Growing up reading comics, one of the biggest treats was seeing superheroes fight against each other regardless of the reason. The audience gets that many times over in Captain America: Civil War, which is more accurately an Avengers movie. The team splits over the United Nations wanting to control their actions after all the collateral damage they caused saving the world in New York (The Avengers), Sokovia (Avengers: Age of Ultron), and, in this movie, Lagos when they stop Crossbones and his team from stealing a biological weapon at the cost of several Wakandan lives.
Buy Captain America: Civil WarThe Sokovian Accords are drawn up in response. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who feels guilt over creating Ultron, thinks the Avengers should agree to them. Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) disagrees, thinking their own judgment of when and how to act shouldn’t be controlled by world leaders who will have agendas. This disagreement fractures the team.
In Vienna, where the Accords are to be signed and ratified, a bomb kills King T’Chaka of Wakanda and security footage shows Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) as the bomber. Steve, with the help of Sam Wilson/the Falcon (Anthony Mackie), tries to bring Bucky in alive while the authorities have a shoot-first policy. Also looking to kill Bucky is T’Chaka’s son, Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), who also wears the mantle of his country’s protector, the Black Panther. The four heroes are captured and imprisoned.
After obtaining the information to activate Bucky’s brainwashing, Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl) poses as a psychiatrist to sneak into the facility where he is jailed and activates Bucky to learn the whereabouts of the other Winter Soliders Hydra created. To cover his tracks, Zemo releases Bucky, who Steve again attempts to restrain with T’Challa and the authorities on their trail.
Learning what Zemo is up to, Steve, Bucky, and Sam want to go after him but have no authority and are wanted. Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) are enlisted to help Steve. Conversely, Tony assembles a team to stop them comprised of T’Challa, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Vision (Paul Bettany), and introducing Peter Parker (Tom Holland), who is provided tech by Tony to maximize abilities as Spider-Man.
This leads to an epic battle at an airport. It’s a standout action sequence of the entire MCU franchise, where our heroes trade quips, outsmart and overpower each other, and make sacrifices. Helping Steve and Sam escape leads to imprisonment for the rest of the team. James is severely injured in the effort.After Tony learns new information that supports Steve’s actions, he goes to help, but that alliance is short-lived after Zemo reveals devastating information about Bucky’s involvement in Tony’s past, leading to another spectacular fight between Iron Man versus Winter Soldier and Captain America.
Civil War is an outstanding superhero movie, although the MCU feels more like a theatrical television series considering the recurring characters and storylines that run through multiple movies. The screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely is impressive. It juggles many characters and makes them all important to the story. Both sides of the argument between Steve and Tony are presented evenly, making it easy to understand why the characters make their choices and even change their minds, without making one side the villain. Even Zemo’s motivation for going after the Avengers is understandable.
The cast does a great job bringing the characters to life, imbuing the performances with a range of emotions. And while it certainly helps that some actors have lived with these characters for years, even those actors new to the MCU come off as authentic beings in this universe, becoming as beloved as longtime characters.
Lastly, kudos to the stunt and visual effects teams in creating memorable action sequences that stand as the finest the franchise as seen. It certainly helps all the filmmakers to have so many characters with a such a variety of powers to play with.
