Despite not being an ‘Avengers’ film, Captain America 3: Civil War is a Marvel All Star Game with so many known characters that they relegate some to the bench for a while. Sorry Spider-Man keep your civvies on. Apologies Ant-Man, we’ll fit you in during the second half.
The action begins with the Avengers to be put on a United Nations controlled leash, due mainly to the collateral damage wrought by their ‘avenging’ upon innocent citizens and public property. Protecting freedom and liberty is a destructive game. Despite their best efforts, it seems that you cannot shoot lasers, throw immense colossuses and explode robot henchmen in crowded cities without a few bumps and scratches.
But it isn’t only us useless save-worthy citizens that feel the pain, the pride earned by dozens of world saving feats must be coddled, and certain Avengers don’t take too kindly to being told to rein it in.
As the great many costumed heroes quickly split into factions, still more appear. Some are entirely new, some just new to this ever expanding series. The Black Panther, that zappy woman from the last film, the one who was Iron Man’s operating system but is now a big red guy, the Winter Soldier who I know is important to the mythology but can never remember how.
And it’s all so many lengthy discussions about right, wrong and the in betweens, but we all know that it is leading to the world’s most colourful and lycra filled bar brawl. Apparently the ‘make the good guys fall out of favour and the have them heroically win us back’ thing never gets old, despite being repeated several times in recent years alone.
What the film does do well is depicting superhero power usage in an effective manner. Collisions and contacts look like they hurt, especially when inflicted upon bad guy minions. Cap 3 has seen Game of Thrones and wants in, only it seems to forget that GoT maintains interest and drama by periodically culling some of their bazillion characters. Marvel will never do that, in fact despite the repeated brawls and to-the-death battles onscreen, (with one exception) no one gets more than a black eye or a cheek scratch. There is no limping, no blood and certainly no stench of death.
Unfortunately what it doesn’t do well is maintain our interest betwixt these stoushes. Like any All Star Game there are the ‘starters’ who deserve to be there, then a few filler players of varying value, but also invariably the ones whose presence makes you curious as to just how deserved this appearance is. Spider-Man’s cameo might well be called product placement. Ditto Black Panther. And Hawkeye, Falcon, Vision and Ant-Man seem more important to the posters selling the film than the film itself.
As The Incredibles supposed ‘when everyone is special no one is’. Well when you have a bunch of equally indestructible good guys going head to head who can really win? And furthermore who can we root for? The answer to both questions is ‘the Marvel box-office’ and ‘the next film in this never ending series’.
Captain America 3: Civil War is a noisy, expensive and occasionally excellent effort, but it is more bloated than the previous editions and the cracks in the impregnable Marvel shield are just starting to show.
Final Rating – 7 / 10. Yes there is bang for the buck. But this is billion dollar filler.
