Captain America: Civil War
Composite Score: 81.96
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, and Daniel Brühl
Directors: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Superhero
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for extended sequences of violence, action, and mayhem
Box Office: $1.15 billion worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Captain America: Civil War is the third film in the Chris Evans Captain America trilogy and features a rift in the Avengers superhero team over a new U.N. proposal to instate oversight of the team after a mission gone wrong in Nigeria. As a Captain America film, it also focuses much of its story on the relationship between Evans’s Steve Rogers and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes and the complex issues that friendship creates for Steve as a superhero. This film was also the official MCU introduction of Chadwick Boseman’s Prince T’Challa/Black Panther and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who would later star in their own solo films and co-star in the other Avengers films. As a superhero action film, Civil War is a triumph, delivering every fan’s dream (and maybe nightmare too) – their favorite superheroes fighting each other on the big screen. Its success and story paved the way for the culmination of the “Infinity Saga” by proving that the Russo Brothers were capable of crafting a quality large-scale MCU film and by creating a rift in the Avengers that would only be resolved in Infinity War and Endgame.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
With all that being said, it is difficult to defend Civil War as a standalone film, which is a critique that has been leveled against most of Marvel’s Phase 3 films. Its first act relies heavily on the films that came before, namely Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron, to do most of the exposition, creating potential confusion for audiences that missed those films with the introduction of new heroes and team-ups and repercussions for past actions that are hinted at. At the same time, this reliance on prior viewing allows the film to jump into the film’s action and plot relatively quickly, introducing the points of conflict and getting you to the superhero fights that much faster.
One other minor issue with Civil War comes in the motivation for its final fight scene. By the film’s third act, the differences between Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man and Steve Rogers/Captain America have been apparently resolved, allowing them to approach the villain, Daniel Brühl’s Zemo, together and confront him for his attempt to destroy the Avengers by bombing a U.N. conference disguised as Bucky Barnes. In the confrontation, Zemo reveals that it was Bucky (who is also present) working as the Winter Soldier who killed Tony’s parents back in the 90s. Bucky has since been un-brainwashed and fully regrets his violent history as the Winter Soldier, but Tony decides to attack him anyway, leading Steve to defend his childhood friend and the final fight to break out. Plenty of times in the MCU since this film, the villain has given up on a scheme because they realized that their own motivations or the hero’s were born out of a misunderstanding or changed identity, diffusing the situation (see Ghost in Ant-Man and the Wasp or Wen Wu in Shang-Chi or even the many villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home); but here we have one of the franchise’s cornerstone heroes choosing to fight another just because his parents were killed by the other’s friend when said friend was being brainwashed by a neo-Nazi organization. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Iron Man-Captain America-Winter Soldier fight, but it feels overtly contrived.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
To build off of that last negative point into a positive, the action in Civil War is some of the best that Marvel has ever put out. You get to see each of the characters fully in action at some point in this film (maybe besides Vision). Black Panther’s chase scene with Captain America and Bucky is a top-tier action movie chase scene, maybe even better than the chase in his own film. Spider-Man’s interplay with each of the characters that he fights at the airport establishes Tom Holland’s take on the character as one of the most-beloved from the jump. War Machine’s action pieces are nice, and his brief paralysis is arguably the film’s most suspenseful moment. Even Hawkeye and Black Widow get some quality fight time with each other and the other members of the Avengers. Obviously, the final fight between Bucky, Tony, and Steve is the culmination of the film’s action sequences and definitely features the best choreography and cinematography, but the airport fight between “Team Cap” and “Team Iron Man” showcased the Russo Brothers’ ability to juggle and showcase the many characters of the MCU in quality fashion.
A lot of people did not like the film’s villain, Zemo, after their first watch of Civil War, and I was among that crew. However, upon my many rewatches, the character has grown on me, and ultimately, I see his value as a soft open for villains winning in the MCU. He is, arguably, the most successful villainous mastermind that has been featured thus far in the franchise, setting up a scheme that got the Avengers fighting one another while staying completely hidden from them until the culmination of his scheme. Everything played out exactly according to his plan. At the end of the film, Captain America is estranged from Iron Man and on the run from all the governments of the world. Yes, Zemo is taken alive by Black Panther at the film’s end, so his plan does not fully come to fruition, but the main crux of it very much did. In a film where the superheroes are fighting each other, you don’t really need another supervillain for them to fight, and Daniel Brühl gave us exactly what we did need – a driven, normal guy who wants to see them fight and has a decent reason for it.
Some phenomenal superhero action pieces that highlight basically every hero in the film, a fast-paced story about conflict in the Avengers, and a villain that wins and ties everything together – these are the pieces that make Captain America: Civil War one of the Greatest Films of All Time. It is a triumph of the superhero film industry, and it remains highly rewatchable, especially if you have seen the other films connected to it and can forgive a thin motivation for the film’s final fight. This film is streaming now on Disney+ if you want to revisit it or check it out for the first time.
