You know, sometimes it’s hard to come up with
subtitles for these posts (especially when there’s already a subtitle built
into the title). This was one of the
harder ones, for sure. It would’ve been
easy to go with something pithy yet meaningful, like “No, You Move” or “End of
the Line”. In terms of the movie’s
context, there are even more examples I could’ve pulled from.
But I decided to christen it “SummerSlam”, because
within the first ten minutes -- if that -- Captain America drop kicks a dude
thirty feet away, while Black Widow seems to have picked up a few moves from
Rey Mysterio. Also, the whole movie is
pretty much about a big punch-up between a colorful cast of characters, so why
not compare it to a major wrestling event?
Besides -- and this is the important bit -- there are a lot of moments
where Captain America: Civil War becomes
less of a fist-pumping spectacle and more of a brutal, painful, heart-wrenching
treatise on why fighting your friends can go so wrong so fast. We could use a little levity.
It’s fine, though.
Civil War is exactly what I
wanted -- which doesn’t say good things about me, but who cares?
Our world’s about to break
Tormented and attacked
Lost from when we wake
With no way to go back…to a time before you weren’t SPOILED
by the SPOILERS in this post.
(That’s how the song goes, right?)
Okay, so here’s the setup. Captain America is leading a team of fellow
superheroes -- in this case, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch -- on a
mission in Africa to stop some terrorists from getting their hands on a deadly
chemical agent. At the start, it seems
like another routine mission; the teamwork’s on point, the bad guys get
punched, and nobody dies of horrible poisoning.
Unfortunately, people do end
up dying; the ringleader tries to blow himself up and take Cap with him, but
Scarlet Witch steps in to help. The
problem is that she air lifts him right next to an occupied building.
Having created a national incident, the
governments of the world are sick of the Avengers being at the center of one
disaster after another -- even if those incidents aren’t really their fault, but
screw it. They want control, or at least
some form of regulation, over the heroes.
Iron Man, having received a grim reminder of the collateral damage the
crew has caused from a grieving mother (whose son was caught in the crossfire),
buys wholesale into the idea, and several other heroes follow. Cap isn’t so eager to sign on with the
so-called “Sokovia Accords”, and he’s not the only one.
But of course, the team has more important things
to worry about. Bucky Barnes, AKA the
Winter Soldier, is still on the loose -- and his freedom causes a whole new set
of problems. Apparently, he’s
responsible for a terrorist bombing at the Accords’ signing, and his avoidance
of anyone with even a shred of authority doesn’t help his case. Cap’s willing to stick his neck out for his
old pal, but once more finds himself on the wrong side of the law. This time around, he’s got an armored Avenger
on his tail, and another conspiracy to blow wide open.
So I guess before I go any further, I need to ask
the big question du jour: are you “Team Cap” or “Team Iron Man”?
I thought I’d ask my brother and my buddy about
their thoughts on the subject, in the hopes that we could maybe have a good and
worthwhile discussion. You know, as a
way to try and see superhero movies as more than big-budget, box office-busting
brawls. To my surprise, they gave
answers without hesitation: they were on Team Iron Man. Why?
Because that was the team with the best heroes -- with a stacked deck,
so to speak. And also, that was the team
Spider-Man was on.
I didn’t exactly get the “worthwhile discussion” I
was looking for. But maybe that’s not a
bad thing -- and I’ll explain why later.
But for now? I can only speak for
myself here, and I have to admit that even if I would polish Captain America’s
boots with a rag made from my hair and soaked in my tears, there’s a part of me
that leans toward Team Iron Man. In
terms of the big picture, it’s a way to make sure superheroes of the future as
well as the present stay in check. It’s
probably not a good idea to have living weapons walking around all willy-nilly
and dispensing justice as they see fit (however destructively). So hey, maybe consolidating forces under a
single banner and ruleset isn’t so bad…especially since that consolidation means
being ready for threats to come.
But I’ve put some thought into it, and I have to
go with my gut -- which in this case means that I side with Team Cap. Sure, I can understand making the Avengers
accountable for their actions, and made to play for a specific (and sanctioned)
team. But can the government truly be
trusted to act and react to disasters as they come? Maybe in the Marvel universe, there are times
when the top brass will just say “Go, go, go!” and let the heroes roll out
without getting tied up by red tape.
