The thing about reviewing a major event movie that I have enjoyed, especially one with storytelling twists, is steering clear of spoilers, so I've written this clearly-labeled post to discuss the things I really enjoyed about the current blockbuster Captain America: Civil War, without spoiling the experience for people who have yet to see the film.
Now, most people rave about Spider-Man or the airport sequence or the things they love about the film, and make no mistake, I loved all of those things too, but there are things about the film that I enjoyed even more, strange as it may sound, and I thought to list them here, in ascending order.
5. Revisiting Sokovia - One of the things that didn't sit too well with me about The Avengers: Age of Ultron was the thought that Tony Stark's own creation, the murderous robot Ultron, was responsible for physically ripping an entire country to shreds, and yet at the end of the movie Tony is basically driving his expensive supercar up to the Avengers HQ and talking about retirement like, well, nothing happened. It was one of the aspects of the movie that really didn't sit well with me, even when I watched it again and forgave many of its shortcomings. The whole thing was basically born out of Iron Man's messianic complex and almost ended up destroying the planet. Well, as Tony and the rest of the Avengers discover, payback is truly a bitch, and while Daniel Bruhl's Helmut Zemo, who has been rewritten from the son of a Nazi into a vengeful Sokovian, is not the most compelling villain I've ever seen, he is clearly given the best motivation to take the Avengers down. This may sound cruel, but there's something oddly fitting about Iron Man sitting in the cold, feeling helpless and lost after Captain America defeats him by destroying his armor's power source and leaves with Bucky. Yes, Stark was in favor of the Sokovian Accords after he grew a conscience, but considering it was his robot and not Cap's that caused the deaths of several Sokovians it felt vaguely fair that he would feel the fallout hardest. Speaking of Tony's conscience...
4. Alfre Woodard as Miriam Sharpe - The character of Miriam Sharpe is a key element of the comic book story as she essentially pricks Tony Stark's conscience with the death of her son and sets him on the path to championing the Superhuman Registration Act that puts him at odds with Captain America. While she appears more in the comic books than she does in the film, her role is still the same; she is the catalyst for the conversation that drives the movie. It is a small but pivotal role, and I am quite grateful to Marvel for getting one of my favorite character actresses to play it. Woodard is not especially high on "star wattage," and her casting is hardly the coup that getting the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Robert Redford and Michael Douglas to star in Marvel movies was, but I have always admired her work in the films in which I've seen her. Choosing her for this very powerful scene was an astute bit of casting on Marvel's part, suggested by Robert Downey Jr. himself, as she absolutely nails the scene.
3. More Globetrotting - While the film was only filmed in the United States and Germany, there were multiple locations within the story such as Lagos, Nigeria (played by Atlanta, Georgia), Vienna, Austria, Bucharest, Romania and Berlin, Germany (played by various locations in Berlin). There's also an exterior of a Siberian facility, which I think was shot in Iceland. I truly enjoy globetrotting movies, which I suppose is one reason I enjoy the James Bond and Jason Bourne movies as much as I do. It's not quite the travelogue that The Avengers: Age of Ultron was, with scenes shot in Italy, South Korea, South Africa and Bangladesh, but at least it went well beyond U.S. borders. I chuckled at the notion that there was a scene in a house in Cleveland, and I wondered if it had been shot in Germany, which would have been an interesting turnabout from the time that Cleveland "played" Germany in the very first Avengers film. Personally, I'm still holding out hope that Jeremy Renner can talk Marvel into shooting part of the next Avengers movie here in the Philippines considering he reportedly enjoyed his experience shooting The Bourne Legacy here.
2. The Fake-Out Climax - Among story tropes in superhero movies, there are few that are more grating these days than the old superheroes-get-tricked-by-a-bad-guy-into-fighting-but-resolve-their-differences-in-the-end-to-take-the-bad-guy-down trope. A very poorly-realized version of that trope played out in the atrocious Batman vs. Superman, and in the third act of Civil War, all indications were that something like that would play out here, when the story asserted, with some urgency, that the heroes had to stop Zemo from activating the other Winter Soldiers and taking over the world. However, even early in the story, something felt off. Zemo basically laid the bread crumbs for Captain America, Bucky and Iron Man to chase him to the base in Siberia where the final confrontation played out. While the filmmakers telegraphed hints that something was not quite right for anyone who was paying attention, the swell of heroic music that played as Iron Man resolved to help Captain America and Bucky out was more than enough to drown out the clues for anyone who wasn't. When it became painfully clear that there was no "big bad guy confrontation," as the super soldiers the good guys were supposed to fight had all been killed, the sense of dread was dialed all the way up, and the punch-up that followed the revelation that Bucky murdered Tony's parents felt all the more tragic.
1. A Member of an Ethnic Minority who ISN'T Somebody's Sidekick - For the comic book story of Civil War, Mark Millar turned to the detestable narrative cliche of killing a black guy for the sole purpose of contriving tension and "raising the stakes." What made this sin all the more unforgivable was that Millar basically dusted off a seldom-used character, the rather offensively-named Black Goliath for the specific purpose of having him murdered by a fake Thor (yes, it's as stupid as it sounds). The film maintains this somewhat hateful cliche by having War Machine suffer a near-death experience which leaves him partially paralyzed. I take scant consolation from knowing that they didn't kill him.
Also, I don't know if anyone at Marvel has been paying attention, but it seems that at least three of their major leads, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, ALL have black sidekicks, namely War Machine, Falcon and Heimdall, the last of whom who wasn't even black to begin with. Even the upcoming Doctor Strange seems to feature a "sidekick" character in the form of Baron Mordo, who was originally white and Strange's rival, but who is now played by the Afro-British Chiwetel Ejiofor and seems to be a distinctly second-fiddle character.
The Black Panther, however, is emphatically written as a character who will carry his own movie. The Black Panther movie has been in development hell for the better part of three decades, so it's really gratifying to see that Marvel have not only gotten the perfect actor for the role, but have given him a prominent role in what is shaping up to be one of their biggest blockbusters ever. I am supremely pumped up for his solo movie and hope it gets made with as much care as went into the creation of Civil War.
Marvel has put themselves in an interesting pickle with this film; how do they now get the gang back together for the upcoming Infinity War? Well, if that movie maintains the Russo's extraordinary standard of quality for these films, I for one would be only too happy to find out how that happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment