting as the protagonists.
Captain America: Civil War redresses this imbalance by pitting two teams of beloved heroes against one another without aligning audience sympathies exclusively with either side.
In one corner, championing the notion that superheroes need to hold themselves above human politics and do right as they see it, is Steve Rogers / Captain America, as morally upstanding as ever – and Chris Evans, at centre stage, gives Cap a new complexity that comes with the loss of certainty as allies turn away and choices become more difficult to make and to understand. He even has a new candidate for future leading lady in the form of Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), a CIA agent, S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran, and niece to Cap’s former flame, Peggy.
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Captain America: Civil War Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. |
In the opposite corner (call it Team Pragmatism) is Iron Man, former-playboy still-billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr., turning in his best performance yet in the role), who believes that bureaucracy or not, even the mighty Avengers ought to submit to the collective will of the global population as embodied in the United Nations, personified here by U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt, reprising his role from The Incredible Hulk), and reified in the new Sokovia Accords, so named for the country where innocents died and the world nearly ended in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
And although this film does not bear the name of the Avengers, everyone is present save Thor and the Hulk, and the rest soon fall into place behind their standard-bearers; friends of authority, including James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Vision (Paul Bettany), align with Iron Man, while the more unconventionally inclined, including Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Wanda Maximoff the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), side with Cap, as does longtime ally Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie).
There is also a through-and-through villain in the form of Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl), but he exists only to affect the heroes – there is no world-destroying threat to be found, and the story is better for it. Beneath the comic-book trappings and super-powered brawls is a globe-trotting mystery-thriller which continues the story of Captain America’s old friend and brainwashed nemesis, Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), as he is caught up in a vengeful plot.
Meanwhile, Civil War manages to introduce two all-new major characters without neglecting any of the dozen already established, developing a number of memorable buddy pairs while Black Widow proves ever-reliable to provide emotional as well as tactical support.
Fan-favourite Spider-Man (Tom Holland) joins the fray in spectacular fashion – thankfully without yet another repetition of his radioactive origin story – appearing on film for the first time as an actual teenager and already bantering at an A-list level.
And Black Panther, Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), heir to the throne of the African nation of Wakanda, is thrust onto the world stage when an attack at the UN claims the life of his father. Black Panther is given enough time on screen to flesh out both his motivations and his intimidating fighting style, but he largely makes his moves around the periphery, demonstrating that two main teams of heroes can have more than two simple objectives.
Brother directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who were previously responsible for Cap’s well-calibrated adventures in The Winter Soldier, imbue Civil War with a narrative elegance unlooked-for in the genre, using repetition to add clarity instead of redundancy and capably showcasing the dangerous pointlessness of revenge, if only via excessive amounts of both super-powered and conventional guns-and-fists violence.
As spectacle, Civil War sets a new high-water mark for Marvel and the entire genre. The central showdown between opposing factions of “enhanced individuals” at an abandoned airport is everything a comic fan could ask for.
But the Russos know how to make a discussion as engrossing as a brawl, and thanks to a strong script, which doesn’t shy away from dark places but also frequently breaks the tension with hilarious comic relief (much of it from Ant-Man and Spider-Man), the scenes without special effects are just as entertaining as the throwdowns. If anything, by the end there are characters who are a little too pugnacious.
In its fundamental premise, exploring a rift between well-meaning superheroes who come to blows over the question of whether their powers should answer to conventional authorities, Civil War bears notable similarities to this year’s humourless, self-important Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. But Marvel has spent nearly a decade establishing our familiarity with these players over the course of 13 cleverly interlocking films, and the payoff is that the characters and their motivations are more convincing, and the consequences of their infighting are that much more gripping.
The Russos will also helm the upcoming two-part Avengers sequel, the first instalment of which is due in the summer of 2018.