I really am not too sure what to say about Captain America: Civil War. Like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Iron Man 3, I came out from the movie with extremely mixed feelings. Full Spoilers ahead!

In a sense, this is the culmination of what the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been building towards. The idea that over multiple movies, TV shows, and so on, it can build a living and breathing universe; and in that sense this movie is a runaway success. I’m sure people will be analyzing this film, finding all the various threads that run throughout the MCU.

Which brings me to the most glaring issue of the movie for me. In service of building the universe, and all that comes with it (Black Panther! The Raft! SPIDER-MAN!) it takes away from some characters. The two that suffer the most are Helmut Zemo and Captain America.

Zemo in some ways is great. He doesn’t have much to work with, and he just hates The Avengers. He doesn’t have daddy issues, nor does he have an Infinity Stone, he just wants to mess shit up. However, what bothered me with his character is at the end they reveal that he’s simply another victim of Sokovia. Just like the kid who was killed, and Quicksilver, and the other dead people. It feels cheap, and hammers home the point that The Avengers did screw up a bit during the events of Age of Ultron. Which is fine when you bring it up the first few times, but Zemo’s backstory shouldn’t have been so tied to Sokovia. We found out from the mom that Tony and the Avengers failed. That’s all that was needed

Captain America also loses some steam. Not only is Cap essentially surrounded by charismatic characters like Tony Stark, Hawkeye, and Spider-Man in his own film, which doesn’t quite help; he’s essentially reacting to the surrounding events, which like tying things to Sokovia, works in small doses, but I don’t need it to be the crux of the character. I rewatched The Winter Soldier lately and what blew me away about that movie is how assertive Captain America is. I was hoping we’d get that, Cap who is frustrated with beauacracy and the failings of the government and takes a stand. This time though it seems like Cap just leisurely strolls into place, even if it is in revolt. There’s no urgency to his performance, there’s no vibrancy or excitement. Even evoking Cap’s great speech from the Civil War comic would’ve been great, but it has to be paraphrased to him. Essentially robbing Captain America of any great moments.

In terms of characters, the one character who seems to get the best attention is Bucky/The Winter Soldier. I’m glad they re-re-established his friendship with Steve, and It was nice to see him wrestle with the sins of his past. He was honestly the most interesting character in the film.

As I mentioned earlier, the movie fails in that it over emphasizes universe building over the individual character moments. It’s hard to deny just how cool the stuff for fans is however. Tom Holland is Spider-Man, and Chadwick Boseman made me care about a character I couldn’t give two shits about before. Seeing Giant Man was cool.

In this sense, I’m in conflict. The nerd in me really enjoyed the comic book references and the cool new additions to the MCU. As a fan of films though, I compare this film to The Winter Soldier or Guardians of The Galaxy where they balanced all those new additions to the MCU while still keeping the core of the characters intact, and in that sense this film is a disappointment. Not because it’s a bad film, but because I know the MCU is better than this.

With all that said, I award the film:

650/1000
Uncle Joeys

PS: Everret Ross is totally Red Skull. Calling it now!