Captain America: Civil
War (CW) performed well at box office and pleased fans and critics
alike. It actually put the latest Big Event Marvel Movie, Avengers:
Age of Ultron (AOU) to shame… but one thing you might not have
noticed is that CW actually makes AOU a better movie. Granted this
would mean watching films over again and out of chronological order,
but as a Marvel fan that was probably going to happen anyway, wasn’t
it?
The major conflict in
CW is between Iron Man and Captain America, the breakdown of their
relation provided an emotional core to the film (“He’s my
friend…”) but seeing this play out adds context to the events of
Age Of Ultron. Civil War also puts more weight into these friends’ feelings, as
overall I think it handles characterisation much better. If you take
all this with you when you watch AOU again, you start to notice the bond between
Cap and Tony more and you dread what’s coming. It also means that
anytime in the film that they disagree you get a flash of that future
as AOU borrows the emotion of CW.
People had problems
with Black Widow in AOU, big problems. Personally, I felt I understood
her and how she would have at least believed she had feelings for
Banner… I did think we had moved past damsels in distress though. In
CW, Natasha seems to to be back on form and she has a clear bond with both teams, illustrated by callbacks to her appearances in Iron Man 2, Captain
America: Winter Soldier and Avengers. This bond allows her to see the
argument from both sides and apart from Tony she’s the only sign
that Iron Man’s team has a conscience/doubt about what they are doing.
Bearing this in mind AOU becomes a transformative phase for Black
Widow as she struggles with the monstrous things she has done in the
past and looks for a reason to fight going forward. I could even go
as far as to say her relationship with Banner was just a reflection
of, or a metaphor for, how she sees herself, the Hulk leaving at the
end of Age of Ultron becomes a new start for Nat.
Civil War lends a
personal cost to the events in Sokovia, the fact that it in part
prompted the accords shows how serious the situation was… yet there
didn’t seem much time spent on this in AOU, you kind of assume that
everyone survived and an already, mostly ruined down town disappears
off the map but the world is saved, so no problem… seeing the
future lets you see it in an all new light. It would have been a
powerful moment to see the Avengers fail at saving even one person,
the events of Civil War try to make up for this.
Having an extra film -full of content means we get to see more of the characters, naturally, but CW is also
filled with little in-character touches (like the ones we saw in Avengers) and I
wish we’d seen more in AOU. An extra two and a half hours of
time with our heroes does mean we know them better and care for them more than we
did before Age of Ultron, taking that with us means we see more
rounded and familiar characters in the film (AOU) than we did the first
time. On a similar note, these little touches also add to our picture
of the team dynamic for the previous film.
I’m deducting points
for this next one: Even through all the trauma and guilt that
Scarlet Witch faced in Civil War, she didn’t seem to be thinking
of her brother… it hasn’t been that long and there’s no sign of
how she feels about losing him. Maybe she knows something we done and maybe we can pretend he’s still
alive based on this “evidence”.
Watching Civil War you
get more of a look at Tony Stark's character, and you see some themes
that might not have been obvious before. CW highlights Tony's
attachment to the team, and how much they mean to him, it's even
clearer that he thinks of them as family... all of a sudden the
vision of dead Avengers that Stark sees in AOU becomes more powerful
and you can see how it could have made him panic and act
irrationally.
Civil War also gives us a look at Tony's family, and
he admits that he is still trying to cope with their loss, bearing
this in mind and looking at other MCU films you can see that Tony has
attempted to fill that void by becoming dependent on several
different things, always replacing one with something new. In the
first Iron Man movie he uses women, until his feelings for Pepper, a near death experience and
discovering his weapons are sold to terrorists put things into
perspective, then in Iron Man 2 he turns to alcohol rather than
facing the problem. Iron Man 3 and things are slipping as he's
dealing with his insignificance in the vastness of the universe. He
focuses on his suits until he realises that isn't the answer and
blows them up, he still calls himself Iron Man, maybe playing hero
adds to his self worth and having Pepper seems like enough. Then AOU
happens, he's terrified of losing his “family” and blames
himself, and no matter what he has to be the one to put things
right... this family bond is clearer after viewing CW. After
abandoning Pepper to go play hero and nearly causing the end of the
world in Age of Ultron, Civil War sees Tony with nothing left, except from that family and now
he'll do anything to keep it together, even blindly agreeing to the
Sokovia Accords and refusing to recognise that Cap is on a different mission. Once you know how much Stark depends on the Avengers, AOU
makes more sense... an already fragile man sees that he is going to
cause the end of the one thing that keeps him going... he might try
anything to protect it.
There you have it,
just like the Avengers themselves the movies are all stronger when
they stand together.
Think of anything I've
missed? Maybe you disagree? Let me know in the comments, and for more Marvel Content, including our Civil War Debate, check out the Marvel label/tag and our other blog posts!
