So just saw it last night. Will probably write a lengthier review sometime later, but here’s some initial thoughts:
After recently covering the original comic for Unspoiled podcast, I’m quite astonished at how well the Russo brothers and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely took Mike Millar’s initial idea and did it so much better than he ever managed.
To begin with: the inciting incident actually involves the Avengers, which makes what follow work so much better, because rather than being all about the abstract question, it becomes personal, about how the Avengers process their feelings about the civilian casualties that happened while they were saving the day in New York, Segovia, and Lagos. It’s also a much smaller scale incident – Scarlet Witch tries to save Cap and people on the ground from a suicide bomb by shunting the explosion into the sky, but loses control and hits a office building…that happens to include Wakandan citizens.
And the Segovia Accords (which are very much seen as being pushed by national governments as opposed to Millar’s fixation on public opinion polls) don’t include anything as obviously head-smacking as the involuntary drafting of everyone with superpowers or revealing people’s secret identities (since in the MCU almost no one has one). Cap’s resistance to the accords is all about his fears that the Avengers will be used (or go unused) to further state interests, and while Iron Man sees this as preventing a worse crackdown, he’s not involved in the indefinite detention without trial part – that’s shunted off to Secretary of State Thunderbolt Ross (although why no one mentions why the Secretary of State is running a military prison, I don’t know) – although he does go over the edge by having Vision confine the Scarlet Witch to the Avengers compound, because he’s a control freak.
And what makes all of this work is that both Steve and Tony’s actions are being colored by personal issues, but aren’t going nuts either – Steve suffers a huge loss when Peggy Carter dies (which is where the plant yourself like a tree by the river speech comes in – as something that Peggy used to say), Tony is wrestling with relationship problems, guilt over Sekovia, etc. Rather than start an underground movement – indeed, Steve is actually willing to sign the Accords once Bucky is brought in safely, until he founds out that Tony is confining the Scarlet Witch, but their confrontation is cut short by Zemo showing up to mind-control Bucky – Cap’s driving motivation and action is to try to protect Bucky, who’s being framed for a second bombing at the ratification of the Segovia Accords (which causes the death of T’challa’s father…more on that in a minute) from being shot on sight and then trying to protect the world from what he thinks is a whole group of Winter Soldiers under the control of Zemo. (I have to say, this was the one part where I feel the movie fell short of potential – I really wanted Zemo to be a bit closer to his character in the comics) Whereas Tony only gets involved in the fight when a mind-controlled Bucky almost kills him in attempting to escape, which is quite reasonable.
Next, I have to say I was astonished at how well the big action sequence at the airport worked as both an action sequence and a way to show how to handle the expanding MCU. Age of Ultron visibly sagged under the weight of Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, Thor, Vision, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch all being on the same screen. Civil War swapped out Thor and the Hulk, but added in Bucky, War Machine, the Falcon, Black Panther, Ant-Man, and Spiderman, and made it work. Unlike in the comics where everything is about numbers, the fight scene was all about the interactions of powers and character. And while Age of Ultron had good comedy and power interactions, this had much better – it was way more visually inventive, it handled the comedy and the drama very deftly, and when the final twist happened, it really made you feel bad that the Avengers was tearing apart.
And for a movie that really did center around Cap and Tony, there was still time to introduce Black Panther and Spiderman in an effective fashion – Black Panther’s origin story was told in a miracle of economy of storytelling (seriously, in two scenes, they establish he’s a prince of the formerly isolationist Wakanda out to avenge his father and trying to be a king and a warrior at the same time), and Spiderman’s discovery and recruitment by Tony was charming as hell.
The conclusion really worked, both visually and in character. Iron Man finds out he’s been setup by Zemo and that Ross can’t be trusted, and comes to Siberia as a friend having realized he made a mistake, and comes to terms with Steve, only to find out that they’ve been lured by Zemo, who simply shows them a tape of Bucky as the Winter Soldier assassinating Tony’s parents. Tony loses it in a completely understandable fashion, and goes after Bucky, tearing his arm off. Cap and Tony go at it, and Cap wins, barely – but rather than trying to take off Tony’s head, he uses his shield to break Tony’s suit and then leaves with Bucky, and leaves the shield behind as the visual symbol of the loss of his friendship with Tony. It’s so much more mature and so much more affecting than the Millar version, because you genuinely can understand and sympathize with both men. At the same time, Black Panther arrests Zola, putting a capper on the theme of vengeance vs. justice.
And then you get a great wrapup: Cap busts his Avengers out of their Ross-run indefinite detention center, but sends a letter apologizing to Tony and a cellphone that Tony can call him if Tony needs their help, setting up Infinity War. It’s almost like they’re both acting like sane rational adults rather than crazy people.
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