Still, I’d like to think that I know just
enough about politics to suspect that even the most basic of processes can
take more time than the average geological age.
Government regulation is proven in-universe -- in
the span of the movie’s run time, if that -- to be a far cry from the rosy
solution Team Iron Man would’ve hoped for.
It’s revealed that the top brass has a massive submersible
fortress/prison ready for any unruly superheroes, and guess where most of Team
Cap winds up? Plus there’s the fact that
they’re willing to cage up people like Scarlet Witch (who’s genuinely shaken
and sorry for what she did -- which, and it must be stressed, was an accident) under the guise of
“protecting her”.
They’re willing to take away the freedoms of
Earth’s mightiest heroes, and quite literally.
Who’s to say it wouldn’t stop there?
What if they ended up ordering Falcon to go spy on foreign soil from the
skies above, or for Ant-Man to leave his daughter behind for some bite-sized
sabotage? What’s stopping those heroes
from turning into scapegoats if something goes awry?
I guess what I’m getting at here is that there’s
no clear answer. That’s kind of a cop-out
in some ways, in the sense that you’re not obligated or supposed to choose which
side you’re on. It’s not like that
debate isn’t a legitimate one -- albeit one in the realm of fantasy -- but said
debate doesn’t matter as much when people are willing to choose sides based on
what their favorite hero decides to do.
So I guess the only way to minimize the effect of one cop-out is to go
for another cop-out (which to be fair isn’t a bad thing; it’s just an expected
one). In this case, it’s about showing
both sides doing some nasty stuff in pursuit of their ideals.
Iron Man and Tony Stark alike opt for some pretty
grizzly stuff when the time comes.
That’s to be expected when the resident billionaire goes full tilt with hunting
down whoever he thinks is a fugitive (Bucky and Cap chief among them), but
let’s not even try to pretend like
the First Avenger is in the clear. From
the first few minutes on, it’s established that nothing gets to our hero like
Bucky, to the point where even a mention of him makes the super soldier freeze
up. Cap’s loyal to Bucky, which has been
made plainly obvious over the course of three separate movies. Honestly, I wouldn’t blame anyone that wanted
to start calling him “Captain Bucky” instead.
I’m all for a character who embodies loyalty, but
here it does some serious harm. Cap ends
up willingly abetting a criminal -- one that’s technically innocent for the
latest terrorist attack, but I doubt there are many people who’ll let a
murderer walk away with a slap on the wrist just because he was brainwashed
during his other crimes. So while Cap
goes to extremes to keep his pal alive, he ends up burning a lot of
bridges. Is he willing to kill anyone
that stands in his way? Well, he hits
dudes really hard, but at least he’s
trying not to kill anyone on purpose.
But the question for Steve and Tony alike is “At
what cost?” How far are these two men
willing to go for their ideals? For
their freedom? For their friends? I mean, Cap ends up pulling not one, but two family men -- Hawkeye and Ant-Man --
into a struggle that has yet to involve them, not to mention poor Falcon’s
getting strung along because he’s pals with the First Avenger. But if we’re going to point fingers at the
two recruiters, let’s point at Tony for dragging a fresh-faced kid who’s literally worried about not finishing
his homework from his home in Queens into an ideological (and eventually
physical) debate over freedom vs. security.
I mean, sure, that kid has superhuman strength,
agility, and senses. But…Christ,
Tony. He sounds like he’s barely out of
middle school.
Neither marquis superhero comes out of this movie
100% clean. Maybe that’s the entire
point; it’s cool to fight for what you believe in, but without perspective and
compromise, you end up jeopardizing your efforts. Does it really matter what side you’re on in
a debate if you’re using the worst means possible to achieve them? Cap’s not killing people, but he’s still
resisting arrest, assaulting officers -- people just trying to do their jobs --
crossing borders whenever he wants, and breaking God knows how many laws along
the way…well beyond the laws of his home country. The only moral high ground he’s allowed to
take is the one scraping the rooftops of hell.
