Captain America: Civil War

Preemptive apology if there is already a thread for this - I searched, but came up empty handed

Now, with the disclaimers handled...OMFG - They NAILED it. Went to see it yesterday for my b-day...had a GREAT time. Awesome Fighting, good plot, just enough character development to keep it interesting without getting to nitty-gritty. I was thoroughly impressed. The fights between Iron Man (my fave) and Cap/Bucky were incredible. The choreography was very well done (even though a whoooole lot of it was CG).

5 stars, would watch again

Agreed. The MCU just continues to knock it out of the park, movie after movie. This one might be my second-favorite behind the first Avengers, just ahead of Winter Soldier and Iron Man 1. That fight scene at the airport... wow!

Umm.... why is my post in bold type?

Agreed.

Now more importantly: Team Captain or Team Ironman?

Your boldness was my fault...

And, yes, the airport fight was unreal, but the Cap/Bucky vs IM was waaaaay more betterer.

Also, as for the Yanks or Rebs debate, Ive been a Tony Stark fan since before the movies.

+1 to all of the above.

Also saw it on my B-day and will watch it again and again.

KyAllroad wrote: Agreed. Now more importantly: Team Captain or Team Ironman?

My heart says Tony but my head says Steve. I so love RDJ in that role, but I'm more of a "freedom" guy, so I'm Team Cap.

Finally saw it yesterday myself since the last two weekends haven't worked out. Loved it as expected- they definitely know what they're doing on pretty much all counts. When all of the different threads came together at the end for the big reveal of what was really going on it was just perfect.

Not there there weren't nitpicks that stood out to me... the biggest being the same one that was pointed out in the Winter Soldier Honest Trailer: how the heck does Stark, with likely more computing power at his disposal than the rest of the planet combined, NOT know all the juicy tidbit of what was in the data that was released when SHIELD fell apart because of Hydra (which he should have know about anyway after Avengers when he hacked into SHIELD's files on the helicarrier). That one guy scouring through the files could come up with everything he did and that Stark's super-AI(s) would have completely overlooked all of it just doesn't make sense.

I gotta go with Tony, I always root for the non super power guy with cool toys. Now, I expect Tony to exploit from within. You already saw that, pretend to play by the rules then do what he wants, hence going to the arctic.

Oh yeah, and he has an Audi R8 and he's got to get back together with Pepper, and who doesn't want Gwyneth Paltrow

I liked it a lot.
That being said, if you had told me ahead of time that I was going to leave the theater on Team Cap, I'd have laughed in your face.
But no, Tony - and Vision especially - acted like twats, I'm angrily on Team Cap.

Bonus points for partway through when the lightbulb went off and I realized where I recognized the bad guy from (Rush)

I agree with Ashyukun, usually when a movie tries to tie in too many characters/storylines, it comes off cheesy. THis was really well done, without uneeded garbage or awkward tie-ins.

I too was miffed a bit at Tony for keeping SW locked up "for her own good". That said, I think he was for once trying to do the right thing without (as much of) a personal agenda like he'ds had in the past.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I gotta go with Tony, I always root for the non super power guy with cool toys. Now, I expect Tony to exploit from within. You already saw that, pretend to play by the rules then do what he wants, hence going to the arctic. Oh yeah, and he has an Audi R8 and he's got to get back together with Pepper, and who doesn't want Gwyneth Paltrow

Count me as one who wouldn't want to find Paltrow in his bed. I find her grating and completely useless as a person and in the various roles she has chosen for herself.

Man that movie was long.

And the base plot was stolen from Pixar's Incredibles.

That being said, I liked it a lot more that the last Avengers, which I thought was too busy and overdone just the sake of more.

How long until Spiderman switches sides? Working with the recognized authorities will never work out for him in the long run. (I liked the new Spiderman BTW, it's a shame that Toby McGuire only looks good until you compare him to everyone else who's been in the role )

The new SpiderMan looks like it could be great, I just hope they dont re-re-redo the whole backstory with the bite and uncle Ben, the wrestling and all the rest...we get it, ENOUGH ALREADY!

And, I was perfectly happy with the Toby movies, until "the dance" happened. At that point, I checked out

Epic Fail:

Was Team Iron Man going in and stayed that way. Awesome to see the MCU version of the Bleeding Edge suit. Black Panther was pretty cool too, he kicked all of the ass. I think he's the only person who has straight dominated Winter Soldier in a fight. Would also like to applaud Zemo as well. He's just a normal human and he did what gods and AI's couldn't do, drove the Avengers apart.

My one complaint (And I am a huge fan of the MCU, so don't think I'm anti-MCU) is that the MCU films tend to wrap up a little too neatly. The bad guys end up dead (except for Loki and Zemo) and the good guys all go home at the end of the day (except Quicksilver, RIP). You never really worry too much because, as a whole, you know everyone is going to pull through (Hell, even Helen Cho survived an Ultron blast to the chest and Phil Coulson survived an Asgardian scepter through the heart). It'd be good to kill a character off once in a while, make us really wonder if a character is going to pull through.

In the run-up to Civil War they made a big deal about how they had filmed 3 different character death scenes (War Machine, Scarlet Witch and Cap) and how one was going to make it into the film. Guess what? None made it in. I mean, the Civil War comic ended with Cap getting murdered by Crossbone and Sharon Carter! Sooner or later they are going to have to start eliminating people because the overlap is getting insane. Avengers 3 is supposedly going to feature 67 different characters. Hopefully they wipe some out to free up room, I mean Thanos is kind of a murdering machine.

Enjoyed it. Refreshing to see a reasonable plot line after that Batman VS Superman fiasco.

