Captain America: Civil War

The first event listed in 6 Anticipated Events for a Nerdy Mom was seeing “Captain America: Civil War”, and now I can scratch that off my list. For Mother’s Day some ask for flowers, others jewelry or clothes, but I’ve known for quite some time that all I wanted for Mother’s Day was to see “Captain America: Civil War”. Our grandparents watched our son and we got to enjoy one of our favorite dates; going out to see a superhero movie. I was very excited about this movie. To me it is the Marvel version of Batman vs Superman, so naturally in my opinion it was bound to be ten times better. As far as I’m concerned it was. I probably shouldn’t call this a review. Reviews are supposed to be unbiased, this is very biased. I’ll call it my opinion and views on the movie rather, than a review. SPOILER WARNING: after this point significant details about the movie may be revealed.

Synopsis

The movie takes place a year after the events of “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and people want the Avengers to take responsibility for the destruction they caused and make better decisions. There are those that feel guilty enough about the innocent lives lost that they are willing to sign a document called the “Sokovia Accords”, created by the United Nations, to govern over the Avengers. In the wake of the signing of the Sokovia Accords it seems the Winter Soldier attacked the United Nations summit, killing the King of Wakanda. His attack caused people to believe even stronger that people with super abilities need to be put “in check”, but Captain America doesn’t buy it. He remains true to his decision, that the Avengers should make their own decisions and tries to help clear his friends name. It turns out the whole attack and scheme was of Zemo, a soldier from Sokovia, who wanted to get revenge on the Avengers for killing is family, by tearing them apart from the inside.

My Initial thoughts

On one side you have Iron Man and those that believe the Sokovia Accords are the best option for The Avengers. On the other side Captain America and the others that believe the Avengers should use their own judgement in deciding their actions. This is a major argument in any superhero series. It is pretty much what Batman vs Superman stemmed from except on a smaller, less awesome level. See Movie Review: Batman vs Superman. At first I didn’t know which team I would side with, but very shortly into the movie I began rooting for team Captain America. It is as the Cap said “What if they send us somewhere we shouldn’t be or don’t sent us somewhere we need to go.” Governments can’t be trusted with these types of things. The Sokovia Accords would turn the Avengers into some kind of team of henchmen. I had also been wondering about the absence of the Hulk and Thor. A little into the movie I understood why they couldn’t be in the movie. If the Hulk and Thor were to participate they would probably have been on team Captain America and with both of them on that team there would’ve been no fight. The God Thor would not have submitted to being ruled by mere mortals. And the Hulk would not allow the government to make him turn his beast “on and off” at their will. He didn’t even want to use it in the first place in the past “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. At first I wondered how it is a Captain America movie and not another Avengers movie. But it was not the Avengers being the Avengers. There was not world ending catastrophic event for the Avengers to assemble. This was Captain America trying to save his friend and the conflicts that arose from it.

Character Spotlights

There were several brilliant aspects of the movie in my opinion. The first thing that caught my eye was the budding romantic relationship between the Scarlet Witch and Vision. He is keeping her on “lock down” by Iron Man’s orders, but he is also trying to plant some seeds. He starts be attempting to cook for her then it does turn into a deeper conversation about their thoughts on the Sokovia Accords. And its like most of the Avenger’s members, they have different view points but still respect one another and want to avoid this major conflict that is about the occur.

The friendship between Iron Man and Captain America is obviously on the rocks, its the entire basis of the movie, but another interesting relationship dynamic comes from the Caps loyalty to Buckey, and that’s the relationship with Falcon. Its like Buckey is the friend from back home who never quite got it together, but they grew up and are like brothers and Falcon is the frat brother he met and college they are close now because they’ve experienced and helped each other so much to get where they are now. Falcon is completely loyal to Captain America, even though he knows he will go down with him. I’m not entirely sure if Falcon would’ve opposed the new laws if Captain America wasn’t. Now with Buckey all Captain America thinks about, its getting in the way of he and Falcon’s “bromance”. He even tells Buckey that he hates him, but they both come together in congratulatory looks when he kisses, Sharon Carter, Peggy Carter’s niece.

The best characters in the movie seemed to be the newer additions, including Black Panther, Spiderman, and Ant Man. It seemed like each team needed a bug. Spiderman and Ant Man provided some much needed comic relief and fun. Although, some would say that Spider-man’s role was unnecessary, his action scenes were some of the best and his youthful humor was much welcomed and has been the best Spider-Man I’ve seen on screen yet. Black Panther was EVERYTHING! In the movie he was seeking revenge for the death of his father, the king of Wakanda. He was strong and feline at the same time. I got chills every time he stuck a landing. As my husband said “he’s a cat, but not feminine like Catwoman.” They nailed the Black Panther. I am so glad to see another superhero of color represented. This may be a way to get more X-men integrated in the Avengers as they are in the comics. They have Scarlet Witch and had quicksilver, this could be a way to bring in Storm and then Wolverine. Fox and Disney need to get over themselves and let these movies intertwine as they did in the comics a lot. The whole Sovokia Accords tie right in the sides involved in mutant registration. But back to my man point Black Panther is OP. He has it all; wisdom, money, strength, power, I mean he’s a freaking King with super powers. He was the “REAL” hero of the movie and ended the cycle of revenge, by not killing Zemo once he found out he was responsible for his father’s death, not Buckey.

Possible Criticisms

There were probably all kinds of inaccuracies within the movie that some fanboys/girls hate. After watching Batman vs Superman I researched different things ( because I have not read a lot of comics) and began critiquing and comparing the inaccuracies. This movie itself was so good in my opinion that I don’t even want to know what they got wrong. I don’t want to ruin this good feeling I have about it. There are also those that are probably on the completely opposite side of me, thinking that Iron Man is right and the Avengers need a governing body. At the end of the movie, though, you see that Iron Man is questioning this and War Machine tries the reassure him that it was the wrong decision. If there was one flaw in the movie, I’d say that I expected more from Vision. His powers seemed like they should have completely overwhelmed anybody on the other side. The only person they had with that kind of power was Scarlet Witch and at this point she’s still a little untrained, but you could tell he already had a soft spot for her. Nobody was fight to their full potential, because this was a fight among friends, not trying to kill each other, but trying to get to a point when they can come together again. Some might say the movie was too long, but I wasn’t at any point waiting for it to be over. Another thing that really bothered me, was that I wanted Blank Panther to step into the Iron Man/Captain America fight and shed the same wisdom he had gained with them and ended the war. But it is a Civil War, so no way it could be ended this soon. They will probably continue it into other MCU movies, resolving it to protect the world from what ever catastrophic, world ending adversary they will meet up with in the 3rd Avengers installment.

I am completely biased. I love everything Marvel. It was a great movie, better than “Avengers: Age of Ultron” in my opinion and better than the rival “Batman vs Superman. Thank you, hubby, for my Marvelous Mother’s Day gift. Now the countdown to “X-Men: Apocalypse”