Monday, May 9, 2016

I have a dream, I want to see an Empire Fall

This is the year of the comic book movie, We are 3 down and we have 3 more to go(if you count Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who started out in a Graphic Novel). We have already gotten 3 movies from two of the biggest names in Comics, Two from Marvel and one from DC and this review is about the latest offering from Marvel:

Captain America:Civil War

The latest Captain America sequel is based on a comic book ark by the same name "Civil War" and for the most part follows a SIMILAR path. In the comics a villain named Nitro decided to explode next to an elementary school in Stamford Connecticut while in a "reality TV"style fight with the New Warriors. In the Marvel universe super heroes basically grow on trees, and it isn't exactly cheap so when one of the lesser known groups decides that they need an "edge" they decide to crime fight for the TV,(just like cops) bring along a camera crew, and duke it out for ratings. Unfortunately, thanks to Nitro, it becomes such a focal point that most of the new warriors as well as the villains who were with Nitro die(except for Speedball who's powers saved him) plus a bunch of innocent civilians including that elementary school full of children. In the Comics Tony Stark was ORIGINALLY in Washington DC to try and delay the Super Hero Registration Act, but seeing the horror of the explosion as well as a few angry parents who shoved pictures of dead children into his face causes his resolve to falter. It splits the super hero world in the Marvel Universe asunder, some heroes side with Iron Man as Pro Registration feeling that with some proper training, government backing for insurance purposes, and accountability while they couldn't prevent every disaster people would at least know who they were and realize that they were just regular people. Captain America on the other hand felt it was too risky, all those heroes who fought so hard to protect the public only to now have to worry about protecting their families. If you had a secret identity(which Technically Captain America doesn't everyone knows that Cap is Steve Rogers) it was for a good reason and NO ONE should be allowed to usurp that reason. While there were Many Avengers who sided with Iron Man the ULTIMATE tipping point in the comics was Tony Stark convincing Spider-man to unmask. In a Press conference Peter Parker reveals that he had been Spider-man since he was 15 years old, and that while he always tried his best he understood that his wearing a mask sometimes sent the wrong message.

It's a really good story ark and worth a read, but while there are PLENTY of similarities with the comic story Captain America Civil War is a beast all it's own. For a few reasons, one unlike in the comics where Marvel owns the rights to ALL of it's characters, in the movies they currently own HALF(thought with the deal with Sony and rumors of a possible deal with fox that HALF may become all) which still gives them a lot of leeway but they've only been making movies in the MCU for about 10 years so they really haven't had time to build up a 100 hero plus roster. Plus unlike a comic book or comic books movies have to be around 2 1/2 to 3 hours, and you really can't just pick it up and come back next month for the next segment. So without further ado
The Review for Civil War

The World's Greatest Heroes, it was what Tony Stark said to Loki in the first Iron Man movie while he was "threatening him", it's the mantra that Ultron tested when he lifted the city of Sokovia into the sky threatening to cause an Extinction Level Event, it's what Hydra tried to corrupt when it was announcing it's infiltration of Shield. Super Heroism tends to be a younger man's game though, after the business in Sokovia for all intents and purposes Tony Stark retired yes Rhodie was still at it as War Machine but the big bad Iron Man just wanted to relax, encourage other geniuses, and ride off into the sunset with Pepper. Captain America decided that it was time to train the next batch of heroes, so as you probably saw at the end of Age of Ultron: Falcon, Vision, Scarlet Witch(Wanda Maximoff she doesn't really have a code name, YET), War Machine, Hawk Eye, Black Widow and of course Capt are there training to be a more cohesive unit.

