Captain America: Civil War

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“Captain America: Civil War” is the culmination of eight years of planning and in many ways it is Marvel’s masterpiece. The action, the CGI, and the performances are great, and in my opinion it’s the best film to feature the main MCU cast thus far. However, for my money “Civil War” is still a victim of the Marvel formula, as it features another lacklustre villain and a story filled with plot holes.

The story, as you would expect, relates to an internal dispute within The Avengers. After a flashback opening involving The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) the film starts proper as Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson) attempt to prevent a biological attack and capture Crossbones in Lagos (Frank Grillo). The mission goes wrong as Scarlet Witch accidently takes the lives of Wakandans on a good will trip, and this leads to a dilemma – report to an international governing body or retire. Some of The Avengers agree – Iron Man’s (Robert Downey Jr) group – and some don’t – Captain America’s group.

There’s more to the story than that, and in fact it’s The Winter Soldier who really causes the team to divide, but there’s nothing that you can’t work out based on what you’ve seen in the trailers. I have to say that in my opinion the trailers gave far too much away, because you can’t feel worried about a character when they appear in the trailers in a scene that hasn’t occurred yet, and the trailers shows a lot of scenes which happen late on in the film.

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The biggest issue I have with the plot, (other than the fact that people are very ungrateful to The Avengers for saving the world multiple times), is that it isn’t plausible that our heroes would get into such a mess given that they have such a good rapport. They’re smart people with valuable life experience, so it seems to me that they could always talk about their issues in a civilised and intelligent manner. They aren’t a group of meatheads as this film would have you believe – Tony Stark is a genius, Vision (Paul Bettany) is basically a god, and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) is a king. They can talk it out if they want to.

Moreover, neither side’s motivations really make sense because they treat the problem as though it’s incredibly black-and-white. Tony Stark refuses to accept that Steve Rogers doesn’t want to report to a committee to decide which people he saves and which he doesn’t, even though he knows that Rogers has been burned in the past by S.H.I.E.L.D. On the other side, Rogers refuses to explain this to Stark and he constantly portrays himself as the bad guy even though his rationale makes complete sense.

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Both Stark and Rogers act like idiots so that the film has its (artificial) conflict, which in turn makes that conflict feel utterly hollow. The writers are too scared to break the mould to create real problems, because this would result in real and lasting differences; if The Avengers are truly and irreparably destroyed from the inside then they won’t be able to team up against Thanos (Josh Brolin) in the upcoming “Avengers : Infinity War” movie, which is unthinkable for Marvel. As such, nothing of real significance occurs in this movie.

This also speaks to a larger issue that the film has, which is that because Marvel’s writers are always thinking about the next step in their filmmaking schedule they refuse to kill off their characters when necessary. When you call your movie “Civil War” it’s rational for your audience to expect that at least one person will die, because the word ‘war’ evokes thoughts of chaos and death. Plus, if you have several godlike beings attacking each other then there should be some damage right?

(SPOILER ALERT) Alas, no one from The Avengers dies in this film despite the fact that planes are thrown at protagonists, people fall from the sky, and arrows are shot around by Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) as though they were made out of jelly. Because of this I personally couldn’t take the movie seriously at all after about the ¾ mark, and by then I’d lost any fleeting interest I had in the plot. Say what you want about “Batman v Superman”, but at least it had the guts to kill off one of its major characters (sort of).

However, with all that said I still enjoyed the film. The main fight scene between the two rivalling factions is an utter triumph, despite the fact that the stakes are so low that it feels more like a food fight than a battle of life and death, and with Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) fighting alongside the main cast of The Avengers it’s hard to shake the feeling of genius that permeates the action. Within the extended battle sequence we see such things as Spider-Man stealing Captain America’s shield, using his webbing to take down a supersized Ant-Man, and taking down Falcon and The Winter Soldier as though they were toddlers, and I have to say that it is glorious.

