Captain America: Civil War – A Deeply Flawed Plot.

Why are you fighting? STAHP!

WARNING: If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you’re in the spoiler section of my review. Expect total spoilers for the entirety of Civil War.

Our heroes can only be made strong by a good script, and this one was not. Look, I get that most people weren’t expecting a similar movie to those done in the past, but I want to get the point of why this film needed more time in the bakery to at least explain some things to the audience. As I have said many times before, there is a difference between needing to spoon feed your audience and failing to make sense of critical plot elements.

What do I mean by that?

Why Captain America Is Right And The Sokovia Accords Make No Sense.

Let’s just put superheroes under oversight. It worked SO WELL the last time we tried it!

As I said in the non-spoiler section, Civil War features the Sokovia Accords, which is an international agreement spearheaded by the United Nations to rein in the Avengers. The story resorts to shaming the Avengers after their deployment to Lagos to stop Crossbones (Frank Grillo) from stealing a biological weapon. When the former HYDRA operative is cornered, he resorts to blowing himself up in order to avoid capture and take as many of the Avengers down with him, but the explosion is flung into the sky and accidentally kills Wakandan aid workers instead.

After the Battle of Sokovia, my jaded self can understand why the Avengers may need a stern talking-to, but it is hard to see the argument for an oversight panel when three of the four major incidents in this series were caused government incompetence and infiltration. For all the newbies out there, let’s recap:

• The Avengers – A Chitauri invasion of New York City is barely contained by the Avengers until a nuclear weapon is launched by the World Security Council (infiltrated by HYDRA) without the knowledge of the team on the ground. New York City would have been obliterated with millions dead if it weren’t for the quick intervention of Iron Man.
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier – The Secretary of State blames the destruction of the Helicarriers in Washington D.C. on Captain America… except that it stopped a global extermination campaign by a HYDRA-infested SHIELD.
• The Avengers: Age of Ultron – The blame for Ultron’s creation falls entirely on the shoulders of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Okay, so why blame someone with no technical knowledge like Captain America when it was done without his knowledge?
• Captain America: Civil War – Just how did Crossbones escape from government custody after Winter Soldier?! And how did Zemo get to Bucky as an employee of the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre without changing his face (like through that masking device) in any way?

Given everything that has happened in this universe, Captain America is totally right. Sure, there has been some collateral damage in their activities, but it almost always came because they were cleaning up someone else’s messes.

Sharon and Cap Happened. Cue The SJW Whinging!

On the positive side, Emily VanCamp can act the hell out of whatever she’s given… but everyone can do better than “Hey, I met you once or twice in the hall, wanna make out?”

I’m okay with romance in a way that feels natural to the existence of the accompanying movie, so imagine my surprise when I see Cap and Sharon Carter make out half way through the movie. In between reading crybaby posts about how this was an affront to slash-fic writers, I was wondering where the hell this entire relationship came from after they spent all of two or three minutes on screen together.

All they really seemed like was friendly neighbors and work colleagues. Sure, Cap may have asked her out like the god-tier hero that he is, but that doesn’t mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things. What makes her so different when he rejected every other person that Black Widow tried to set him up with?

I’d love to tell you, but they never once tried to explain anything because the script is all over the place.

Show Me The Tone!

Tom Holland is a great Spider-Man, but is this movie supposed to be all that funny?

And on that very same subject, is this movie trying to be funny or serious? One of the key reasons why I ask this is because it undermines the story when it moves between the two extremes. Sure, it is fun to include Spider-Man and Ant-Man because they have little investment in this conflict and can wisecrack with the best of them, but it is undermined when Tony Stark has angry outbursts over the Accords.

This is a deviation from each of the other movies because their laser focus allowed for a reasonably consistent tone. The Avengers set a largely fun, comic-book style tone, whereas Winter Soldier ventured into the territory of a conspiracy thriller. They both had moments of comic relief, but you could tell that they were trying to put the story first.

Now look at Civil War. The entire seriousness of having the Avengers fight one another is blown to pieces in the airport scene, especially when Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) quips to Black Widow that, “We’re still friends, right?”

Yes. We’re still friends, Clint. That’s why she is a part of a team that is shooting lasers at you and punching you in the face!

What A Walking Plot Convenience!

That’s nothing, newspaper writers. You should see this movie!

I want everyone to also think about Zemo’s plan and how Bucky figures into the story because it opens up another can of crazy the size of Sokovia. Apparently, Zemo (a Sokovian terrorist that initially framed Bucky for blowing up the UN building in Europe) has a tape in his possession that pointed out that Bucky was responsible for killing Stark’s parents.

So, how would it have worked if Tony just decided not to follow Cap and Bucky to the Winter Soldier freezing ground? Did he read the script and know what was coming?

And even more troublingly, why would their deaths have been ruled an accident? I’m not sure how incompetent or HYDRA-controlled the MEs in this universe are, but there is a world of difference between being punched and strangled and smacking your head on the steering wheel. And it is especially funny when you consider that Bucky SHOT OUT A CAMERA that exposed his face.

Did HYDRA replace or rewrite the footage? Were the police paid off to cover it up? Are they just that brain-damaged that they cannot tell when a car has its tires blown out by someone else on the road?

I’d love to tell you, but I have no idea. Once again, let me remind you. This is not spoon-feeding. These are universe-shaping details that are left in the garbage heap!

Conclusion.

What are you doing, Tony? He just wants you to hold his hand.

Look, it is undeniable that Civil War was going to be successful. The Marvel movies are a brand that has the goodwill to market a piece of trash covered in tetanus, slap a character logo on it, sell it in any way they wished, and they would run out of material before people started dying from it. But here’s the thing.

These movies deserve to be so much more than just something that comes off the assembly line every year. Sure, you could still do that because it prints money, but I believe that it has to come with the ideal of putting story and quality first. Even if Hollywood has marked you as their chosen one, you still have a duty to put out your best, even when you get funny ideas that push you away from that hallowed goal.