And what does this cohesive unit do? They attempt to track down international ne'er do wells, like Crossbones, the guy who got his face crushed in the fight with Falcon at the end of Winter Soldier. He is running around causing trouble because he HATES Captain America and he wants him to pay. Well during one of these "Curse you Rogers, you'll pay for this" moments a building is destroyed, once again housing innocent civilians. And it has cause international powers to come up with the Sokovia Accords, they want Enhanced Peoples(basically Super Heroes) to have oversight and answer to someone. Tony Stark while retired is of course asked to come in and try and be a "voice of reason," yes the guy who once threw a party while he was dieing of palladium poisoning in his iron man suit, got drunk and not only peed his suit but shot water melons with his arc blast. Captain America disagrees, after what happened with Shield being infiltrated by Hydra and being around long enough to know that regime/agenda change could cause serious problems. He understands that they aren't perfect but he doesn't think giving governments control of "the worlds mightiest living weapons" is a good idea. Secretary Ross(yes former General Thunderbolt Ross from the Incredible Hulk) is asking them NICELY but is informing them that it's only a request for the moment. The accords will be ratified whether they sign them or not, and the choices offered are SIGN and AGREE or RETIRE, if those options aren't amenable to you whelp JAIL will be waiting.

Why are Cap and Tony fighting?

During the course of the ratification of the accords The Winter Soldier pops back up on the radar, yes the guy the last movie was named after Peter Buchanan Barnes(call him Bucky). Everybody wants the Winter Soldier to answer for some of his prior bad acts, so a task force is sent out after him. Unfortunately this task force doesn't want the help of his best bud Captain Rogers, as such Cap gets involved anyway. Now I don't know about you, but if I am an average guy going up against Captain America, that probably ain gonna go too well. Don't believe me, ask Batroc the Leaper(the guy from the cargo ship in Winter Soldier) he got cap, no shield, in a hand to hand fight and you know how that turned out(if you don't what have you been doing, hiding under a rock? Go watch that fight). Of course, now that that has happened somebody has to come stop Captain Rogers and his friend Bucky and since the REGULAR guys didn't do to well who you gonna call? Why that's right some of Caps old Avenger buddies. Thing is, Cap also called on some OLD friends because he knows it's gonna take more than two people to clear his good friend Bucky's name. The Battle lines are drawn and each side has about 6 people on it(once again, this is the CINEMATIC universe not the COMIC universe, not as many players). Some of them you already know but there are some new comers, which I will get to later, and of course they all meet up at an airport(that has thankfully been cleared out). Friend vs Friend, angry at each other because both sides think the other is stupid and unreasonable but still for the most part friends.

Tony thinks they need to turn Bucky in, let him deal with the consequences of his actions, and sort the problems out later. Steve feels Bucky is getting a raw deal, and that it would be easier to help Bucky clear his name FIRST and then allow any charges after that to be sorted out. These are two pretty clear and uncompromising lines in the sand that you really can't combine to resolve. If one person needs Bucky in jail and to hell with proving his POTENTIAL innocence and the other is like "no we need to clear him now" you really can't shrug that off. On Tony's side is War Machine(cause what would a fight be without your ORIGINAL best bud by your side), Black Widow, The Vision, and a couple of New people. On Steve's side we have Wanda, Falcon, Bucky, Hawkeye, and ONE new person. Everyone on Captain America's side understands that they are outside the law and they are good with that, they trust Cap and believe that if he is behind it it's worth the risk. Now Tony has technology on his side what with him having himself and War Machine, plus the vision that's like 3/4's of the flyers in this fight(Wanda has been seen to hover but no flying just yet) while Steve has most of the military experience and power behind him(I mean yes Rhodie and Natasha are former government actors but that's two) since it's Captain freaking America, The Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Falcon all former government actors/assets, plus two of them are Super Soldiers, and you have the Enhanced Person who can pretty much warp reality. For the most part Hand to Hand combat is a wash because again you have Black Widow on one side, Cap, Bucky, and Clint on the other well maybe it's not so much of a wash

The New Guys

Everybody needed some extra muscle in this battle. Natasha Romanov asked T'challa the Black Panther from Wakanda to help them track down Cap and Bucky, while Tony decided that if you want to take down a native New Yorker, you need ANOTHER native New Yorker, just from a different Borough. There appears to be a new guy in the city since "the incident"(you know that thing with Loki), he appears to be the real thing, fast, strong, and intelligent and he's a 15 year old kid. Yup that's right Tony decided to fight the Shield flinger with a Web Slinger, he recruits Spider-man for this fight and MAN did he need him. Captain America gets Falcon's "friend" Scott Lang, Protege to Hank Pym, you know the guy who says "Never Trust a Stark" yeah he has it on a Bumper Sticker(well if not a Bumper Sticker something that he stuck to one of the ants). So let's discuss the new guys in depth shall we

