Review: “Captain America: Civil War”

By now you’re either on board with what Marvel Studios has been setting up for the last eight years, or you couldn’t care less. And like the characters in Captain America: Civil War, you’d better figure out which side you’re on soon.

Critics constantly sum up franchise sequels with the idiom, “if you aren’t already a fan, this won’t change your mind”. Being the thirteenth movie in this particular franchise, it’s fair to say Civil War takes that sentiment to a new level. Everything you love about these films are here in exponentially greater abundance, with a virtually endless stream of cool characters, slick action sequences and witty banter. At the same time, the excess of moving parts means the weaknesses these movies have struggled with since 2008 land with an even more resounding thud; ineffectual villains, goofy plot devices and shoehorned exposition continue to haunt the whole system. The result is a film that doesn’t move the franchise any closer or farther from greatness. Instead, it’s a fun, expensive game of cinematic Jenga to see just how much weight a movie can pile on without falling over. The tower is intact, but it’s swaying wildly.

At the very least the movie is a value, providing two sequels for the price of one. As the first part of the title indicates, this is a follow-up to 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It is preoccupied with Captain America’s relationship with Bucky (Sebastian Stan), an old buddy who’s been brainwashed into a bad-ass assassin by the Illuminati-esque Hydra organization. Cap (Chris Evans, as good as he’s ever been) is determined to get to the bottom of his friend’s mental manipulation, but so is the mysterious Zemo (Daniel Bruhl), for decidedly more sinister reasons. Along with Bucky’s return, Civil War also carries over The Winter Soldier‘s ‘political thriller’ aesthetic and tone, though expanded to a global scale because everything’s gotta be bigger, okay?

At the same time, this is undoubtedly a sequel to Age of Ultron, as it deals directly with the fall-out from that movie’s deafening finale. Having decided that The Avengers are too powerful and too reckless to be trusted on their own, the governments of the world impose a system on our heroes in which they can only fight crime when approved by a UN panel. This is how the second part of the title come into play, with two opposing groups of Avengers forming: one that complies, agreeing that they should only act when the world deems it appropriate (lead by Iron Man), and one that rebels, believing that the holder of ultimate power have the right to use that power as they see fit for the greater good (lead by Captain America). Cue superheroes punching each other gracefully.

It’s appropriate that in a movie about two sides fighting each other, these two halves of the experience – the Winter Soldier sequel and the Age of Ultron sequel – battle for screen time as well. There is a smoothness to the way directors Joe and Anthony Russo connect these two sides of the narrative, but in the end it’s the wider Avenger elements that are more effective and exciting, while the scenes focusing on Captain America are underdeveloped in concept and clumsy in execution. It starts with Bucky. Let’s talk about Bucky, why don’t we? I’ve never found Bucky a particularly interesting character and continue to be baffled by Marvel’s insistence that he is such an integral part to this franchise. He’s a generically cool but aggressively uncharismatic presence who only helps bog the plot down in unnecessary melodrama. Apart from Bucky, as great as it is to see Daniel Bruhl in anything, Zemo’s entire reason for being in this movie remains irritatingly murky until long past I had stopped caring. And the less said about Cap’s tacked-on love interest, the better.

The amount of superhero characters stuffed into this movie is damn near unbelievable. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely must have been shaking in their boots trying to figure out how they were going to give each of these characters something interesting to do, and most filmmakers in a similar situation would likely push aside or remove most of them in an attempt to focus. Not only does the movie just go for it, they largely succeed in giving each and every hero cool moments that validate their presence, from the big players such as Captain America and Iron Man, down to the perpetually peripheral Falcon, Hawkeye, Black Widow and War Machine. I was most grateful that in just a couple of scene, the Russo brothers make infinitely better use of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man (in both the actor’s comedic genius and the character’s inventive powers) than the entirety of last year’s dull Ant-Man movie.

The introduction of new faces are perhaps the greatest achievement in the film, as these characters not only add more angles to the universe without convoluting it, they also succeed in getting audiences excited to see future solo movie without it coming off as cynical advertising (cough, Batman v Superman, cough). Though Black Panther’s emotional stakes in the story are unmistakably rushed and manipulative, Chadwick Boseman portrays the character with a dignified stoicism that is fresh for the franchise. The new Spider-Man played by Tom Holland feels like a profound revelation, if not because he’s actually portrayed by someone who is the same age (or even generation) as the character, then because his introduction alongside Downey Jr. works as a miniature, Creed-like passing of the torch moment. It’s the first time the series has subtly hinted at the inevitable retirement of the real world Avenger actors.

Even the characters that do fall flat (like poor Elizabeth Olson, who’s stuck sitting in a room doing a horrific Russian accent for most of the film) still have awesome super powers that translate well to the movie’s action sequences, which are so numerous that it almost becomes comedic. Each set piece is coherently shot and dynamically choreographed, no matter how many flying bodies or special effects are depicted on screen. I’ve already made a lot of fuss about the sheer quantity of stuff happening in this movie, but it all makes sense when summed up in these moments of colorful chaos, especially the show-stopping airport fight. While the fists (and claws, and lasers and webs) are flying and pure spectacle takes over, the significant problems with the narrative vanish into pure summer blockbuster bliss.