Iron Man’s trying to get his comrade to do the
right thing, and for a while it seems like he’s the one that audiences should
believe in. But as you’d expect from
Tony “.99 BAC” Stark, his foibles and vices get the best of him. He may start out with good intentions, and he
may try to do the right thing for the sake of the world, but well before the
credits roll he starts letting his emotions rule him, not his reason. The level of anger -- and even viciousness --
he puts on display is almost frightening to watch, knowing that this is the
joker that’s become the face (if not the embodiment) of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe. This is a man who’s willing to
blast Falcon dozens of feet away with a point-blank shot to the chest during a
temporary cease-fire, all because his pal Rhodey got hurt. “It’s personal”, as they say. And it only escalates from there.
I’d think that most people look to the Marvel
movies for a chance to see superheroes fight the bad guys, fire off some snappy
quips, wear snazzy costumes, and save the day.
But given what happens in Civil War,
I’m kind of left wondering: are these guys really the heroes we know and
love? These are men and women that are
willing to turn on each other, confine each other, deceive each other, betray
each other, and pulverize each other just because they may or may not sign some
papers. Or just because they may or may
not trust a super-assassin. Or just
because they may or may not like one guy instead of another.
In that sense, maybe the movie’s central dilemma
is onto something. Maybe if the fate of
the world is in the hands of a bunch of loose cannons -- and that’s before you bring in living WMDs like
Hulk and Thor -- then they should have to sign Accords just to get bananas from
the grocery story. All it takes is one
bad day, and now twelve separate
superheroes have had that bad day.
But let me make something clear. Yes, Civil
War goes to some dark places, and it takes virtually all of its characters
to some dark places. These aren’t a
bunch of costumed do-gooders fighting against a Legion of Doom; they start off
as agents who take on some extreme missions, and then go from there to a bunch
of vigilantes willing to do whatever it takes to bring the other side
down. They’re hardwired to beat “the bad
guys”, but that definition’s a lot more muddled than what you’d see in a Superfriends episode. The Sokovia Accords and the Winter Soldier
frame-up are what impel the turn, but those are essentially catalysts for a
conflict that may have been destined to happen.
They simply brought out the worst in the best of people.
That’s not a fault with this movie. It absolutely
isn’t. I’ve established before that I
have a problem with stories that try to push irredeemable monsters as heroes,
but Civil War isn’t one of them. I still believe that deep down, these people are
heroes. They want to do the right thing,
but can and will go about it the wrong way -- as if, however briefly, they’ve lost their way. But I’m fine with that for this movie. This is something that needed to happen, and
I’m glad it did.
There are a lot of ways to do a dark story. And I’m thrilled to report that this,
unequivocally, is one form of dark done
right.
Yes, there are jokes -- as you’d expect from a
Marvel movie. There are lighthearted
moments. And it’s hard to dwell too much
on the weight of the plot and themes when it occupies the same 2½ hour block as
a brainwashed super soldier doing sick motorcycle drifting thanks to his evil
robot arm. That doesn’t make them any
less appreciable, though. It’s not a
movie with wall-to-wall violence and darkness; that sounds surprising given
that this is still an action movie (and one typecast as big dumb fun), but Civil War knows when it’s time to be
quiet.
It knows when to be loud. It knows when to be hilarious. It knows when to be somber. It’s a movie that -- for the most part --
avoids tonal clashes, even though one scene has Cap grieving over the death of
his old flame Agent Carter, and another scene has Vision trying to manage “a
pinch of paprika” while dressed like a nerdy sitcom dad.
I think that it’s a proof of the movie’s
confidence (and the whole studio’s, by extension) that they’re willing to have
so many seemingly-disparate tones in one shot.
Well, I guess at this stage you could call it “hubris” instead of
confidence, but as long as it works, I’m not complaining. Life is full of disparate tones that clash
together, so fiction should reflect that.
It’s no ironclad requirement, since the point is to use those tones to
create an interesting final product, BUT in this case, it’s for the best. You need to strike a good balance for
something like Civil War,
irrespective of what’s expected of a Marvel movie. By and large, it’s about the schism and
rivalries between the heroes who have battled the forces of evil for the past
eight years (give or take, especially since Cap’s technically been at it a lot
longer).
