Because it's about time someone did!
OT: Captain America: Civil War Open Thread (Spoilers)
Because I kinda figured we should have one. If folks want to set up an alternate spoiler-free open thread, you are welcome to do so; but this one will be predicated on the understanding that folks participating either have seen the movie or don't care about spoilers.
(Mod note: I'm not going to see the movie until tonight, so I will probably not be reading this thread until tomorrow. KEEP IT FRIENDLY, KIDS.)




I just want a movie of Sam, Bucky and Cap in the Volkswagen traveling the world.
I'd even take just Sam & Bucky in the Beetle
Word.
A fan fiction where they do so and run into the All-New All-Different X-Men in their Volkswagen Type 2 van.
Nevvvvvver mind I'm jumping in tonight because I just got back and it was utterly delightful.
Faves:
Quibbles:
Hawkeye was kind of pointless but I really enjoyed in the Airport fight that he was far more interested in making friends than actually fighting. It felt true to his character, actually the fact that all of the characters felt true to the depictions provided in thier own films and it didn't break the immersion or pacing was surprising and wonderful.
Also Dean Pelton!
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
Loved that Dean Pelton made an appearance, and was begging for funding for MIT-vale.
Hawkeye's point is to be pointless. That's the character. Utterly superfluous but still awesome.
Definitely loved Vision's choice of clothing, and his interactions with Wanda. Maybe a little creepy that he was assigned as her babysitter, but still seeing that going where it's supposed to.
Shut up, I didn't cry at Peggy Carter's funeral. You did. I also didn't cry at how perfectly Peter Parker was handled! YOU did!
"Move or you will be moved."
Seriously, I had no idea you could almost steal a movie with one line of dialogue. I cannot wait for Black Panther. OMG, T'Challa. Who ever did the sound enginineering for him and how he moves is one of my favorite people right now.
I was kinda disappointed with the third act of the movie. The whole Zemo's "just another guy from that eastern european county" and the five super soldiers throw-in. I think it was way less effective and reliable then Zemo being a higher-up from Hydra with his own agenda. How a random regular guy from noplace can pull all this elaborate scheme is above me. Even a genius has to have some connections, some training. Something. For me it was a turd. I would preferred him reestablishing Hydra and/or the Masters of Evil (because that is in fact not more ridiculas then what we got) and getting away by the end of the movie. I know it's harsh but the ending we got was just meh, in my opinion. For me, the real movie ended after the huge melee battle sequence. It was the top of the movie. Nothing could overshadhow it. So it seemed kinda redundant to see Tony lose it against Cap and Bucky. Again. I mean, seeing three Avengers fighting each other? We already saw it, only with 9 other avengers in an awesome fight scene! I actualy waited the movie to just end to see the aftermath - the interactions between the characters, their friends and family, the world reaction... In the end the aftermath was really short, which is a pity because that's the juicy part.
That's my criticism. Other than that it was a great film. Awesome fight scenes, good character work. Kudos for the director for actually being able to pull that off - throwing so many characters - for the first time for some - into one movie and making each and every one of them shine isn't an easy task at all. The build up of the conflict in just 45 minutes of movie was so smooth you could almost not notice that this was, again, one of the superheroes crossover-fights were things could be totally avoided if they would just talk with each other instead of fight. At least it was subtle enough for me to being able to suspend disbelief.
Things I liked:
Spiderman - Wow, Marvel. This was the moment I questioned my own common belief that X-Men should be left at Fox (or at least them left over there isn't just a bad thing). I mean, if Marvel could cast, write and direct this guy just like THAT imagine what they could do for the X-men. RIGHT? I don't use this term as much as regulary expected in this community, but I believe the correct word is: Delightful.
Spiderman - Yeah, I know, I already said it, but how AWESOME was Spiderman, right?
Black Panther. No, Screw it. Almost all of the characters - this movie did with almost everyone justice. You just watched them and, like a clock, they felt "on the spot". From t'challa's lovable accent and the actor's acting to the Panther's costume and his part in the movie. Everything in this movie can be summarize in one word: Precise.
Crossbones having a costume.
Antman - See: Black Panther.
The dynamiques: You could totally tell who's a newbie, who's a veteran, what the relationship between characters. It seems nothing was left out - up to Widow and Hawkeye being best buddies.
And that's it. I'm gonna rest now...
I am actually really glad they didnt connect Zemo to hydra as they feel played out at this point
They did say he was in some military operations as some sort of general in sokovia so I just assumed he had connections to set up the carbomb and the emp as we saw him get the red book with the code words
and his plan wasnt to kill the avengers as it could martyr them it was to destroy the idea of them and it worked in the end the public doesnt trust them or world leaders and the members are split as well with most now on the run
Zemo won
I havent been following the movie that much so I dont know if it had already been spoiled but it was a great surprize to see giant ant man
I felt Spider-Man and Black Panther were perfect
I really appreciated how grey this movie felt compared to the relatively black and white, good guys vs bad guys feel in past MCU films. All of the good guys have some valid points, but both sides are also wrong an awful lot. In fact, I liked that the tension in the film came from heroes who refused to see the grey in the situation (or chose to ignore the grey if they saw it) and continued to apply their binary view of right and wrong to it, leading to the predictably harmful and near disastrous consequences. I did like that characters who were willing to change their minds based on new information (Black Panther), or who were comfortable with embracing the grey area (Black Widow) came off really well in the movie. And I liked that these two were also able to step back from the costs of pursuing vengeance.
Happy that Rhodes made it out alive, too. I had written him off as a goner since the movie was announced.