The real beauty of the film is the way in which it introduces new characters to the story, and how those characters fit into that story, which is why I felt that Black Panther and Spider-Man made the movie. I can’t wait to see their solo films, and I hope that they have a large part to play in the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Nevertheless, other characters weren’t handled so well, particularly Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) who was another forgettable Marvel villain. I still don’t understand the motivation that was driving him throughout the film, (which is probably my fault because he was so dull that when he turned up I tended to switch off), and for the most part he was a pointless player in a movie which didn’t even need a villain in the first place.

All in all, “Captain America: Civil War” was an entertaining but predictable experience. It was action-packed, polished, and filled with drama, but it was hard to feel invested in what was a fairly paint-by-numbers film. Marvel have a successful formula going right now and they know how to create amazing action with fantastic CGI, but this formula also contains familiar problems such as underdeveloped villains, awkward romance, and unnecessary comedy. “Civil War” is plagued by these issues, so whilst I enjoyed the film for what it was, I felt that it could’ve been much better had it broke the mould.

6.5/10

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Avengers: Age of Ultron

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“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is a marked improvement over the first instalment. It makes time for more of the team and fleshes out some of the character’s back stories, even though it does so in a slightly contrived and forced way. I enjoyed seeing how Joss Whedon attempted to weave the infinity stones into the story, telling this film’s tale whilst tackling the difficult issue of setting up Marvel’s third phase. Whedon achieved this in a way such that those watching “Age of Ultron” didn’t need to care about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe if they just wanted to see a stand-alone movie, but if they did care then there was enough there to make people very excited. This is a good film, even if it’s brought down (in my opinion) by an excess of comedic one-liners and a couple of needless plot points.

The movie is about The Avengers attempting to take down Ultron (James Spader), an artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). However, there’s more to it than that. The film is really about the old guard moving on and letting younger heroes take the lead, and that’s the reason that Stark creates Ultron in the first place. He’s aware of the threat that the world faces following the events of the first Avengers film, and he isn’t sure that he and his team can save the world on their own. He creates Ultron as a precautionary measure against future attack, but things go array and Ultron becomes sentient before he was intended to, which in the end means that he becomes just as dangerous as the creatures he was created to protect the world against. It’s an interesting story because it allows the audience to see Stark in a different light, and it makes sense of the storyline that we can expect in “Captain America: Civil War”.

The film explores the issue of playing God and of artificial intelligence, with each member of the group eventually acting as a mouthpiece for a different viewpoint on the subject. Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Christopher Hemsworth) are initially angry at Stark for making the fate of humanity his play thing, and also for leaving them out of the loop, whereas Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is sympathetic to what Stark wanted from Ultron, having also been party to his creation, because he knows how it feels to want to stop being your alter ego and live a normal life. I enjoyed seeing these debates play out on screen, even if they did end up in melodramatic fist fights and displays of masculinity between the group, and I thought that the subject matter meshed nicely with the darker tone on display throughout the film (a tone which I happen to like).

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There are fewer fight scenes in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”, as opposed to “The Avengers”, which makes the film feel a bit less like one huge set piece and allows for much needed character development. I really appreciated this more restrained approach, because for me the characters themselves are more interesting than CGI battles. Personally I have very little interest in seeing characters that I know to be computer generated fighting on screen, especially when I don’t believe that they are in any real danger, so I tend to switch off when those scenes are happening.

In my opinion, “The Avengers” gave itself far too little time to flesh out the intentions of its characters, presumably because they had had their own solo films in the past and they are already well-known through the comics. However, I didn’t know all that much about them going into that film, because I wasn’t interested in “Iron Man” when it came out and I don’t really like the “Captain America” solo films, so I would’ve appreciated more time to get to know who these characters were, especially given the fact that they found themselves in a group of people that they barely knew and were expected to save the world almost immediately.