Iron man was and is my favorite character but I couldn't be in his side in this one.

Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I gotta go with Tony, I always root for the non super power guy with cool toys. Now, I expect Tony to exploit from within. You already saw that, pretend to play by the rules then do what he wants, hence going to the arctic. Oh yeah, and he has an Audi R8 and he's got to get back together with Pepper, and who doesn't want Gwyneth Paltrow

Count me as one who wouldn't want to find Paltrow in his bed. I find her grating and completely useless as a person and in the various roles she has chosen for herself.

Agreed. And looks-wise, she's nothing special by Hollywood standards. I've always found her kind of plain.

Cap, on the other hand, went from this:

To this:

Cap wins. Even his friends think so:

Loved the movie

And team Cap all the way

Great movie, on par with Avengers 1.

I'm firmly on Team Tony though. If Cap has his way, the next movie could be The Avengers vs. The Whole Pissed-Off World (or a re-enactment of the beginning of The Incredibles). They should ask Batman...err, Spider-Man, what it's like to try to conduct superhero business while being a fugitive, which is just the start of the problems they'd face. Cap's plan to run a team of benevolent superpowered vigilantes isn't sustainable.

This is what happens when you decide to put realistic politics in a superhero movie (It was also the best, or least bad, part of Batman vs. Superman)

Steve's "Wise and benevolent authoritarian" worldview is completely understandable, given he's the product of 1930s and 40s America. And I think what's most frustrating for Tony Stark is that he sympathizes with and shares that worldview, but he knows now because of what he's been through that it's an unrealistic worldview.

His dad shared that worldview as well, and even created the guy who is the champion of it before realizing maybe it wasn't the best idea, and was murdered for his troubles. The fact that Tony travels the same path without even knowing makes it all the more of a gut punch when he finds out what happened to his parents.

But, yeah, I loved the movie and thought it was a masterful juggling act. The Russo Brothers (who got their start on Arrested Development, and even included a brief glimpse of the Bluth Stair Car during the Avengers airport showdown) did an amazing job of making a movie full of characters that somehow doesn't feel overstuffed. I feel like everyone I saw on screen managed to have a complete arc at some point, even if it was just a short one.

Which was in direct contrast to Age of Ultron which just seemed like two+ hours of noise and spinning and explosions. The thing the Russo's do very well, in both this and Winter Soldier, is to make the stakes personal. Ultra threatening to blow up a whole city of nameless, faceless Slobovians or whatever is just a meaningless narrative device to give everyone an excuse to fistfight. Everything in the Russo's narratives is personal.

Also, for the most part I like BvS. It was not without flaws, but it got a lot more right than it got wrong. Personally, I had no problem with the fact that Snyder's Batman will straight up murder you, because Batman is crazy, and the thing crazy people are best at is justifying their own insane behavior.

JG Pasterjak wrote: Also, for the most part I like BvS. It was not without flaws, but it got a lot more right than it got wrong. Personally, I had no problem with the fact that Snyder's Batman will straight up murder you, because Batman is crazy, and the thing crazy people are best at is justifying their own insane behavior.

I also liked BvS. And that version of Batman was based on the Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns Batman. Frank Miller's interpretation of Batman as a whole tends to be a little unhinged. I also think it was supposed to represent how he had grown bitter and cynical over the years and realized that his whole "don't kill anyone" policy had by-and-large not caused much of change so he'd gotten more lax about it. Also, if you look at any of the old "Gold Era" Batman comics, Batman killed a lot of people.

JG Pasterjak wrote: Steve's "Wise and benevolent authoritarian" worldview is completely understandable, given he's the product of 1930s and 40s America. And I think what's most frustrating for Tony Stark is that he sympathizes with and shares that worldview, but he knows now because of what he's been through that it's an unrealistic worldview.

Huh? Steve is the one rebelling against the higher authority, in this case the UN and the Sokovia Accords. Tony is the one who wants to be controlled by that group.

Tom_Spangler wrote:

JG Pasterjak wrote: Steve's "Wise and benevolent authoritarian" worldview is completely understandable, given he's the product of 1930s and 40s America. And I think what's most frustrating for Tony Stark is that he sympathizes with and shares that worldview, but he knows now because of what he's been through that it's an unrealistic worldview.

Huh? Steve is the one rebelling against the higher authority, in this case the UN and the Sokovia Accords. Tony is the one who wants to be controlled by that group.

Steve may be rebelling against a multinational authority, but by doing so ultimately he's saying he gets to decide what's right and what's wrong. Now, Captain America is probably a guy who's going to make some good decisions, but Tony understands that the real world isn't always run by people who make good decisions. An outlaw vigilante with the best of motives and intentions is still an outlaw. Tony tried to live that life and it nearly killed him and drove him a little nuts.

Gotta agree with you all, this movie was awesome. I did like this Spidey incarnation but I wish they kept Andrew Garfield. He played the role well, and he didn't cry all the time like Toby did. I read that Marvel is NOT doing a Spidey backstory, but are going back to him being 15 again. I love Marissa Tomei but she's too young for Aunt May. I really wanted to see comic book Zemo, with the mask. I felt he was much nastier back in the comics also. Still, it was a great movie, you never can tell when they bring in too many characters. I have to admit though, while I can't get enough of seeing these characters from my youth, alive on the big screen, and can't wait for the Marvel movies coming up next, im not really looking forward to Doctor Strange. Just not one of the heroes I liked.

Ideologically I was on team Cap's side all the way, but team Ironman had way better characters; specifically Spidey and Ant Man. Agreed that the airport scene was amazing. Looking forward to the new spiderman movies.