Six Years in the Making: an MCU Unpopular Opinion

As a fan of Marvel, movies, and Marvel movies, I look at superhero films through two lenses - the fanboy lens and the writer lens. The part of me that adores telling and consuming stories is more critical than the fan who’s just happy to see cool stuff on screen, but I believe in balance. A good superhero movie should satisfy both parts. It’s been almost six years, but with that in mind I feel compelled to get this off my chest.

I don’t think Captain America: Civil War (2016) is a good movie.

I like to watch a film at least twice - once for the experience and spectacle, and again for actual evaluation. I understand this is a fan-favorite MCU film and have since watched it three times, but I have to say it gets worse for me with every viewing. The fan in me wants to believe that opinions are totally subjective and that as long as you enjoy a film, it’s good. But the writer and critic in me just can’t get past the fact that it makes no sense, both objectively and through in-universe character motivation.

What Civil War does well is play on emotional stakes. We see it in a distraught mother’s conversation with Tony Stark, in the death of King T’Chaka, in Rhodey’s accident, and in the final fight in Siberia. In fact, it does this so well that it almost completely distracts you from the gigantic plot holes and inconsistencies present in its inflated story. Now, nobody expects Marvel movies to be steeped in hyper-realism. This is about superheroes for crying out loud. However, good stories have to balance adherence to the established rules of their world with an acknowledgement of the audience’s capacity to suspend its disbelief. Civil War does neither. Let me explain.

Firstly, the plot itself doesn’t make much sense past the first act. Baron Zemo’s desire for information about a specific mission the Winter Soldier carried out unfolds in an elaborate plan to frame Bucky Barnes for a violent international incident so that he’ll be forced out of hiding, end up captured, and somehow more accessible to Zemo for re-brainwashing. Seems overly complicated already, but at least it serves to establish high stakes early on. Still, that’s just the first half of the plan.

The second half of Zemo’s plan is to “turn the Avengers against each other” as revenge for their involvement in the destruction of his home of Sokovia, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with him. The only reason the Avengers are on opposite sides at all is because of the Sokovia Accords. Had there not been a piece of international legislation resulting in both a sanctioned and unsanctioned Avengers team, Zemo would’ve had the entire Avengers roster coming for him when he framed Bucky - which is something he’d still have to do in order to complete the first part of his plan. Zemo never actually breaks them up at all.

Ultimately we find out that Zemo wanted to discover where an elite team of super-soldiers was being held in cryogenic stasis so he could kill them all. Normally that would be compelling, except it has absolutely no effect on the main plot. These super-soldiers are mentioned for the first time after Bucky reunites with Steve and Sam halfway through the movie, and the next time we see them they’re already dead by Zemo’s hand. Their existence had nothing to do with the Accords or even Bucky directly, aside from his knowledge about them. The kicker here is that the serum used to make these soldiers is what the original mission had been about, and that resulted in the murders of Tony Stark’s parents. But the murders are the significant part, not the serum. They could’ve been transporting anything of value, and even if there were no other super-soldiers the impact still would have been the same.

Essentially, there exists an entire subplot in this movie with no actual payoff. What it does instead is split Zemo’s motivation into two halves, and the connection between them ends up tenuous at best.

Furthermore, the climax of the film is when Tony finds out the Winter Soldier killed his parents and that Steve already knew and never told him. This is revealed through an old, grainy tape from a camera on some back road dating back to 1991. Honestly, in a film with a dozen superheroes and their fantastic exploits, this somehow managed to be the most ridiculous detail of all. The Winter Soldier is supposed to be so covert and thorough that his existence is basically a ghost story even among other assassins until the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier, but apparently there’s some 25-year-old footage of him murdering two very high-profile people before he takes out a camera that happened to be stationed off the main road. How does that even exist? And more importantly, how and when did Zemo manage to obtain it?

The circumstances surrounding the reveal are equally absurd. Essentially, Zemo waits in a Siberian bunker with this tape ready to play on the off chance Tony Stark might show up, which should’ve been unlikely. Zemo knows that Steve and Bucky are coming for him, but up until that point there’s no reason for him to expect Tony to be there. Tony’s working for the United Nations now and is only allowed to go on sanctioned missions. Since he was sent to stop Steve from going to Siberia, it doesn’t make sense to expect him to arrive at that very same place.

