Movies That Settle: Captain America: Civil War

"I don't care. He killed my Mom."

Welcome back, all. I’ve tried to write this post a bunch of times, but I just couldn’t find the right angle. I think I may have it now.

I’m going to admit something right here, to the world and to myself. I judge people who enjoy a certain type of movie. I don’t really even want to pin it down to one genre of movie, so I’m going to use Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise as an example. I was a Transformers fan as a kid in the 80’s, so I thought maybe I could be again in 2007 when the first live-action movie was released. I was sorely mistaken. Not only was I not a fan, but I was actually offended by the live-action Transformers movies and I’m here to tell you right now that if you enjoy those movies, I judge you for it. Sorry not sorry. And Michael Bay:

But not long after, when the Marvel movies started hitting their stride, I was all-in. Here was another property that I loved as a kid (and as an adult), and I was excited at the seemingly endless story possibilities, and obviously, the eventual crossover potential. And Disney did it right. They found respectable actors to play the characters, hired capable directors, and the stories were taken seriously. It never really dawned on me that some folks out there, people who didn’t have a real affinity for the characters like I did, just saw the Marvel movies as basic action movies like Bay’s Transformers movies, or 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Or any number of brainless action movies that only existed to line the studio head’s pockets. The name of the property on the poster was what mattered. They just put some good-looking people in it and blew some stuff up and counted the money.

Looking back now, I won’t deny that Joss Whedon’s first two Avengers movies, as well as Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, and maybe some of the other earlier ones, could fall into the action money-grab category. But the three solo Captain America movies? Well, they have some weight. Maybe it’s because of the direction of the Russo brothers. Maybe it’s because Cap is a hero that most people can get behind. Not a Norse god or a rich genius with a suit or armor that can basically do anything. Cap is a slightly stronger-than-normal guy who goes into combat with his wits and frisbee. Or maybe I just like the guy. Or maybe it’s not just me and there actually is more to his movies.

I wrote about Winter Soldier awhile back, so check that out here:

Now, I want to talk about Captain America: Civil War. Leading up to this one, Marvel was juggling a lot of characters, constantly bringing in new ones, and not actually sacrificing the story, in my opinion, and this one really nailed it in 2016. At that point, the MCU was about 8 years into its existence, and some people were starting to see faults. Some thought that each movie was just a long set-up for the next one, and there was certainly some validity to that. I remember reading one review of Civil War that said it wasn’t really a Captain America movie, but rather another Avengers movie. And you can look at it cynically and say that putting Iron Man and Black Widow in it does certainly translate into more money at the box office. I prefer to think that there was an actual long-term story being told, and they weren’t just shoe-horning in characters to make a buck. They had been planting the seeds for a while (having tension between Tony Stark and Cap in Age of Ultron, Falcon appearing in Ant-Man) You could also just say they fooled me and just wanted to cash in, and there’s a solid argument for that. It may be best to think about it this way: the 2006-7 (there were delays. Many delays) Civil War comic series that this movie was loosely based on was pretty popular, so they were going to make a movie of it, anyway. Using Bucky as the instigator seemed like as good an idea as any. It worked a Hell of a lot better than “These guys don’t like each other now.”

At the beginning of the movie, the Avengers are battling some baddies and there is an explosion that kills some innocent bystanders, including some students from Wakanda, which is how the Black Panther gets involved. Even though Wanda set the wheels in motion as the one who caused their deaths, Cap, being the ultimate good guy, blames himself because his concentration was broken when the bad guy mentioned his pal Bucky just before he went boom, which ties it into the main storyline. This battle, along with all the ones from the previous movies, causes the Secretary of State, “Thunderbolt” Ross to meet with the Avengers and inform them of a plan that was already set in motion. At that meeting, he showed them all footage of some of the huge battles from several of the previous movies, where there were no doubt many casualties, including the Battle of Sokovia from Age of Ultron.

It so happens that Tony Stark already knows all about one of the casualties from Age of Ultron. In the finale of that film, the Avengers had to save the planet by blowing up the city of Sokovia that Ultron was going to float above the ground and drop, causing… dust? It was kind of silly. But the point is, it was a big fight and even though they saved the planet, they couldn’t save everyone, and Tony received a visit from a woman (Alfre Woodard) who informed him that her son was killed in that battle. She asks him, pointedly and aggressively, “Who’s going to avenge my son, Stark?” This is one of the reasons Tony signs the Sokovia Accords. He also has a more personal reason to sign, as well, as we find out later.

Ross tells them that despite their heroics, the Avengers can’t operate without oversight anymore. The Accords, he states, are the middle ground. However, as in the comic series, Cap is not into it. As a soldier who had to follow orders in World War II, he has seen a lot, and posits that the governments who will be in charge of them will have agendas. Cap’s logic is that The Avengers may need to go stop some bad guys someplace, and the governments might not send them there. Or they might be sent somewhere that there aren’t any real bad guys. I mean, what if they were working for the Trump administration? Would he send The Avengers after someone who made fun of him on X?

