

It all serves a cumbersome and not very original narrative.Īs in “ Batman v Superman,” a dude with a grudge (Daniel Brühl) is determined to set the superheroes against one another. It’s difficult to see exactly what’s going on, but you’ve seen it before anyway, so it hardly matters. The early chases and fights are hectic, stroboscopic messes, evidence less of the innovative power of digital effects than of the creative fatigue they can induce. The Russo brothers, whose résumés include “Arrested Development” as well as “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” are better at dialogue than at action. I’m not here to do your homework for you. You can go ahead and match them with their superhero identities and civilian alter egos.

Also Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Olsen and so many more. Others shake maracas for the cause and stare off into the middle distance. “Captain America: Civil War” is like the last number at a big benefit concert, when a mob of pop stars squeezes onto the stage to sing “This Land Is Your Land,” or whatever. The headliners are Cap (Chris Evans, of course) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr., of course), and most of the others you hope will show up for at least a brisk punch-up, a bout of soul-searching or a self-conscious joke or two. The newcomers include Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), whose first solo adventure is prophesied during the final credits, and a very young Spider-Man (Tom Holland), whose solo adventures are the property of a different movie studio.ĭo you need a list of the rest of them? There are a lot, and my space is limited. In this episode, based on a run of comics written by Mark Millar, some of the usual crowd is missing.
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It’s not so much a grand science-fiction saga, or even a series of action-adventure movies, as a very expensive, perpetually renewed workplace sitcom. The designated good guys are responsible for the deaths of innocents, and the question of their accountability hovers over the movie and sets its plot in motion.īut this very crowded, reasonably enjoyable installment in the Avengers cycle - written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directed by Joe and Anthony Russo - reveals, even more than its predecessors, an essential truth about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. helmet? - the film glances at some of the moral complexities of modern warfare.

More seriously - because, come on now, do you really think Captain America is going to put on a blue U.N. So “Civil War” pauses for a few moments of chin-scratching and speechifying about whether a group of genetically advantaged, highly weaponized individuals should be brought under the supervision of the United Nations. An aura of vaguely topical importance is as vital to a superhero-franchise movie as a merchandising deal. I hate to disappoint, but I have to say that I’m not really feeling it. Trump and Elon Musk, would you get Tony Stark? Would Captain America’s endorsement have made a difference for John Kasich? Is Ant-Man a Bernie Bro? In spite of occasional public scolding about the rampant misuse of allegorical interpretation, hard-pressed, click-seeking cultural journalists and political pundits can be counted on to take up the hard work of finding echoes, resonances and subtexts in a big pop-cultural pseudo-event. If you release a movie called “ Captain America: Civil War” to an ideologically polarized nation in the midst of a notably contentious presidential campaign, you can expect to reap a whirlwind of think pieces.
