Review: “Captain America: Civil War”
gets tone, witty banter just right.
The solemn, wreckingball mediocrity that was “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” made either too much or not enough of its key themes: collateral damage; vigilante excess and the ethics of peacekeeping through extreme force; and, more to the marketing point, the blood-sport appeal of should-be allies beating the hell out of each other for what seemed like several days. Those bullet points return, to far livelier and more satisfying results, in “Captain America: Civil War,” the latest Marvel Studios exercise in ensemble superheroism and the fine art of making big piles of money.
Here are the three key indicators of this franchise entry’s success.
Tone. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo stage, shoot and edit action in ways I don’t always love, but do admire. When the Avengers take on their new adversaries, led by a sinister and plausibly motivated Daniel Bruhl, the individual beats amid the beat-downs resemble superhero action sequences from another decade at eight times “normal” speed. It sounds cheesy and exhausting, and parts of the movie certainly are. But the best of “Civil War” is heightened and comic-bookish enough to work in the preferred Marvel mode of realistic fakery.
Safety in numbers. Early in “Civil War,” a botched Avengers mission in Nigeria leads to many civilian casualties, echoing the collateral damage inflicted at the climax of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Should the Avengers be reined in and subjected to stronger federal oversight?
Among the gang, some vote “yes,” including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and the humanoid red man Vision (Paul Bettany, who sounds like he’s president of the local HAL 9000 impersonators’ club). Others, notably Captain America (Chris Evans), refuse to sign the necessary papers requiring the Avengers to comply with United Nations oversight. This leads rather neatly to the internal strife and intramural civil war of the title, a showdown at the Leipzig/Halle airport.
Many “Avengers” universe regulars suit up, among them Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, looking surly and inconvenienced as usual), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd).
We also are treated to some franchise newbies, chiefly Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman, terrific) and the screen’s newest version of SpiderMan (Tom Holland). As the various superheroes learn what it’s like to be pummeled and one-upped by their colleagues, the scene builds momentum and piles up wreckage without losing its sense of humor. This brings us to ...
Wit. “Civil War” actually has it. Just about everyone on screen knows how to extract the wit in their material. For a couple of movies now, Downey has been working on autopilot as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. Here, the character goes through another soul search, but Downey seems to mean it. So we can fully enjoy the movie’s crucial change-of-pace sequence around the midpoint: the meeting between Iron Man and Spider-Man, wherein the two actors clearly are out for comic blood. It’s delightful.
Nothing in “Civil War” takes your breath away. But almost everything works on its own prescribed terms, and the quiet moments register.