This film isn’t air tight in terms of character reactions or story, and I have to say that I found it slightly frustrating that Captain America was so quick to turn on Tony Stark, given that he basically saved the world in “The Avengers” and clearly has the best of intentions. Still, the film itself addressed this and things worked out in the end, leading me to wonder why things go so wrong in “Civil War”. That’s not a criticism although it may be worded like one; I’m actually very intrigued to see why the characters suddenly become hateful towards one another, and although I have some knowledge of the story, I’m excited to see how Marvel handle it on the big screen.

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There were a couple of strange plot points in the film, particularly the love story that ‘blossomed’ between Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the Hulk, which came a bit out of left field and seemed incredibly pointless. It felt as though that story was only there to make the audience feel for two characters that have been painfully underdeveloped in previous films, and I hated every minute devoted to their relationship.

I also found the Maximoff twins’ backstory a bit frustrating, because I thought it had promise when it was initially revealed, yet in the end the twins barely said a word to Stark and didn’t seem all that hateful. However, that could’ve been left untouched for a later film, because it would probably fit quite nicely in “Civil War”.

The comedy hits a lot of the time, with Thor being my favourite comic relief character in the film, because I think Hemsworth’s delivery and facial expressions are actually really good when the writers give him something other than being masculine to do. There are times when the jokes are excessive and it takes you out of the film, particularly in the moments where things seem really bleak and joking around isn’t exactly called for, but that’s the tone that Marvel have gone for with most of their recent films, so it’s silly to go into this movie expecting something completely different.

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Ultron (James Spader) was an awesome villain, having enough intelligence to seem like he might be onto something, until suddenly moving into mad-scientist-tyrant territory and becoming downright evil. I don’t mean to say that this is an evolution throughout the film, rather, every time he starts talking he seems rational, until he ultimately concedes that he’s going to basically kill everyone for the sake of… everyone. He wants the human race to evolve, and he thinks that the only way to achieve this is through an extinction level event, whereby the next civilisation will rebuild and the world will become better. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that the world will evolve on its own, and all that he’s doing is accelerating the process in a brutal and unnecessary way.

The acting for the most part was pretty good for what it was; it seems like Ruffalo, Johansson and Hemsworth have evolved as actors since the first Avengers film and have a greater understanding of both their roles and what is required of them as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although we still know very little about Black Widow, Johansson succeeds in making the character likeable and her performance makes me want to see her character being developed in the future.

My favourite new character was probably Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson), because I think that she feels like a hero and could be an interesting character moving forward, especially because her power is cool and she has a dark past. I also think that Olson is a good young actress and she’s really likeable, so I’m excited to see what she has to offer moving forward.

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Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), on the other hand, felt more like a side-attraction than a character, and although his power made for a visual spectacle at certain points, Taylor-Johnson isn’t a good enough actor to give the character any gravitas. His Russian accent was woeful, and at the end of the day his version of the character felt like a shadow of Evan Peters’ Quicksilver in “X-Men : Days of Future Past”.

The Vision (Paul Bettany) was visually impressive and I liked Bettany’s delivery. An AI has to come across as intelligent (it’s in the name after all), and he certainly achieves that, as well as portraying the confidence and composure that such a smart and powerful being would possess. I’m sure that a lot of people will be pleased by the way that the character has been designed, and he’ll be a fan favourite in films to come.

The film ends having satisfied its audience, whilst also giving us a taste of what’s to come. A new set of Avengers are ready to be assembled, and the post-credit scene revealed that Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his gauntlet will soon come into contact with the Avengers. I feel that I’m beginning to understand what will go on in “Civil War”, at least at the base level, and I can see why certain characters would side with Stark and others with Captain America, given the way that their goals have been fleshed out in this film. “Age of Ultron” feels like a step in the right direction for Marvel, and I’m looking forward to seeing how new characters fit into this already developed team. I liked it a lot and had a good time watching it, which was a pleasant surprise because Marvel films are hit and miss for me, and they often don’t suit my tastes.

7.5/10