Review: ‘Captain America: Civil War’ is the payoff of Marvel’s long game

‘Captain America: Civil War’, in many ways, feels like culmination of story arcs that began with studio earlier films

KARACHI: As I write, Captain America: Civil War, the latest Marvel Studios superhero blockbuster, has already earned more than $700 million worldwide.

Not counting the Netflix shows and television series, the movie is the 13th entry in what has been dubbed the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). What many saw as a risky experiment when it began eight years ago is now a well-oiled box office hit machine.

That Marvel movies will earn and earn big should now seem a foregone conclusion. Collectively, the MCU films released thus far have grossed over $9.7 billion at the global box office. This should be proof enough that the studio has not only mastered the art of the blockbuster but distilled it down to an exact science.



Still, each announcement of a new movie by Marvel is met with anxiety. ‘When will the wheels of this gravy train come off?’ is a question that rings true in many heads ahead of each release. As the MCU introduces character after character, hero after hero, and grows ever more complex, one can’t help but anticipate a saturation point.

But here we are. Thirteen movies in, Marvel Studios appears not even close to catching its breath.

With the release of Iron Man in 2008, Marvel planted the seed for a long game. As well received as it was, it seemed modest compared to A-list franchises of the time like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Christopher Nolan’s Batman. That same year, Iron Man would be completely overshadowed by Nolan’s The Dark Knight, a movie some deem to be the finest superhero movie ever filmed.



That long game, however, has paid dividends in more ways than anyone could ever have expected. Not just for the studios but for the audience as well.

Nowhere is this payoff for the viewer more evident than in Captain America: Civil War. The movie, in many ways, feels like the culmination of story arcs that began with Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger and of course, The Avengers. At the same time, the film not only lays groundwork for future Avengers movies but also provides a jump off point for two new additions to the MCU pantheon — the Black Panther and Spider-Man. A long game not only ends with the movie, but a new one also begins.



From early trailers, many anticipated Civil War to be Avengers 2.5. With a dozen heroes on screen, how could it not be? At its core though, Civil War still manages to be a Captain America story. In many ways, yes, it is a follow on to 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. However, it is equally a sequel to 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The movie begins in Lagos, Nigeria. An Avengers squad, led by Captain America is on mission to thwart the theft of a biological weapon. While they do manage to recover the weapon, the mission goes awry and results in the deaths of a dozen citizens. This kicks off a conversation that splits the Avengers right across the middle: should superheroes be free from or subject to some form of oversight?

Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr, haunted as he is by both his own demons and victims of what he sees as his and his fellow heroes’ recklessness, believes oversight is necessary. Captain America, after learning in his previous standalone film how easily bureaucracy can be infiltrated by nefarious elements, thinks otherwise.

Meanwhile, as world leaders gather to sign an accord that would subject the Avengers to global oversight, they are attacked by someone who seems to be the Winter Soldier — Captain America’s brainwashed old friend.

Thus begins our main plot, with Captain America going renegade in a bid to reach the Winter Soldier before the authorities chasing him, and with Iron Man tasked to bring a rogue Captain America in. As it progresses, the various other heroes, based on their own character traits and motivations align with either Captain America or Iron Man, and are set on collision course with each other.

With so many characters sharing the screen, Civil War could very easily have been a fiasco. But the writers and directors handle them with such finesse that this possibility never once crosses the mind. Each character brings something unique, in terms of both powers and personality. And more than that, they all come together to complement each other. A massive clash between all 12 heroes roughly two-thirds into the film has to be the best superhero sequence filmed so far.

The remarkable part, however, is how the film-makers make you want the heroes to not fight each other in the first place. As battle lines are drawn and seemingly irreconcilable rifts emerge, you want your beloved heroes to stop and somehow, go back and have shawarma, like they did at the end the of first Avengers movie.

Civil War also makes it very difficult to decide who is in the right, exploring both the merits and demerits of the arguments of Captain America and Iron Man. This stands in sharp contrast to its accidental sister piece from rival DC, Batman vs Superman, which incidentally tries but fails to spark the same conversation.

While I feel it is pointless to comment on acting for the most part, as many of the actors have been playing these characters for quite a while now, it is important to mention two new additions. As the Black Panther, the leader and talismanic warrior of the fictional African country of Wakanda, Chadwick Boseman manages to be stern, regal and cool on the surface while conveying all the anger and ferocity that lies beneath. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, despite limited screen time that initially appears shoehorned, surprisingly manages to be arguably the best live-action rendition of the character.

As a final note, just like Guardians of the Galaxy before it, Civil War also provides pathos in the unlikeliest of places. Watch the movie to find out how.

Verdict: While Captain America: Civil War, like any other superhero story, will ask you to suspend your disbelief considerably at places; it is still this summer’s quintessential blockbuster



Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2016.

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