Review of Captain America: Civil War

After Captain America: Winter Soldier (which I liked a lot), Captain America seem to have taken over the mantle of the main Marvel franchise from Iron Man. For most of Captain America: Civil War; that view holds up.

Taking place about a year after Avengers: Age of Ultron, the movie starts with the Avengers laying in wait for Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo in a cameo). In the ensuring fight, Rumlow blows himself up, hoping to kill Captain America (Chris Evans). Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) saves the Captain by moving the blast into the sky with telekinesis.

Unfortunately, the blast destroys a nearby building, killing several humanitarian workers from the kingdom of Wakanda. The situation becomes a political hot potato and U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) informs the Avengers of the Sokovia Accords. The Accords will establish a UN panel to oversee and control The Avengers.

The team is divided on this with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) supporting the accords and Rogers wanting the team to remind independent of any government. At the UN conference in Vienna where the accords are to be ratified, a bomb kills the king of Wakanda. Security footage shows the bomber being Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), the Winter Soldier. The new king of Wakanda, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), vows vengeance.

Informed of the government's intentions to kill him, Rogers decides to bring in Barnes, his childhood friend and war comrade, alive. The situation escalates and The Avengers are spilt into two, with members either with Iron Man or Captain America.

Now, as a movie, I thought Captain America: Civil War was excellent. Much like the recent Batman vs Superman, it asked serious questions about violence and vigilantism only this time, the movie has guys on both sides of the equation. This gave Captain America: Civil War an advantage as the movie is able to switch views convincingly.

Credit must also be given to directors Anthony and Joe Russo who managed to successfully juggle all the characters in the movie. Everyone got a chance to shine, even long mostly forgotten heroes like War Machine (Don Cheadle). However the best lines go to new heroes like Spiderman (Tom Holland), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) so it’s not like the directors don’t know where the current Marvel movie is going.

The action was mostly solid and with a strong story, everything looks great…until the end of the movie.

Say what you want about Batman vs Superman, but one thing almost everyone agrees on is that BvS landed the ending. The ending of that movie was great. It was wonderful. The ending of Captain America: Civil War unfortunately sucks!

I won’t spoilt the ending here but after all the fights, the arguments, and the big reveal near the end; Stark and Rogers came to an “understanding”. The unfortunate thing is I can’t understand how that understanding came about after just a letter and a promise of future help?

I’m sorry but even for a superhero movie, that’s ridiculous. I can understand Marvel felt a need to have both Iron Man and Captain America staying friendly with each other for the movies going forward but this ending looks like something from another movie. It just doesn’t make sense.

That in essence was the movie. A good, almost great, movie that was utterly destroyed by an ending that came from another movie. Good movie…pity about the ending though.