Captain America: Civil War

Well, that wasn't hardly any fun at all.

Someone working on the script wanted to tell a serious story. There were a lot of ideas floating around about loss and closure and revenge and justice and law and loyalty, but for it to have really worked, there would have had to be a lot more dialogue and a lot fewer capes. If the Avengers were elite soldiers instead of superheros, it could have been a good, serious story. But they're not. One is in a cape and one is in spandex and one is in a "bird suite" and one goes by the name "Ant Man." To be an effective superhero movie, you have to acknowledge this. It doesn't have to be full-on camp, but, with the notable exception of Batman Begins, my experience is that superhero movies work best when they lean in to the inherent goofiness of the genera a bit.

And I do want to lodge a complaint that the plot, though clearly functioning in service of the stunts and the themes rather than existing for itself, made no freakin' sense. SPOILERS ALERT: I mean, really, they couldn't find Bucky in the time since they, you know, lost track of a brainwashed supersoldier and now, but they can do it as soon as he's falsely accused of bombing the U.N.? Just like that? And they're not going to even try to bring him in alive? Really? There's no way a guy like that could be more useful when he's not dead? And once they have him, they're going to extradite him? Extradite him to where? Why not lock him up in the underwater supermax where they put the others? And why did they let the villain interrogate him? (This one may have been explained, but I guess I missed it.) It seems like you'd put some pretty significant safeguards on who goes in that room, given that Bucky can be controlled by literally anyone who knows the magic words.

Also, the villain's plan makes no sense. Why was he obsessed with that mission report? Clearly he wanted to use it to destroy the Avengers from within, but wouldn't that imply he already know about it? And if he wasn't interested in the supersoldiers, why go to Siberia? Is that where the video was? If so, why not just hack into the computers and get it that way? (Not that that's actually something that could probably be done, but Hollywood thinks hackers are magical.) Once you have it, really all you have to do is email it to Tony Stark. Isn't that going to be easier than bombing the U.N.? (Speaking of which, for someone whose entire motive is anger against collateral damage, he sure doesn't have many compunctions about causing any.) Maybe these things were explained, but they certainly weren't explained very clearly. END SPOILERS.

Despite all that, there still were plenty of things to like about the movie. The fight scenes were pretty enjoyable. In fact, somewhat ironically for a story at least tangentially about the horrors of war and collateral damage, it was only during the fight scenes that the characters ever seemed to enjoy themselves. It was as though, in the heat of battle, the writers forgot they were trying to tell a serious story and accidentally had a little fun with it.

Spider Man was also a pleasant surprise. When I heard that he was going to be in this one, I rolled my eyes. Must we do this again? But yes, we must, because we're going to get it right this time. A gadgeteering teenager without any serious emotional issues playing second fiddle to Tony Stark. I am satisfied. Please no more Spider Man movies.

The various team dynamics seemed reasonable enough, though I'm not sure how well they'd hold up to scrutiny. If you had told me, after the first Avengers movie, that they would eventually split into two groups: One bound by international laws and accountable to the U.N. and the other freewheeling vigilantes who were technically criminals, I would have believed that. And if you had told me that Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would be the leaders of those groups, I would also have believed that. But if you had told me Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would have been the leaders of those groups, respectively, I would have wondered what it was you were smoking. It's not that any particular step along the way seemed out of character or absurd (for a superhero movie), but seriously, how did we end up here?