The most important Marvel movie ever has easily become “Captain America: Civil War.” We’ve finally moved past origins stories and one-time villains, this is the beginning of a beautiful era of incomprehensibly dynamic superhero films that Marvel has done their best job on yet. I’m not exaggerating when I say this movie shines brighter than Tony Stark’s arc reactor. It’s just that good.
The Civil War story arc in the comics consisted of the government requiring superpowered individuals to become registered or face the possibility of arrest. The saga took place within multiple titles in the comics and affected not only The Avengers. It consisted of teams like the X-Men, Fantastic Four and The Young Avengers. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans return to their roles for “Captain America: Civil War,” which focuses on just The Avengers and all the damage they’ve done over the course of a few movies. Even though they save the day, bystander lives have still been lost as a result of their heroic actions.
It would make sense to tell the Civil War story at this point in the movie series. Time after time, we would see buildings collapse and cities fall. With all the explosions, viewers are left wondering if any civilians get hurt in the crossfire. While grim to think about, the beauty of these Marvel movies is that they take place in the real world as opposed to fictional cities. To have these heroes saving every single person is mathematically improbable, which movie-goers have most likely been noticing as the saga goes on.
The movie does an effective job of marginally changing the story to make sense in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Since characters like Hawkeye and Black Widow who don’t have any powers theoretically wouldn’t be required to register with the government as super-powered individuals, they focus solely on The Avengers as a group who needs to register with the United Nations, since they operate on a global basis.
Throughout the film there were blurred lines when it came to who the good guys, bad guys and overall antagonist were. Actually, newly-introduced hero Black Panther made the realization at the end of the movie that the true villain was, ironically, the need for vengeance. The related nature of avenging, revenge and vengeance puts the ethical standing of The Avengers in a morally gray area.
Black Panther was introduced to the MCU in this movie and will star in his own movie in 2018. I was hesitant to see how they portrayed him. The saga has already visited his home-country of Wakanda without even mentioning him. Luckily, he’s here now and will be a valuable asset to the team in the future, especially since his country is the only in the world to have vibranium, the same material as Captain America’s shield as its main export.
Another one of the biggest wins of this movie was the introduction of Spider-Man. Spider-Man is still Peter Parker but played by a different, younger actor. His portrayal was refreshing because not only did they skip over the origin story for him, they played up the fact that he’s still a young, inexperienced kid in comparison to the rest of the existing superheroes. (Well, he’s technically older than Vision).
My favorite part of this movie was that it easily feeds into the introduction of the aforementioned superhero team, Young Avengers. It’s a very shaky theory but “Captain America: Civil War” successfully sets up the possibility of them becoming the next Marvel project especially considering Marvel dropped the Inhumans movie from their projected plans. We see Tony Stark’s first interaction with teenage superheroes, the budding relationship between Scarlet Witch and Vision, Scott Lang teaming up with the Avengers and the predicted upcoming death of Loki in “Thor 3: Ragnarok” which all line up perfectly to introduce Young Avengers to the MCU. These events can further be developed to becoming the origin story for a few of the members of the Young Avengers team.
The final reason for this movie’s must-see status is that glorious hero vs. hero fight scene. Plenty of fans love to argue and say that one character is stronger than another. To get canonical proof puts to rest a good chunk of arguments and helps establish a sort of “power level” in the MCU. Who knew that Spider-Man could take on two other established heroes at once?
As of this point in time, “Captain America: Civil War” has become this year’s highest grossing film. Keep an eye out for the next Marvel movie since they consecutively seem to be getting better.
