The Road to Endgame: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

This post will be shorter than the other 'Road to Endgame' ones because it's Good Friday and I want to squeeze in my rewatch for Thor: Ragnarok before the lunch that I have for it. The posts should be back to normal size by the next one.

Captain America: Civil War was saddled (unfairly, I think) with a lot of stuff to do. As well as continue the Captain America trilogy in a satisfying way, it also had to juggle a subplot for Iron Man, introduce Black Panther and Spider-Man, and have Ant-Man meet the rest of the Avengers. It was the same obstacle facing Age of Ultron, and you could be forgiven for thinking Civil War would also crumble under its own weight. The fact that this movie was able to kind of pull it off astounds me.

The airport battle: unnecessary.

Don't get me wrong, this film is very excessive. There's no real need for Tom Holland's Spidey or Paul Rudd's Ant-Man in this narrative, and I think the film would have been better off without them. This would give the film a much more focused narrative. I also think you could probably take out the airport fight (where a lot of the excess plotlines converge) and make the movie better overall. That fight feels more like more of a diversion than actually in service of plot or character. It's too long and I also think it takes away from some of the impact of Tony and Steve's climactic battle when we've just watched them punching each other for half an hour. But I have a hard time complaining about any of this excess, and the reason is that I really, really like all of this stuff. I still reserve my complaints about the airport scene, but I think it definitely gives the movie a bit of a jump-start in the energy department. Like both of the movies I've watched before this, I think it struggles to build up momentum in the first act. Tom Holland is perhaps the best Spider-Man we've had on-screen, and Rudd has some pretty good chemistry with the rest of the Avengers.

I think this film was the first MCU film to really learn and evolve from its mistakes. Unlike the one-dimensional Loki or the decidedly  non-intimidating Ultron, Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) is a pretty great villain, in my opinion, and I think it's a shame that he doesn't get talked about much these days. He is sympathetic and the fact that he wins via his mind rather than his fists makes him a welcome departure from most Marvel villains. Civil War also dodges the classic Marvel problem of a boring, CGI heavy third act, because in this movie the third act battle is between Tony and Steve, and it has real emotional weight. The film also improves on the MCU's hand-to-hand fighting scenes. They're still poorly edited, but they're framed so that you are actually able to see what's going on.

Tony Stark: much more vulnerable.

Speaking of Tony, this is probably Robert Downey Jr.'s best performance so far. Whether it's a comedic one or an emotional one, he shines in every scene he's in. He plays the character as much more vulnerable than we've previously seen, to great effect.  Chadwick Boseman also makes a strong first impression as the Black Panther, and Elizabeth Olsen is much better as Scarlet Witch than she was in Age of Ultron, and her character is much better written overall. Anthony Mackie's Falcon and Don Cheadle's War Machine are a little irritating at points but I think Mackie plays off Sebastian Stan's Bucky really well (which makes me more hopeful for the upcoming TV series that will pair them together) and I really like the place they took War Machine in kind of paralysing him, which serves to a) give the movie higher stakes, and b) humanises him beyond just being Tony's sidekick. Stan is really good as he gets to play a Bucky sort-of halfway between the coldness of the Winter Soldier and the warmth of The First Avenger's Bucky. Oddly, for a Cap film, it doesn't feel like Chris Evans doesn't have that much to do in this film. He kind of gets lost in the mix, but he remains the emotional crux of the film.

I think the first act pacing problems mostly stem from the screenwriters misjudging which scene to put as their opening scene. I like the 1991 scene and how it comes back later, but it doesn't give the film much energy going in. If the film had started with the Lagos fight, I think it would have been easier to build up momentum. The 1991 scene is reiterated when Steve and Falcon are interrogating Bucky, anyway. The score is a little hit-or-miss but I like the use of traditional African music for Black Panther and I really like the music over the final fight, which increases its impact.

I don't think Civil War is the best written or the best paced or even the funniest movie of the three I've rewatched so far for this blog, but it's definitely the one with the most heart. The third act has more impact on a viewer that's been with the movies for a while than any other Marvel movie could hope to have. It's a toss-up between this and the first Avengers, but this might be the best film in this watchthrough so far.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