This was the first time watching these movies where I’ve felt challenged to keep up with the narrative, searching my memories of past movies because things don’t always add up solely from the information doled out here. That doesn’t mean Civil War is poorly written, it’s just that the traditional feature film format isn’t really built to retain this much information. Introducing yourself to Marvel movies via Civil War may be akin to starting a TV series on episode ten… of season two. For those who have been on board from the beginning, this film is brimming with the visceral and emotional rewards that come with seeing these characters onscreen year in and year out, interacting and developing in interesting ways. That connection alone is enough to get audiences past Civil War‘s clunkier narrative elements and keeps the franchise’s indestructible warpath on track.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Review: “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”

Two years ago, I was astounded by just how content Sony seemed to reboot the Spider-Man franchise without a single shred of ambition. In other words, I was surprised by how little surprise there was in director Marc Webb’s first The Amazing Spider-Man. The studio merely reset all of the dominoes that had stood in Sam Raimi’s original 2002 movie, and left it up to the inevitable sequel to actually do something different, something new.

Well, that sequel is here in the form of the hyperbolically-titled The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and instead of leading the franchise in a fresh, daring direction, Webb only improves on its predecessor’s aggressively generic filmmaking formula. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean the movie isn’t entertaining or engaging — it is frequently both. It doesn’t really cover any new ground, but at least it zips from one repetitive beat to the next at a decent speed.

There’s a lot of criticism going around regarding the film’s three antagonists, a nightmarish flashback to Spider-Man 3’s much-maligned overly-convoluted triptych of villains. Luckily, this is one case where the studio seems to have learned their lesson, taking care to relegate Paul Giamatti’s Rhyno to a book-ending device while connecting the dots between the two others — Jamie Foxx’s electricity-and-dubstep powered Electro and Dane DeHaan’s Green Goblin — in a way that isn’t too contrived.

DeHaan, by the way, is a vast improvement over James Franco until bad CGI is used to make him look even goblin-ier! DeHaan plays the character like an evil version of Batman’s Bruce Wane, and he pulls it off with his creepy-yet-charming stare that Franco never had. Foxx is also fun to watch, playing against type as an awkward, attention-hungry nebbish. His desire to be noticed, and his discovery that being a villain will give his face visibility on the internet and on TV makes him a character that is well-suited for our times, even if the script does become heavy-handed on that thread.

In fact, the entire movie is immensely heavy-handed, which wouldn’t be such a big problem if it weren’t repeating the same ideas and situations as the last four movies. The entire franchise has hinged on the “with great power comes great responsibility” line, and I think it’s time the series adopted a new motto.

We get it, Peter Parker needs to choose between protecting NYC and protecting the ones he loves.We know it’s difficult to be Spider-Man and have a girlfriend at the same time. And yes, we also get that people close to you will get hurt if you decide to go around fighting dangerous mad men. I’m tired of watching these conflicts play out again and again in such an overdone, melodramatic way. While still treated with enough enthusiasm by the actors to keep the story from falling flat, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is cinematic deja vu.

Fortunately, the movie is really pretty, and that goes a long way. The special effects are consistently eye-popping and even the quieter scenes are filled with warmth and color. Webb was shoved into Hollywood thanks to indie hit (500) Days of Summer, and that pedigree still shows in his ability to make the human relationships believable (especially the main romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey), even when the dialogue becomes sappy.

It doesn’t hurt that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have real-life romantic chemistry to work with, nor does the fact that both of them remain top-notch actors…even if I can’t quite buy them as high-school graduates (maybe just because I know that Andrew Garfield is actually 30 years old).

As in the first installment, Amazing Spider-Man 2 includes oddly out-of-place montages featuring pop music (I’m sure part of the insane amount of product placement), usually as Peter broods in his bedroom. These sequences exemplify just how much of the film, apart from the action scenes, feel like it’d fit right into a music video or a Levi’s commercial. In these moments I like to imagine that Marc Webb was a guy destined to direct commercials and music videos but somehow ended up in charge of a big-budget franchise.

That’s really the strangest yet most important criticism I have of the movie — everything seems too pretty, too perfect. It’s assembly line filmmaking of the highest degree, with every shot perfectly framed, every line of dialogue perfectly calculated and perfectly timed, every character arc paid of at the right time, every plot point fitting into its rightful moment. All the rough edges have been scraped off, sculpted into a perfectly-calibrated example of the superhero genre. Sounds like a compliment, right?

Yeah, sort of. But, in shaving away any and all scraggliness, every bump and scratch, the film starts to feel vaguely impersonal, woefully void of its own voice and spirit. It isn’t nearly as soulless as Man of Steel, but it does feel like an echo of a genre that has been taken in fresher directions by The Dark Knight films and more recently by Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

And so The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is entertaining pre-processed Hollywood fast food, a way to pass the time as you’ve passed it for years. It doesn’t give you more of what you love about the genre — it gives you more or less the exact same amount as usual. It is The Usual Spider-Man 2, and while that was enough to satisfy me this time (and last time), I can’t help but wonder how much longer it’ll last.

Rating: 3 out of 5

– Sam