My kid was telling me this morning he wished Spidey was the kid from Iron Man 3 so the relationship with Tony made more sense. His Uncle Ben would be his mom and he would end up with his aunt in Queens. Deadbeat dad would turn out to be a HYDRA guy. I think my kid has been raiding my 90's comic longboxes
I liked that it was a movie full of hunks. Lots and lots of hunks. And it introduced new hunks! Chadwick Boseman was instantly captivating as T'Challa, I really enjoyed Black Panther's whole deal. Especially the part of that deal where he is a hunk.
Random thoughts:
The universal need for a Black Widow movie aside, I'm again happy to see the really great Natasha/Steve friendship that was established in Winter Soldier continue. It's one of my favorite dynamics in the films (Besides Steve/Bucky good god just kiss already uggggh).
I got choked up at Peggy's funeral, not going to lie. It makes me want Season 3 of Agent Carter even more.
T'Challa was so spot on. I am so excited for the Black Panther movie.
Also, I might have squeed a bit at the Dora Milajae nod (and then the fan moment in my head where I wondered who would, in fact, win that fight). It wasn't much, it was very subtle, but it was wonderful and answered my question as to where T'Challa's security forces were this whole time (being innocuous members of his entourage). Especially because this means they'll likely be part of the Black Panther movie and hopefully we'll even see a version of them reflecting the story Ta-Nehisi Coates is telling in the current Black Panther comic.
Something I've noticed: The characters who are hand-to-hand combat oriented have very clear styles that are written into their fight choreography. Black Widow and Captain America, who've had a lot of MCU screen time at this point, have very distinct styles of fighting that goes beyond their toys that I realized with this film have carried forward. That's a really nice touch.
Grey moral delimmas with no clear right/wrong answer was the absolute best approach to this and I'm really starting to think is a better way to do Civil War as a concept.
I want to like Vision but he just feels so alien and out of place. I don't know if that's the uncanny valley effect, if it's intentional, or what. Time will tell.
Spiderman was great and wonderful. More, please. I really hope by skipping the origin story and in turn much of Parker's high school experience we may actually get another solid take on Peter's college days.
The Russo Bros want to make an espionage thriller so bad. I can tell. Just give them the reigns to the Borne or Mission Impossible sereis already. Or even better give them the free reign to make a John La Carre adaptation.
black widow movie
black widow movie
black widow movie
black widow movie
Very true! I did just see that Feige just promised us it would happen eventually. Maybe Phase 4?
Yes! This movie really pushed that need over the top for me, because they really get her fighting style and fluidity. I want a whole movie of that!
I feel like Charlie Brown with the football with that BW movie at this point.
I found it mostly meh, though I am notorious among my friends for not really liking superhero movies (Unbreakable is my favorite superhero movie, followed by Superman: The Movie).
The beginning of the film was nearly as choppy and jumping around as BvS. Too much setting up and exposition.
The fight scenes were awesome. I particularly liked the foot race/car chase scene with different goals for different characters.
Black Panther was the bomb + three different Black superheroes with different motivations and personalities? What alternate world have I entered? Needed Monica Rambeau or White Tiger though.
I found Spider-Man to be rendered well, but in terms of this film found him superfluous, and could have done without him. It felt like a commercial for a movie inside another movie (not as bad as BvS JLA found footage crap, but did nothing for me). Also, I am not here for Marisa Tomei as Aunt May.
Like in the comics, where Scarlet Witch is one of my least favorite characters, I am not a fan here. They don't know how to convey her powers so they kind of become whatever.
It was definitely fun in parts, but I still prefer CA:Winter Soldier. It was definitely better than Age of Ultron and GoTG both of which were not good movies at all.
I was disappointed in the payoff to the end of credits scene from Antman. It sounded like they needed Antman for something specific, but it turns out they just wanted an extra body in the fight. He did a great job in the fight, both at ant size and giant size, but Antman is such a potentially useful character outside of a fight it's a shame that all they used him for was another fighter.
Just saw it. Liked it a lot overall - maybe my 2nd favorite MCU movie, after The Avengers. Thought the movie did a great job of presenting a legitimately grey situation where neither side was wrong and you could really understand both sides' reasons for acting as they did.
I'm definitely on board the Wanda/Vision ship now, despite not being very into the whole shipping thing generally. Those two are a nice mix of cute and weird. I liked the moments between Clint and Wanda too.
Spidey was great, of course. So was pretty much everyone, especially Cap and Stark.
They managed to put an incredible amount of plot and character moments into the movie without making it feel long or convoluted. It was a really tightly constructed movie.
Some minor points of criticism:
It seemed like the Vision was barely there in the airport fight. He's probably the most powerful character in the movie and should be able to take out most if not all of Team Cap pretty easily, so what was he doing that whole time?
I didn't feel like I really got a sense of T'Challa's personality, beyond being generally brave and determined and heroic. What are his idiosyncrasies and flaws? What stresses him out? He's still a somewhat blank slate to me.
The relationship between Cap and Sharon Carter seemed to lack any depth or nuance. OK, they like each other, they're two pretty people with some stuff in common, but it never got really emotionally interesting to me. Nat hugging Cap after Peggy's funeral had way more emotional weight than the kiss between Cap and Sharon.
I had mixed feelings about Zemo. With that name, you expect him to be another megalomaniacal Hydra guy, so it was arguably a good bit of misdirection when his real motives turned out to be quite different. But if his motivation basically came from having lost his family as collateral damage in the Ultron fight, how did he decide it was OK to bomb and kill a bunch more innocent people in his quest for revenge?
Who was filming when Bucky was killing Tony's parents? Why would someone film that?
Why did Tony, given 36 hours to capture Bucky, decide now was the time to recruit Spidey? How was that a good use of precious time?