But what makes this movie successful, powerful,
and the departure that the MCU kind of needed at this point (if not earlier) is
simple: its darkness rings 100% true.
It’s honest. It’s not dark for
the sake of being dark, or “proving” something to others. It’s dark on terms that make sense for the
story and universe. What do you do when
your franchise has made an example out of countless villains established in
decades’ worth of comic book canon, routinely killing them off in their first
appearance and/or rendering them as goons to get smacked aside on the road to
the next installment?
Easy. You
make the heroes the villains.
You won’t see Iron Man tying a damsel in distress
to some train tracks, and you won’t see Captain America threatening to blow up
the ocean. But the opposition this time
isn’t against a big baddie that could stand to have a few teeth removed. (Granted that’s a disservice to Alexander
Pierce in The Winter Soldier, but
work with me here.) It’s against people
that the world has known for a good while -- in some cases, the better part of
a decade. It’s against men and women who
want to do the right thing, but being
and doing right have gotten infinitely more complicated. It’s against people who try, and try, and try
again to get their opponents to stand down -- to do things peacefully before
things spiral even further out of control.
Even before the final climactic battle people have paid to see, Tony tries
to get Steve to settle things without violence.
By the book. It doesn’t
work. They fight anyway.
And I have to say, it’s genuinely painful to watch
at moments.
Thinking back, I wonder if the movie’s intended
emotional reaction -- the pain of seeing heroes pushed into a battle that
could, and almost does, turn lethal -- gets hampered by the fact that there’s
an almost pornographic dedication to making the airport battle scene into the
expected fist-pumping spectacle. And
yeah, I wouldn’t disagree with anyone who took issue with it. But even if that scene is a joy to watch, the
circumstances and context behind it isn’t.
And all the jokes and all the fun goes straight to the back shed once
it’s down to the final battle between marquis heroes.
It’s like poetry in motion, really. Cap spends the whole movie trying to keep
Bucky safe and sound, even though the Winter Soldier has made enemies across
the world just by being alive. It’s
troubling to see a symbol of peace and justice turn his back on so much (if
only for one mission) for what’s ultimately a personal mission, no matter how
noble the intentions. But then Iron
Man’s ultimately doing the same thing; he’s trying to protect Cap, and bring
him back onto the right side of the law even though he does so at his own
peril.
And then Iron Man himself ends up breaking the law
-- or at least going against the government and the Accords he’s vouched for
personally -- to save a guy who’s made enemies across the world just by being
alive. He can’t help himself. Neither can Cap. We all knew going in that Tony Stark was (and
still is) a flawed individual, but now there’s a spotlight on Cap that shows
he’s not the perfect Boy Scout most would make him out to be. That’s gut-wrenching in its own right; knowing
that our heroes aren’t the embodiments of brilliance and nobility we’d hope for
-- or desperately want to believe in -- is a sobering thought.
But it gets worse.
It gets way worse.
Tony learns firsthand that his parents were killed
by the Winter Soldier back in 1991. That
was a detail I’d overlooked back in the 2014 movie, but Civil War sets it up again by having Tony’s first appearance be one
where he uses a hologram to recreate one of the last moments he ever had with
his family. The other movies have shown
that he’s had an iffy relationship with his folks (Iron Man 2 is a good example, though he gains newfound respect for
his dad once he discovers how much he meant to Stark Sr.), so it’s only natural
that it pays off here. And boy oh boy,
does it ever pay off.
Seeing Tony learn the truth -- his voiceless,
pained reaction to the news -- is genuinely heartbreaking. With Bucky in earshot of the news, the
invincible Iron Man drops ALL pretenses of helping out the two super soldiers
and opts to slaughter his parents’ killer.
But Cap’s not willing to let that happen, so they fight it out. What starts as a two-on-one match becomes a
one-on-one beatdown, with Bucky’s robot arm lost and his life in the
balance. And it was at that moment when
the fighting became more real than it’s ever been.
The movie had been building up to it the whole
time. No words. No reasoning.