Cap’s philosophy takes a backseat, however, to some other, also personal, matters. First, he learns that his one-time love, Peggy Carter, has passed away. We later found out that she had lived quite the life after Steve crashed into the ice in 1945, but in these early MCU films, she was just a really old lady, and Steve just sees someone he knew once but could not save. As if that didn’t throw him enough for a loop, his old friend Bucky, who he has been searching for since Winter Soldier, is now being accused of setting off a bomb at the signing of the Sokovia Accords. And just to throw another ingredient into the stew, King T’Chaka of Wakanda was killed in the blast, prompting his son, The Black Panther, to declare that he’s going to go after Bucky and take his revenge.

When Cap, Bucky and Falcon are captured, Tony sits Cap down to see if he can get him to sign the Accords. They have a nice chat about Tony’s Dad, and how proud he was of Cap and how Tony felt he had to live up to those standards. Cap asks if Pepper Potts is there so he can say hello, but Tony tells him that they are on a break, because she thought he had given up being Iron Man, but Tony admits that he didn’t give it up because he really wanted to keep being a hero, so he was hoping that signing the Accords would be the compromise that wins her back. So his motivation isn’t purely to satisfy his guilty conscience about a college kid who was a casualty of Sokovia. Like a lot of great stories, it’s about love.

That scene is actually one of my favorite scenes in all of the MCU. It actually is a microcosm for the whole movie. It shows that the heroes are flawed in some cases, but they are driven. Whether or not they believe in the Accords, they all have their own reasons for choosing their side. Sure, Cap feels that the Accords are wrong, but he also wants to help his friend. Tony may or may not believe in them, but he definitely thinks signing them will help him win back Pepper. Black Panther fights on Tony’s side, but mostly because he wants revenge. Mostly, the Accords are just a nice backdrop for the heroes to resolve their personal issues.

Even the villain, Zemo, played by Daniel Bruhl, has personal reasons for being involved, as he also lost his entire family in Sokovia. He knew he could not do it on his own, however, so he hatched a plan to pit his enemies against each other and destroy themselves. I love this movie, but even I have to admit that Zemo’s plan is almost too elaborate. It falls just short of a Scooby-Doo ending, where Zemo was behind it all, but it's pretty convenient that the Accords happened to come along to divide the Avengers at the same time that he was hatching a plan to take them down. Still, he was able to convince the Avengers that his plan was to unleash a cadre of Super-Soldiers into the world, but his true ace-in-the-hole was the knowledge that, while Bucky was being controlled by Hydra, he actually assassinated Howard and Maria Stark. And the real kicker was that his good friend Cap knew all along. Once Tony finds that out, the gloves come off. And we get one of the coolest fight scenes in all of the MCU: Iron Man vs. Cap & Bucky. Even better than the big airport fight between all the heroes.

It’s not just the classic old school Marvel Team-Up “Heroes fight and then end up banding together to fight the bad guy” scenario. These guys go at it. For one, Tony is pissed that Bucky killed his parents, and perhaps even slightly more pissed at Cap because he knew and never came clean. The point is really driven home when Cap tries to convince Tony that Bucky was being controlled and it wasn’t really him, Tony just responds, “I don’t care. He killed my Mom.” And even though this is a Captain America movie, if you don’t feel where Stark is coming from at that point, well, I must question if you have any heart.

In the end, Cap gets the advantage and is about to smash Tony in his exposed face with his shield, until he finally realizes that he can’t. As he and Bucky are walking away, Tony barks at him that it was his father who had made Cap’s shield, and it doesn’t belong to him. To show that their allegiance really is over, or maybe just to say, “Fine!” or maybe even to acknowledge that Tony is right, Cap drops the shield and walks away.

In the final scene, Tony receives a FedEx package (from Stan Lee, no less!) that contains a letter from Cap and a burner cell phone, saying that if Tony ever needs him, he’ll be there. This is, of course, exactly what happens two years later in Infinity War. (See, they were planning ahead.)

If you look at the MCU as one really big franchise (which I do), this is the one that really went for it. And this is the one that stands above so many of the action franchises that some compared the Marvel movies to. As much as Vin Diesel likes to say that his band of car racers are “family,” nothing in the Fast & Furious franchise compares to this when it comes to having a soul. And I love the Fast & Furious movies, but they are the definition of brainless money grabs. And you can say that the airport battle between all the heroes was a nice action sequence put there to sell the movie, and I would not argue with you. But the real crux of this is not who does and doesn’t sign the Accords. It’s about friendships, relationships, getting revenge for the deaths of loved ones. And it’s definitely about more than money.

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