T'challa the Black Panther

  • Has a suit lined with Vibranium
  • Is skilled in EVERY form of armed and unarmed combat
  • has enhanced senses, reflexes, and stamina
  • Did I mention he has a Vibranium suit, you know the stuff Cap's shield is made of
  • Genius
  • Warrior King of Wakanda
T'challa has a grudge against the Winter Soldier and basically wants to tear his head off his shoulders. When I say that he is skilled in every form of armed and unarmed combat yes that means that his odds of taking on Captain America AND the Winter soldier are pretty darn good. Cap might want to stretch for this one, because just like him the Panther is Tireless, he is relentless and he is driven. And since his suit is ALSO vibranium that advantage Captain America usually has against opponents is neutralized. And Bucky's Bionic Arm isn't that great of an advantage either, if T'challa is in the suit.

Peter Parker you're Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man
  • Has the Proportionate Strength of a Spider
  • Has a Omni Directional Danger Sense
  • A mechanical engineering genius
  • Uses Special Web shooters to help him maneuver quickly, restrain, draw in, and incapacitate opponents
  • Is extremely Agile, Fast, and Resilient
  • Also has enhanced reflexes, sense, and stamina
Peter Parker is a combination of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, he's a kid from Queens New York doing his best to go to school, get good grades, and then after that's all done save your every day citizen from some local thugs and bad guys. Peter is also a genius, those web shooters up there, he invented them, he also invented the web solution that he shoots out of them. Just like a regular Spider's web it's tensile strength is off the charts. Peter Parker is star struck because Anthony Stark just showed up, knows who he is and is offering to upgrade not only his suit and web shooters but also teach him how to be a better hero and help him stand up for the little guy. He doesn't have a gripe with anybody he's just doing what he thinks is right, which is to follow the law even if the law is SOMEWHAT scary.

Scott Lang the Ant-man
  • Is an electrical engineer by trade
  • Has a special suit designed by Hank Pym that uses Pym Particles to shrink
  • When shrunk he still keeps his mass so that he can move large objects, hit harder, and be a nuisance
  • Not the world's best hand to hand fighter but when you can basically super concentrate your mass, hey as long as you land a good punch.
  • Can control Ants using his helmet
  • ?
Yeah I put the question mark there, go watch the movie this is spoiler free. Anyway Scott Lang was given the Ant-man suit by Hank Pym because Pym didn't trust OTHER big companies(hell he didn't trust his own company) to protect his technology and not use it for ill. Scott believes he can help Captain America clear his friends name as well as get in to those hard to reach places if they get into a jam. He may also have a little surprise in store for everybody.

Now those are the new guys, Ant-man got his own movie last year, Spider-man has a movie coming out in the next 2 years I think as does The Black Panther, but you got a little bit of insight into them in this movie while you hopefully saw Ant-man so you know who Scott is already. the Two Bugs of course amp up the strength rating, Spider-man is the strongest person there (as Bucky found out the hard way, yeah he ain used to somebody just catching his punch), Black Panther rebalances the hand to hand combat scale, as well as adds speed with Webhead. And no they didn't feel just thrown in, and both held there own and even though Ant-man isn't a world class fighter he does hold his own and provide just the diversion needed to allow the team to get to the next spot. There aren't too many instances of Cap and Iron Man fighting at the Airport, that comes later and yes it is glorious.

What About the Bad Guy?

