5 Problems I Have With Captain America: Civil War

Before I get to complaining, I thought Captain America: Civil War was okay.  They did a good job with Black Panther, every character other than Captain America and Ironman was just fine, and the movie handled a large cast shockingly good...most of the time.

So why can't I get a few things off my mind?  This movie got great reviews from the professionals so I can't help but wonder if this is a bit of fanboying or nitpicking or what.  Here are my five issues.

5.  Why did anything happen?

I know the impetuous is on governmental oversight but come on.  We all know the plot turned it into Martha Bucky.  It should have stayed on the Governmental oversight but that would have required a 3 hour movie.

Kudos for a Marvel movie FINALLY slowing down it's pacing at times...until the airport scene to the end...but it's a start.  It was mostly to give development to Black Panther, explain how the overpowered Scarlet Witch and Vision is secluded for the start, and to remind the audience that Cap and Bucky are just the best of friends (even though they shouldn't be).  All of that is fine, but some of those slower scenes could have been spent on the nuance of "how much power should the Avengers have"?  That is a cool question.  That is a similar question (albeit, extended to the entire Marvel Universe) to what the comic storyline is.  Why not explore that?

Oh, right, the MCU just wants to stay comic action for comic actions sake. Dare it to ask tough questions and Marvel wrongly points to the DC movies and laughs.*  Instead, we get Bucky the Martha plot device taking over the plot about half way through.  Couldn't, I don't know, couldn't Cap and Stark just....talk this over?  You're going to war over a dude who was brainwashed, Cap knows this, and, Stark just doesn't care?  No, Stark doesn't know.  So......oh god this is stupid.

*DC movies at least try to tackle tougher/headier/philosophical questions. Weirdly enough, those are often their best moments.  It's all the other stuff DC movies suck at.  

I KNOW they're being manipulated by "Totally Not Baron Zemo" but....how?  We get next to nothing showing him manipulating the heroes.  He just says at the end, "Yeah I totally did this."  Uh, okay.  Is Marvel so bad at villains it decided to almost completely ignore the villain from this one because they knew they couldn't do "Zemo" justice?  Ultron is a TERRRRRRRIBLE villain and he is ten times better than "Zemo".   I'm not even a Baron Zemo fan!  The fuck is this?  I may write a post JUST on Marvel's villain problem.

He's in this movie.  Get...the fuck....out.

BTW, the motivations for most of the other superheroes get basically one line of dialogue (which I thought was REALLY well done by the way) yet Captain America gets the entire movie and his motivation never seems to be more than wanting to help his bro.  He has NEVER been convincing in hating or not liking or even distrusting the governmental project that created himself.  Yeah, he's pissed he ended up in the future because he should....have....died when Red Skull's plane......what?!?!?!  The fuck does that have anything to do with the project that created YOU?

4. Tony Stark.

War Machine:  "Didn't you refuse to work with the Government before?"

Ironman:  "Well, that was before anybody died from my weapons."

(Still better reasoning than the NRA in my opinion).

Okay, I liked that Stark has a more human reason for suddenly embracing governmental oversight.  It actually made him seem right for once and, well, #TeamStark.

BUT, his character wouldn't linger on that for as long as this movie needs for a Civil War, a Civil War that is just as much his fault as Caps.  Tony Stark is still Tony Stark.  I can easily see him being upset after a mother tells the story about how her son was killed in their collateral damage but to have it haunt him enough to go through with everything in this....UGH, 2 weeks?  A month?  Again Marvel.  Why is it so hard to pinpoint a time frame in your movies?

Ironman wanted to get Shwarma at the end of Avengers 1.  Is this the same character now?

3. Vision and Scarlet Witch going MIA.  

...............When did this happen?  

A buddy of mine already pointed this out but, what were they doing through most of the airport scene?  Yeah, Vision shows up occasionally after he's done staring at the clouds.  Scarlet Witch is missing through almost all of it then has Team Stark Get Rekt.  I'm sorry but better fight scenes have their OP characters knocked out at the start by science/magic/whatever so that they have a reason to be missing for a bit and can turn the tide at the end.  Here, Scarlet Witch is just doing....something.  Vision, I assume, was just confused.

Maybe she took off to get a latte cause goddamn is this civil war stupid.

2.  The Fight Scenes.

I am SO goddamn sick of the Christopher Nolan, rapid fire, shaky cam fight scenes.  It's especially atrocious in the first scene.  I.....have no idea who punched what.   The airport scene was okay because they actually toned the rapid fire edits back shockingly enough, but the final Cap, Winter Solider, Ironman fight went back to this and I thought Cap decapitated Stark.  He didn't, and hey.....

Fuck you directors/editors if that was on purpose.  Tricks like that are just to make the audience think they saw a thing and in slower edits, it works.  Not when you IMMEDIATELY show that didn't happen with the rapid fire edit.  There was no time to process anything.  A fake-out isn't very effective when it lasts less than a second.

(I knowwww a lot of people have just accepted this rapid fire editing as the way fight scenes/action scenes are now.  Even Mad Max:Fury Road did this at times, but not always.  We need more Bruce Lee's.  It could be SO MUCH BETTER).

1.  WHY WAS SPIDERMAN HERE?

I hate everything about this picture.

Unlike the rest of my Twitter friends, I actually like Spiderman.  Well....I did until the Clone Saga, and the holy fucking shit this is literally the worst story ever told One More Day storyline.  Anyway, regardless of his age, he's supposed to be awkward, annoying, and short sighted because he's perpetually stuck being a teenager.  Teens are dumb you guys.  Have you talked to one recently?

Spiderman plays a HUGE role in the comic storyline because he's kind of neutral while also being Team Stark.  He actually reveals his identity in an effort to stop the Civil War.  It's not necessary here as this movie altered the comic plot from "Superhero Registration Act" to "This is totally real you guys we swear UN oversight".  If he isn't going to be the sorta neutral party.....why is he here?

I know the answer to my own question (to appease comic fans sorta) but he's here because....the teams needed rebalancing after Cap won 6 vs 4?*  His CGI-ness really stuck out and while you can't really MoCap the absurdly agile Spiderman, it still seemed - WHY DID HIS COSTUME'S EYES MOVE?  Is his costume magic?!?!?!  I know Stark gave him one but no, nnnnnnno!  There is no science for, the fuck that is.  It drives me nuts.  His eyes should be static goddamnit.

*Vidya garme reference, whaaaaaaaat?

Although, for as "qwipy" as every MCU movie is, I didn't mind Spiderman slinging jokes and one-liners because that is kinda his thing.  Also, Marvel is owned by Disney, which also owns Star Wars, Spidey makes a Star Wars reference......

Captain America: Civil War is a fine movie, I swear.  But I kind of hate it.  Its got Jurassic World syndrome.  Why does this movie exist?  I'm so confused.

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