No forgiveness. Just two men on
opposite sides of the line, ready to punch, blast, and shield slash the other
into oblivion. It’s a testament to the
movie’s strength when it seems as if these people are genuinely trying to kill
each other. Even if you know (or
suspect) they’ll survive because there are more movies on the docket, you can
forget about that temporarily because of Civil
War’s rhythm and illusions. Cap and
Iron Man beat each other senseless and bloody, using relentless offenses and
heartless tricks to gain an advantage -- to get the chance to score the one
move that’ll end the struggle forever.
It even reaches a point where Cap -- Captain
America, the Star-Spangled Man -- thrusts his shield into Iron Man’s chest, as
if he hopes to split his heart in two. I
legitimately thought that that would kill him, having forgotten that Tony cured
himself at the end of Iron Man 3. But even if the arc reactor isn’t in his
chest, does that really change things?
Last time I checked, having giant metal foreign objects lodged in your
body wasn’t good for business -- especially if the icon of goodness and human
decency, enhanced by a long-lost miracle of science, is doing the lodging.
But that’s to be expected of this movie. That’s a level of brutality that we’ve never
really seen from this iteration of Cap, and the idea that a guy who gleefully
said “I understood that reference” just four years ago would try to kill his
friend is shocking -- let alone the act of
it shown onscreen. And when all’s said
and done, the two heroes end up completely drained. They’re laid out in the remains of a Siberian
base, exhausted physically and mentally, and weighed down by everything that’s
transpired over the past few days. And
sure, Captain America is ultimately the winner, but he won a contest where
everyone’s a loser. Being a victor
brings no joy, no reward. Only an end to
what we once loved.
It’s at this point where I have to contest a
certain point. Some people and some
critics are under the impression that everything is back to normal now, or
there were no real gains in the story, or there were no consequences despite
the fanfare (i.e. nobody died). I
respect those people and their opinions, but I have to strongly disagree. Granted
I’ll admit that they’re right to be concerned -- it’d be much too easy for
Marvel Studios to drop the ball and whitewash the conflict in future outings --
but I see a movie that’s full of consequences and far-reaching
implications.
None of the heroes die in this movie. And I’m glad; killing them off would be way
too easy.
They could’ve killed off War Machine, but instead
saddled him with a form of paralysis and who knows how many struggles with
physical (or mental) recovery. They could’ve killed off the Winter Soldier,
but instead they made him face his sins and give him a chance at self-sacrifice
-- a chance to be a hero, however slightly.
They could’ve killed off Iron Man, but instead forced him to carry the
weight of his actions and struggle with the guilt of being an Avenger. They could’ve killed off Captain America
(especially since that’s what the comics did), but instead of making him take a
Unibeam to the heart, they may very well have symbolically killed him. He leaves behind the shield -- a shield that
Tony furiously claims doesn’t belong to him -- and his costume is MIA, meaning
that he may not be the defender we’ve come to love the next time we see him.
And really, what’s been solved? Nothing.
We haven’t gone back to the status quo.
The Sokovia Accords were still approved by 117 separate countries. The heroes that didn’t sign on are basically
fugitives, doubly so because Cap likely broke them out of prison. Individually, the Avengers have to think long
and hard about what they’ve done, like Vision very nearly killing a teammate
despite staunchly trying to prevent a catastrophe in the first place. Collectively, the Avengers have to think
about whether or not they even want to be a team anymore, let alone
friends. And the idea that they could
band together as well as they did in Civil
War’s opening minutes, having blown each other up and down an airport,
seems like something out of a fever dream.
This is a pivotal movie in the MCU, supported from
start to finish by pivotal moments. It
should be no surprise, then, that it’s dethroned The Winter Soldier as my favorite Marvel movie…which by extension
means it’s now one of my top 10 favorite movies, period. And that’s exactly
why I’m putting it right about HERE on my SmartCha-
Wait. Hold
on. I didn’t talk about the villain of
this movie, did I? Come to think of it,
I didn’t really talk about the heroes.
Crap, I’m not even close to done.
Guess I’d better hike up my britches, then.
Tune in next time, then. Because there may be a hero in this movie I
like even more than Captain America. And
to explain that, I’ll have to get in deep with ALL THE WARRIORS.
ALL THE WARRIORS ARE HERE TONI-er, eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment