Our Captain reviews Marvel’s Captain in his newest installment:
Are you guys ready for another slightly vague remembering of a film I saw a few weeks ago?!
For this week’s review I’m listening to Angel Olsen. She purty. I think the only good take away from watching the film Lamb was that it introduced me to her music during the ending credits. Best music to top off your movie about a 40 year old guy seducing a 10 year old!
So Captain America Civil War. I loved this movie when I saw it. Like I said before, it has been a few weeks since I’ve seen it, so…
Also I really want to get this out of the way first before you read any further. This review will contain all the spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, stop reading. But then again I fully expect everyone to stop reading after I mentioned Lamb. A film I was planning on reviewing but got like a page in and said you know what, nope, too creepy.
Nothing creepy about Captain America Civil War though. Well, that is if you don’t count the uncanny valley CGI young version of Robert Downey Jr., the gimmick being it is supposed to be CGI, because we are watching a hologram. Really the only reason this is in the film is to set up Tony’s melancholy about his long dead parents. What is with superheroes and their dead parents?
So we start off with an action sequence. Duh, it’s a Marvel movie, of course we start off with a bang. From the trailers I thought Crossbones was going to be the main villain in this film. I had no idea who that character was, but it was mentioned that a character from Winter Soldier was going to be a villain later on, I did some homework on him. But all that seems kind of pointless seeing as the character dies in the first 10 minutes.
I’m not sure what they were doing, I thought robbing banks, but they seemed to be after some kind of biological agent that will kill… or infect… it was red and in a tube, that always equals bad.
I’m not even sure what happened to it. Two guys run off with it while Crossbones stays behind to blow himself up. But what happened to the vial? I think Scarlett Johansson showed up to kick their asses maybe…
I’ve been noticing something lately when it becomes time for the ladies to fight in movies or tv shows. They all do this spin around the neck move. It has become so predictable that you know it is going to happen if a female fighter has to duke it out with anybody. I think I first noticed it while watching either Arrow or Agents of Shield. They must all share the same damn fight chorographer or something. Seriously, next time you watch something with a female fighter, watch for the spin around the neck move.
Where was I?
Crossbones blowing himself up, that’s right. This is actually pretty important to the plot because Elizabeth Olsen’s character Scarlet Witch wraps the explosion in her magic mind witch powers but it is too much for her, and as she is trying to toss it into the sky, it blows up the side of a building with a ton of people in it.
She done goofed.
Now Tony Stark is dead set on some regulation for the Avengers and powered people in general. It does seem kind of unusual for this character to take this stance, it does seem like the roles were reversed a bit.
Really it is Captain America who should be taking the more regulation by the government stance. After Winter Soldier though I guess I can see why he’d be a bit nervous about any kind of government oversight, but… it still doesn’t really fit for these characters. Not really. Again, we’ve had several movies to get to know them and what they’re about. And having them act out of character is really noticeable when it happens.
Take Tony Stark for instance and him suddenly becoming a sad sack over his dead parents. But also that can be explained. We find out Pepper Potts has left him, putting him in the dumps, making him think about family… Not to mention the aftermath of Age of Ultron. Even though they did stop the equivalent of an extinction level asteroid from crashing to earth, they still had some casualties.
Crossbones blowing himself up just set things over the edge.
Tony wants to sign the agreement, while Captain America is completely against it. Division goes down the group. Black Widow and War Machine being onboard while Capt and Falcon taking a stand against it.
Everything is thrown into even more chaos when an explosion rips through a building the UN is meeting at to discuss the matter. This introduces us to Black Panther. Whose father was killed during the explosion and now wants revenge.
The main suspect for the bombing is Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier. So now Capt has to save his friend before the government gets to him or before he kills anyone else. But Bucky was framed.
The real culprit being… just some dude. Yup, the big bad this time around is just some guy looking to take revenge on the Avengers because his family got killed during the events in Age of Ultron. I guess really you could look at the superheroes themselves are the big bads this time around… I don’t know. It was a superhero movie with no real villain to fight but themselves.
Tony wants to bring Bucky in before things really escalate out of control, but Capt ain’t havin’ any of that. He wants to get his boy to a plane so they can stop the supposed bad guy from awakening even more Winter Soldiers.
This is where the big fight happens. And holy hell is it glorious. Tony’s side has Black Widow, War Machine, Black Panther, Vision and introducing Spider-Man. More on him later.
Captain America has Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Falcon and Ant-Man. Kind of a power difference there. The whole time during this epic fight, I kept thinking, why not just have Vision handle everything. He’s basically this unstoppable being. I guess maybe that’s why he kind of sits out this fight. I mean he is there, it’s just he kind of disappears sometimes. It felt like everything would be over quickly if Vision handled everything.
So the two highlights for me, three if you count Black Panther were Spider-Man and Ant-Man. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Ant-Man’s solo film. It felt like something was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Thankfully here he is perfect. He was used the right way, the lines he says were funny, seeing him become giant was pretty fantastic. I really liked the line that followed it with I’ve only tried this once and I passed out. Or something along those lines. I also really enjoyed the scene where he shrinks inside Tony’s suit and messes around with some wires. All really great stuff.
Now for Spider-Man. He’s fantastic in this. From what I hear from big Spider-Man fans this is the best portrayal of the character we’ve ever had. He’s at the right age, is quick and witty, a bit of a smartass.
I do remember some hubbub about Marisa Tomei playing Aunt May. But Aunt May being really old never made sense to me. Aunt means she is his dead mom’s sister, right? So they’d basically be about the same age. Her being an old granny really doesn’t make sense. Feel free to correct me. I mean, why would Peter’s mom be like in her late 30’s maybe early 40’s and her sister be pushing 70? It don’t make no fuckin’ sense!
Anyway, Spider-Man is fantastic in this. It really makes you excited for another reboot. I know, I know. But the property is in safe hands now. Sony can’t hurt you anymore.
As for Black Panther the newly introduced superhero, he was pretty cool. I do wish we got to learn more about him though. Like his suit, where did that come from? Or his ability to run really fast or seem almost inhuman. Need more info, I guess it is good we’re getting a solo film then.
Bucky and Capt manage to get away on a plane, having the rest of Capt’s crew get arrested and imprisoned on some metal island out in the middle of the ocean.
Tony is finally warming up to the possibility that Bucky was framed and there is a bigger threat out there planning something. So Tony goes after them.
During the film we keep getting introduced to flashbacks of Bucky as the Winter Soldier doing a hit job. As soon as they started doing this, I knew it was going to be revealed that it was Tony’s parents in the flashback that Bucky kills.
The bad guy’s real plan was to tell Tony this and set him off so he’ll kill Bucky or Capt would have to kill Tony to try and stop him. And that is when the other epic fight happens. Tony being blinded by rage wanting Bucky dead. Eventually they do overpower Tony and that is basically where the film ends. Everyone kind of hating each other.
It did break up the morose atmosphere with another great Stan Lee cameo, calling Tony Stark, Tony Fart.
Everything is kind of in a dark place now. Capt is on the run, half of The Avengers are either arrested or crippled.
Why wasn’t The Hulk in this? It might have been a great opportunity to maybe introduce the setup for a Planet Hulk. I think a new Hulk film might work. We got the perfect Bruce Banner now with Mark Ruffalo, a Planet Hulk could work, damn it. It might be a bit too much like John Carter, but I want to see Hulk smash stuff again.
Final thoughts, great film, better than Age of Ultron but not as good as Winter Soldier. Check it out.
