Captain America: Civil War official movie thread (5/6/16)

[Logan510]

I watched this movie again, and I still can't help think that it's tremendously over rated.

I guess I'm just looking for more out of my movies than adolescent fantasies, with overly contrived plot devices, and unrealistic fighting.

 

If you're cool with that... no sense in even replying to this post.

 

I'll sum it up: A big budget superhero movie should have a big budget villain, NOT Tony Stark as the bad guy.

 

 

I personally, as a young man of 11, found Hercules pulling the island of Manhattan back in place with a giant chain to be preposterous (Marvel Team-up #28), and the heavy handed ending of the Jackel's reign of terror in ASM was less than a year away to leave me unsatisfied with mainstream comics.

 

Maybe I missed out on some good wholesome fun or whatever, but the more mature themes of Savage Sword of Conan and Tales of the Zombie had already begun to lure me away from... that world.

 

Now I get that to the average Marvel 60's-70's fan in particular, this movie seems like a giant comic book come to life, and that in itself is pretty cool (I guess), but personally, at age 53, I suppose, I'm not as easily amused.

 

But, I originally tried to go into the movie THINKING I wanted to see a giant comic book come to life, and in parts of it, I did!

 

Spider-man was cool, the Black Panther was cool, I'm happy to have the Vision in there (even though he remains suspiciously absent from most of the real team battle) and of course the airport fight scene is classic... but...it all couldn't help me get over some things that bothered me throughout.

 

1. You can't have a great Superhero movie with a lame villain.

 

For everyone who cries when Marvel changes a character in the movies to a different sex, race, costume - where's the outrage over Zemo? They changed him into the worst of possible incarnations - a lame white guy from a country that doesn't actually exist. His character in this movie is so bland, he could've been replaced with almost anyone in the Marvel Universe that ever showed up from Eastern Europe or as a completely new character.

 

I get his motivations and reasoning as a character, it's somewhat deep and serious, especially for a Marvel movie, but how do you have a great superhero movie with a villain who is a plain old guy?

 

Lame.

 

Sorry. If you want to have a giant comic book for a movie, you need a giant villain. Bring on Thanos.

 

2. Stark's not supposed to be the heavy....

 

I get Tony Stark's personal accountability issues here, with siding with the government - he probably feels some guilt over Ultron, and even earlier than that, creating weapons of mass destruction through his company, so.... how do you recruit a 14 year old boy to come and help you fight a battle that even you say, people might die in? I realize it's necessary to introduce Spider-man in this movie, but.... bad writing. Sorry, that's glaring for me.

 

I even get that his accountability issues are somewhat a mask for his desire for more power - but bringing a kid into it seems.... incredibily irresponsible and/or poorly written.

 

And the idea that someone with a mind as sharp as Stark's would not see the fallout of his friends ending up in a super prison over this, is illogical, but... his flip-flop at the prison is even more strange. He very quickly and easily decides to go be friends with Cap again after 'Nat' makes him feel foolish for his part in all of this and 'Thaddeus' Ross tells him he should be in 'one of these cells'.

 

All in all, his character, is written a bit OUT of character and irrational in his thinking. The only thing I can think of is perhaps his PTSD from Avengers 1 (ya know, going through the worm hole, destroying a race of alien beings, saving all of human existence) might be mucking up his head.

 

Ultimately... I don't like his character being the 'heavy'. Cap is cool, but Iron Man is the guy who MADE the Marvel Universe work, and I can't see having him somewhat go bad is a good thing.

 

And then a couple of smaller points:

 

3. The concrete rolls and camera angles.

 

Look, I know these guys are super powered or whatever, but Thor and Hulk aren't here, and the amount of falls and rolling onto concrete these guys do is just distracting to me. No way they would all just get up from that. Can't help it, it was just distracting to me.

 

4. Rhodey's injury.

 

He's injured. They're sad (most likely paralysis). Then they're joking around. It's ok!

Bugged the heII out of me.

 

5. Cap sends Stark a letter at the end.

 

It's all ok! We're Super heroes!

 

6. Eliminate this movie, and what do we have, when the Infinity War starts? Pretty much the same thing we had when it started. Everyone will team together to fight for the good of mankind. That reeks of filler.

 

and finally.... the SUCCESS of this movie... is DOWN from Avengers Age of Ultron. So the victory lap for it seems strange. It's down 200Million overseas and 50Million here from numbers that were seen as a disappointment in AOU. (It's down $150Million overseas and $205Million domestic from the first movie!)

 

It may not be an 'Avengers' movie, but it had the same BUDGET as AOU, the same marketing campaign as AOU, and most of the same characters, PLUS the introduction of Black Panther and Spider-man.

 

This was one of Marvel's 4 BIGGEST budgeted movies EVER, and it finished lower than any of the 4 before it. It even finished lower than IM3, which cost $50Million less to make.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you.

[Unca Ben]

It might have something to do with branding.

It appears the Avengers & Iron Man brands do better overseas than the Captain America brand.

 

If the overseas percentage for Civil War was closer to the percentage for Ultron or Iron Man 3 (around double, or in the case of Ultron, well more than double) then Civil War would have topped Iron Man 3 in worldwide revenue and secured the # 3 spot.

[Pete Marino]

Could it also be that we have lost Joss Whedon steering the ship? One thing he is great at doing is making characters grounded and engaging.

[Logan510]

Could it also be that we have lost Joss Whedon steering the ship? One thing he is great at doing is making characters grounded and engaging.

 

And sound like they belong in an episode of Buffy...which is a good thing for a Buffy episode.

[Batman]

Buffy

[Logan510]

Buffy

 

"I like that Hulk thing you do"

 

 

 

Straight outta Buffy

[Bosco685]

Could it also be that we have lost Joss Whedon steering the ship? One thing he is great at doing is making characters grounded and engaging.

 

Could be something else.

 

 

It's the side characters that are detracting from the long-standing universe. Knowing their motivations is the missing piece.

 

Although maybe even Joss Whedon had some challenges to address.

 

 

 

Everywhere a superhero!