Captain America: Civil War

The official third Avengers film, Infinity War, opens this weekend so the past couple days seemed like perfect timing to devour the BluRay of the unofficial third Avengers film with today’s entry for 2016’s Captain America: Civil War (trailer). As I have stated on here before, the Captain America films have been my favorite stand alone movies in the MCU, so to see Civil War be more of an ensemble piece and more-or-less a Avengers movie was a little bit of a bummer at first. Reservations were quickly put to rest since the Russo brothers returned to direct, and once again they did not disappoint.

Civil War is based off a huge Marvel Comics event mini-series that transpired a decade earlier in 2006 where a tragedy of massive civilian lives lost during a routine New Warriors mission resulted in the government forcing heroes to register, reveal their identities and work for the government or go to jail. The heroes wind up in pro and anti-registration sides and eventually clash throughout the mini-series. The Civil War film is not a by-the-numbers adaptation however, a lot of the faces and settings involved are switched up, and while the overarching plot remains similar to the comic, how they get there is drastically changed from how it played out in print.

I am for most of the changes in the movie. The comic had tons of loopholes that got messier as it went along and resulted in a lackluster ending to the super-hyped Civil War comic series. The Russo brothers and Marvel Films did their homework and patched things up for the better. In the film, a routine mission for the New Warriors Avengers goes haywire at the beginning of the film, and this leads to the United States Government United Nations passing the Superhero Registration Act Sakovia Accords to force superheroes to register sign up and only go out in the field when called upon or else face prison and/or retirement. This still leads to Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans) splitting up the Avengers along with some new faces joining the fray. Meanwhile a new villain by the name of Zemo (Daniel Brühl) stirs things up unlike past antagonists where instead of facing the Avengers directly he opts to capitalize on the new rift among the team and re-introducing past tragedies to drive the wedge between the Avengers further apart until they ultimately collide in an epic clash against each other.

There are a few plot threads throughout relevant to primarily the Captain America films that barely nudges Civil War to identify more as a Captain America film than a Avengers movie. Bucky aka The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) returns who was the big focus of the previous Cap film, and Civil War has some interesting developments for Bucky that I liked how they played out. Rest assured the Winter Soldier has just as good if not better fight scenes than last time around. There is also nods to a few other characters from the first two films, but I have already went into a little more detail than I usually do with a film’s plot in my entries and will leave those surprises for you to see.

Civil War will also be remembered as the film that debuts two much anticipated characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. First is the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) who seeks out to avenge his father’s death, and this film does a tremendous job at debuting the Black Panther and psyched me up for his self-titled debut film that hit in 2018 and not disappoint. The other much anticipated MCU debut is that of Marvel’s most popular hero, Spider-Man (Tom Holland). Marvel Films finally reached a deal with Sony Studios to use Spider-Man in the MCU film cannon after Sony held the sole movie rights for nearly 15 years. I loved the scene they used introducing Spider-Man where they quickly and unorthodoxly brush past Spidey’s origin story. The last thing I wanted to see was a third movie this century retelling the web-head’s origin. Unfortunately, that debut scene was the only good scene involving Spider-Man, as he only appears in the big hero clash later on and most of his spots featuring him felt like they were glued in post-production while Spidey doles out lame wisecracks about Star Wars to the delight of no one.

Most of the MCU films have had notorious long running times, and Civil War is no exception at just over two hours and twenty minutes. However, since the movie has well over a dozen heroes to focus on throughout, it moves along at a brisk pace and is over before you know it. The Russo brothers are well-versed at how much exposition to have before marching right along to the next thrilling chase/fight sequence. Some of the heroes have smaller arcs or do not make their entrance until late into Civil War, but somehow, someway the Russo brothers found time to make sure that even the tiniest support roles had a established side-story and/or a handful of signature moments in the heat of battle.

There is a nice amount of extra features on the BluRay. There is a commentary track with directors Anthony & Joe Russo along with screenwriters Chris Markus & Stephen McFeely. There is rarely a lull between the four, and they provide a lot of insight on how they tried to keep as tight as a film as they could, filming winter scenes during a Atlanta heatwave and how Downey was a class act helping Holland out in his debut scene as Peter Parker, among countless other fascinating factoids and reflections. This is easily among the better commentary tracks I have heard thus far and if you can make time then I highly recommend giving it a listen.

I usually love the Marvel Films gag reels, but Civil War’s was a tad disappointing, but it is not that mammoth of a deal-breaker. There is one major extended scene at a certain funeral that got chopped up a bit in the final cut. There are two brief four minute features highlighting Captain America’s and Iron Man’s path to Civil War that are nice little bonuses, but not required viewing. The standout extra is a two-part making of feature titled, United We Stand, Divided We Fall that clocks in at a combined 55 minutes. Both features highlights one of several heroes and their involvement in the film along with interviews from the actor’s highlights on and off the screen and goes into aspects of the plot breaking down the new government policies and other pivotal moments.

By the time the film finished on my repeat viewings I was amped up on adrenaline once again and left highly anticipating Infinity War this weekend! Of the three primary Marvel heroes who got their own individual film trilogies, the Captain America films easily rank better as a whole when stacked against the Iron Man and Thor trilogies. Captain America: Civil War lives up to the high pedigree of the prior two films, and I am incredibly stoked that the Russo brothers are directing Infinity War and cannot wait for what they have in store for theaters this weekend! If you are one who picks and chooses which Marvel movies are worth your time, then by all means make it a priority to see Civil War pronto because it is the perfect primer that lays the ground work for Avengers: Infinity War.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
The Eliminators
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Joy Ride 1 & 2
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-5
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past