We seem to be in the "smash your favorite action figures together" phase of superhero movies.
Between Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice in March, this past weekend's Captain America: Civil War, and X-Men: Apocalypse at the end of the month, our superhero movies suddenly really like pitting protagonists against one another. And though I can't speak for X-Men: Apocalypse (which hasn't come out yet), Captain America: Civil War is far superior to Batman v. Superman at balancing multiple protagonists, executing myriad plot threads, and simultaneously exemplifying and challenging the conventions of the comic book genre.
Like Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War focuses on the collateral damage of superheroics, and the attendant issues--vigilantism or heroism? Outlaws or fulfillers of the law?--it raises. Unlike Batman v. Superman, however, Civil War does this in ways that seem both logical and unpretentious. A mass-casualty incident indirectly caused by the Avengers, combined with the massive civilian toll of the groups prior world-saving efforts, convinces the global powers-that-be to regulate superhero activity, basically turning The Avengers into government agents. Credible characterizations, established in this and earlier movies, divide the key players over this issue. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.,), haunted by guilt and desperate, as in previous movies, to create a system--engineer that he is--that regularizes world-saving, is happy to sign up. Steve Rodgers/Captain America (Chris Evans), motivated, as always, by a strong sense of inner duty and skeptical from his past experiences of government overreach, is loathe to relinquish his conscience to the state.
The rest of the players sort themselves accordingly. Newbies T'Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman, who lends the role a restrained elegance) and Peter Parker/Spiderman (Tom Holland, who rejuvenates this now-familiar hero with a refreshing dose of youthful energy) join Team Iron Man; Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd, borrowed from his movie and funny as ever), Sam Wilson/The Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and others join Team Cap. Further complicating matters is the lingering presence of Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). He is still trying--at Cap's urging--to return to his pre-brainwashed assassin self*, despite the efforts of Machiavellian schemer Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) to use him as a weapon to unravel The Avengers to avenge his family (killed in the aftermath of The Avengers' battle against Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron).
If this all sounds like a lot, well--it is. But somehow, directors Anthony and Joseph Russo (Community, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFreely (Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) manage to juggle it all without descending into chaos or Zack Snyder-esque levels of dark pretentiousness. Civil War is, at times, a dark movie by Marvel standards, but it never loses its propulsive comic book sensibilities. And these sensibilities are on full display in the Avenger-on-Avenger battle that the whole movie builds toward. Somehow, a fight between characters of wildly different--and, in many cases, wildly asymmetric--powers and abilities, not only (mostly) makes sense (or at least as much sense as these things can make), but represents arguably one of the best and most faithful reproductions of comic book storytelling on the big screen yet.
Yet for as perfectly as Civil War nails the trappings of the comic book genre, it also, in important ways, both subverts and refines them. For Civil War doesn't just manage a non-heavy-handed exploration of themes about as weighty as a comic book movie can manage (most obviously, whether superheroes defend the law or undermine it). It also avoids some of its genre's common cliches, such as, most notably, the third-act-world-in-peril climax, dispensing with that in favor of some genuinely moving interactions between characters whom we, after spending at least one prior movie or more with most of them, know and genuinely care for. The contrast with Batman and Superman's rushed introduction, relationship, and fight in Batman v. Superman is instructive--and unfavorable to Batman v. Superman.
One can, of course, always find things with which to quibble. The two most powerful characters in the movie, The Vision (Paul Bettany) and The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) have often conveniently elastic abilities, more or less powerful/involved as the plot requires to make sense. Spider-Man is fun***, but gets as artificially introduced into the proceedings as Wonder Woman in Batman v. Superman. With everything else going on, Captain America himself sometimes fades into the background of a movie that bears his name (it's really more of an Avengers movie anyway**). And Baron Zemo, the antagonist driving much of the plot, is decidedly one-note as a villain, which one could interpret favorably or unfavorably (as a confirmation of the "Marvel villain problem" of unexciting MCU antagonists) depending on how colorful one prefers his villains. Or you could react to this indifferently, since you see Civil War to watch the heroes fight each other. In such a setup, the villain matters far less. Again, one can quibble, but a good movie emerges regardless.
Yet for all that, something about Civil War still unsettled me. This review mentions the far-inferior Batman v. Superman several times. For Civil War succeeds in pretty much all aspects--plot, characters, themes, acting, patient establishment over years of the foundation for a good movie--at which Batman v. Superman failed. At the same time, however, the two movies are basically the same thing: comic book movies with simple, crass, cynical, commercial motivations, designed to perpetuate a "cinematic universe" by setting up future adventures for old and new characters, theoretically for the rest of time. Civil War just does it better. Maybe it's just that these movies are doing less for me as I begin to age out of the coveted "18-to-24-year-old male" demographic. Or maybe the prospect of superhero movies as far as the eye can see left me a bit disturbed as I left the theater. I suppose that as long as studios keep churning out movies like Civil War (though I wonder how many movies can successfully throw in the kitchen sink like it did), I have little basis to worry. But that can't go on forever.
Can it?
*Memorably referred to by one character as The Manchurian Candidate.
**Minus The Hulk and Thor, out in space somewhere at this time.
***I particularly enjoyed his (accurate, but who really cares; it's a comic book movie) dig on Captain America's shield: "That thing does not obey the laws of physics at all!"
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