Here's the thing, they don't show you the bad guy in the trailers but he isn't so much an "In your face" bad guy as he is a Puppet Master. The title of this blog is actually his line. When our heroes finally confront him, he puts his master plan into effect, there isn't much that can split two friends quickly but our villain played his hand perfectly. Never reveal your cards until you are sure all your opponents bets are in and you are ready to rake in all of their money. And when he did it, that fight you see in all the trailers is ignited. There was a moment, however brief where you had hoped that many Tony and Cap would just let cooler heads prevail and stop this petty bickering. But just like I said, if you play your cards perfectly and wait until you force your opponent to go all in BEFORE you drop that Ace King, while the 9,10,J, and Q is in the river you can clean them out. And clean them out he did, because some things just can't be undone, and some things you can't talk through because words will not describe them adequately. This was the slow knife, yes he had blood on his hands before we get to the finale but he wasn't blantant or bold with it except when he needed to be. He kept himself in the shadows until it was time to spring his trap, and make no mistake he definitely built the better mouse trap on this one.

So what do I really think:

I love this movie, while it had a lot of moving parts this movie worked like a performance engine not a jigsaw puzzle. Every part had a place, every part had a job, and while there was foreshadowing here and there you knew WHY everything was being done. You know why the bad guy wants to draw a blade across their wind pipes slowly, you know WHY Cap and Tony are fighting, you understand why everybody pick the sides they did. Some out of loyalty, some out of duty, some because it was better than a pretty prison, others because it seemed like the lesser evil that could be managed and possibly improved. Yes there is room for further exploration if they want to do more sequels(which we know they are), but it's not forced, it doesn't feel like they are just saying "okay show up again in xyz months and hand us more money so that all this makes sense!" Every character had his moment to Shine, Burn Brightly, and then fade into the background, yes they new guys stole the show often but when it was time for them to step back, they did. This was about a fight between two dear friends, hell a bond between three different families that spanned over 75 years. It was heart breaking, it was gut wrenching, and NOBODY really came out the winner, everybody had their souls darkened from this interaction. 

The pain that this movie dropped onto you will linger, I want to go back to see it so I can catch a few more Easter eggs. I saw a few of them, oh and this movie has 2 after credit scenes, well technically one is a MID credit scene and the other is after the credits. The Mid credit scene sets up a future movie, the AFTER credit scene is awesome fan service. I called it in the theater and I was not disappointed, the scale of this Civil War may not be as great as it was in the comics, but the gravity of it hit pretty much EVERY mark. 

Wow, so this movie was perfect

No, no no this movie wasn't perfect. A FEW concessions were made to update the story/make it fit into the broader universe of this movie and the MCU. They are just nitpicky things though, similar to Deadpool. A change of language or wording here, a slight fib there. Honestly though, I can accept them, I can't really talk about them mainly because to do so would spoil parts of the movie but yeah I can accept them for the good of getting the new Characters into the MCU. It's hard to squeeze 40+ years of history into a 2 hour 27 minute movie, which honestly it didn't feel like it. I mean this movie was over and you were just "Wow, that was so cool. Wait it's been how long, I barely noticed." This movie was like the tide coming in, you turn your head for a second and the water is touching your feet, it just came in softly, effortlessly, but quickly. It was clear in it's purpose and direct in it's execution. If there were smoke and mirrors used, it's because you expect smoke and mirrors to be used there. I'm not going to compare it to the previous blockbuster because honestly it really isn't far. One already has the majority of it's universe set up and the other one is trying to interconnect different lines that had no other intersecting trajectory at all. one was mustard and one was peanut butter and NOBODY really planned for them to mix, AT ALL. On the one we have a frog or lobster in a pot of water, slowly brought to a boil over time. On the other we have the person who WAS SUPPOSED to thaw out the steaks before they left the house, only to find that they are still in the freezer and Dinner is in 2 hours, veggies have to be cooked and peeled, starch has to be made, plus you want biscuits or something thus it's a little rushed and it looks it. Flavor is a little off on the other one, you did your best but it would have been so much better if you could have taken your time.

I plan to go see Civil War again, I really did love this movie. Spider-man, Black Panther, and Ant-man really did fit pretty seamlessly into this world. And the best part about it, the interactions were awkward they were "the new guys" so while Spidey and Ant-man were trying to be polite about these unpleasantries Black Panther was direct and to the point, just like you expect royalty to be. He had a goal, if you were in the way of that goal your interference would not be tolerated and it was perfect. So yeah go see this movie, stay til the very end, and tell me what you thought of it when you do, comments down below are ALWAYS open.

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