The only reason Tony does end up in Siberia is because he personally had his AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. analyze the evidence gathered from the bombing in Vienna and concluded for himself that Bucky was framed. Tony hadn’t figured it out until then, so what would make Zemo assume that he would and then show up just in time to see this old tape? It’s a longshot at best.

Everything I've laid out so far is just applying our real-world logic to the story. This doesn’t take into account adherence to characterization or in-universe motivations. But there are problems with this as well.

Admittedly, the setup for the plot is quite believable. MCU Steve Rogers absolutely would refuse to sign the Sokovia Accords and then drop everything to find and defend Bucky from his former teammates before knowing if Bucky's actually to blame or not. MCU Tony Stark would absolutely feel guilty about the collateral damage caused by the Avengers’ - and his own - well-intentioned exploits, and would want to find a preventative solution to that problem as quickly as possible.

But would the Steve Rogers we’ve seen for four movies attend the funeral of someone he fell in love with before being frozen for 70 years (and has since visited her upon being unfrozen) and then lock lips with said woman’s niece (in whom he had never shown interest) a little while later in one of the most uncomfortable make-out scenes in recent memory? Something inside me wants to say no.

Would Tony Stark, who had consistently been characterized to have a desire and willingness to protect others at the expense of himself (literally since Iron Man where he asked Pepper to blow up a building with him on top of it in order to stop Obadiah Stane, and again carrying a nuke in The Avengers), bring some completely inexperienced 15-year-old to Germany to help him fight three war veterans, an assassin, an unstable magic user and a guy who shrinks? No, he wouldn’t. Tony in particular has been written pretty consistently across the MCU but this is the single most uncharacteristic action he takes in all his appearances.

Speaking of the airport brawl, its setup doesn’t make sense when taking characterization or motivation into account either. We know that Steve and Bucky are going to be there and that Sam Wilson will go to help Steve. We know that Tony, Natasha, and Rhodey will be there to stop them as a result of the Accords and that T’Challa will be there since he believes Bucky’s responsible for his father’s death. In terms of believability, however, that’s as far as it goes.

As already referenced, Spider-Man shouldn’t be present. Not only does his limited screen time not actually do anything for the film (you could remove him entirely and the plot would be the same), Tony shouldn’t have gone to get him in the first place. Secondly, Ant-Man’s presence is both superfluous and disappointing. Scott Lang only appears in the movie for the fight and its aftermath, but more importantly, it goes against his solo movie’s development. In Ant-Man, he tries to be a better father after coming out of jail and ultimately achieves the feat of having a meaningful and stable presence in his daughter’s life. Then the very next time we see him he willingly becomes an international criminal who ends up in jail. Again. Not very conducive to having a life with one's daughter, is it?

Speaking of becoming an international criminal, Hawkeye shouldn’t be there either. Clint had retired by this time and was, presumably, with his family. At the start of the film, some of the Avengers are on a mission to stop Brock Rumlow from releasing a bio-chemical weapon that could result in deaths on a global scale. Clint is not present for something that important, but apparently he’ll come out of retirement to break international law and fight his one most trusted friend? Why?

Since Clint shouldn’t be present, neither should Wanda and Vision be. Wanda would never have known about anything happening in Germany if Clint hadn’t come to get her, and Vision wouldn’t have joined Tony on that mission if Wanda hadn’t left. This fight is framed as a serious emotional struggle stemming from an important debate, but since there are five heroes present at the airport that had no business being there (three of whom had no stake in this debate whatsoever), it all feels especially hollow.

Finally, I’d like to address something that’s more of a personal opinion on story concept and not necessarily on the finished product itself: a “Civil War” storyline should never have been adapted as part of a solo trilogy in the first place. It's an enormous event in the comics. It affects dozens of big name heroes, many of whom didn’t exist in the MCU at this point. Realistically, adapting a tale of this magnitude requires nothing short of an Avengers-level movie, and wasting it on a Captain America film just detracts from his story. Shoving a plot about heroes coming to blows over important legislation into a continuation of Steve’s and Bucky’s existing story makes it feel like Marvel Studios couldn’t decide what to do.

Personally, I would have liked a less grandiose version of Cap’s third film with Zemo and the Russian super-soldiers as the central conflict. Focusing only on Steve, Sam, Bucky, Natasha, and Zemo would have resulted in a much more interesting, grounded and cohesive addition to the Captain America franchise, and it truly is a pity we never got to see it.