Captain America: Civil War

[Mr Cochese]

I think he's trying to say that he's much better equipped to appreciate cinema than us plebs.

[Chindie]

2 hours ago, mdn2 said:

Aren't we due a Doctor Strange trailer today?

It'll be late tonight/early tomorrow for us. It's being shown on the Jimmy Kimmel show in the US tonight, who's having a bit of a Marvel week.

 

Looking forward to it, it has the potential to be very interesting and very weird. Or awful.

[Grobbelboy]

29 minutes ago, Mr Cochese said:

I think he's trying to say that he's much better equipped to appreciate cinema than us plebs.

 

Er yeah, that's exactly it  As great as the gaming related talk here can be, this is one of the worst places to have a discussion about film. Especially when a big franchise is involved it's often just superficial, hyperbolic, meme spouting nerd rage or worshipping. Should have known better really.

[BitterToad]

7 minutes ago, Grobbelboy said:

 

Er yeah, that's exactly it  As great as the gaming related talk here can be, this is one of the worst places to have a discussion about film. Especially when a big franchise is involved it's often just superficial, hyperbolic, meme spouting nerd rage or worshipping. Should have known better really.

Just a quick aside, if you feel that way about a place, maybe it's best not to tell said place that.  

 

You may come across as a bit of a know it all bellend. 

[Sabreman]

Someone's been reading the SA Comic Book Movie Megathread.

[Pete]

Well I love discussing films and TV on here. I stopped playing videogames properly about 5 years ago!

[Nick R]

The embargo's up, and reviews so far seem pretty ecstatic, judging by the 14/14 Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

5 stars from Empire, and Biast Marvel Shill Devin Faraci says:

 

 

Quote

This is it - the peak of the superhero movie shared universe. Captain America: Civil War is a tight action thriller that works on its own, but when taken as the latest chapter in an unprecedented experiment in longform storytelling it’s a brilliant chapter, one that makes everything that went before seem better if only because it was all leading to this pinnacle.

 

[Comrade]

On 4/12/2016 at 4:52 PM, Sabreman said:

Someone's been reading the SA Comic Book Movie Megathread.

 

Ssh, this is the only place we can hide from SMG.

[Jarik]

I'm glad it seems to be the masterpiece that everyone (including me) hoped it was going to be, unlike a certain other film I wont mention.

 

I really want to see how the whole Tony/Cap conflict is going to be resolved.  According to the reviews, they're both right, unlike the comic story, where Tony was clearly in the wrong & doing some messed up stuff.

 

Not that I don't still consider them fighting in the first place to be messed-up.  Even with the build-up over the other MCU movies, I can't really see how it come to that?  Something big must go down to get it to the point where they come to blows rather than working things out, & I'm guessing that it all centres around Bucky.  He either does something, or Tony thinks he's done something, that he just can't believe Steve shielding him for, & Steve may or may not be right in doing so.

 

Roll on May!

[Mr Cochese]

Roll on April, you mean.

[Jarik]

9 minutes ago, Mr Cochese said:

Roll on April, you mean.

 

Yes, you're right.  I was thinking of the US Poster.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3498820/releaseinfo

[RubberJohnny]

http://uproxx.com/movies/captain-america-civil-war-review/

 

Quote

This is the point in this piece where I mention Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I didn’t really want to, but it’s incredible how watchable Captain America: Civil War is and how dull Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice turned out to be when you consider that both movies have pretty similar core plots: Superheroes fighting against each other, a mysterious figure behind the scenes pulling the strings … and, remarkably, a superhero’s mother plays a large role in both films. Yet Marvel has this down. Marvel knows how to move the story along and keep us entertained. Marvel knows how to trick us into liking these characters and caring about what happens to them. (That trick is by making them “likable.”)

 

Sure, Marvel is marketing Captain America: Civil War as “dark,” but it’s not “dark.” “Dark” is boring. Everyone thinks they want a dark film because the word “dark” sounds cool. So pretty much every movie that falls into the nerd genre will be marked as dark. Go back and look it up for any movie. “Oh, it will be dark.” That’s pretty much every director or cast member talking about his or her next superhero film. The trick is not actually releasing a “dark” movie. Hey, I’ll hand it to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s kind of a dark movie. It’s so dark I almost fell asleep.

 

The go-to “dark” movie is The Empire Strikes Back. The Empire Strikes Back isn’t “dark,” it’s just “good.” There’s plenty of humor. And then bad things happen to characters we care about. I wish we could ban the word “dark.” It’s a crutch.

 

[Glasgowchivas]

1 hour ago, Jarik said:

I'm glad it seems to be the masterpiece that everyone (including me) hoped it was going to be, unlike a certain other film I wont mention.

 

I really want to see how the whole Tony/Cap conflict is going to be resolved.  According to the reviews, they're both right, unlike the comic story, where Tony was clearly in the wrong & doing some messed up stuff.

 

Not that I don't still consider them fighting in the first place to be messed-up.  Even with the build-up over the other MCU movies, I can't really see how it come to that?  Something big must go down to get it to the point where they come to blows rather than working things out, & I'm guessing that it all centres around Bucky.  He either does something, or Tony thinks he's done something, that he just can't believe Steve shielding him for, & Steve may or may not be right in doing so.

 

Roll on May!

 

From what I've read there's a general drive to make the Avengers more accountable, which some are for and some are against that gets escalated further when some very specific events happy involving Bucky. By all accounts Tony is the one who keeps trying to cool things but it's Cap who, through his loyalty to Bucky, keeps escalating events. It's a nice little twist when it would have been easy to make Tony the one who acts without thinking, especially based on his actions in the last few films.

[Delargey]

19 minutes ago, sir_shrew said:

I wonder how this film plays if you thought Winter Soldier was predictable, espionage-for-kids with dismal action sequences and a lame climax, and was generally over-hyped because Marvel's output isn't critically-evaluated in the same way as other movies are.

 

(And The First Avenger ranks among the worst movies you've ever sat through)

 

Ticket booked.

 

The action sequences in Winter Soldier are not dismal. I watched it the other week. They are really well put together, with clear action and loads of really nice touches.

[Mr Cochese]

But the framing was off. I don't get why people give Marvel films a free pass over the framing being off and the shots lacking depth or whatever, because those are self-evident major issues.

[Pob]

Winter Soldier has stellar action sequences - easily the best out of all the Marvel films. Well, apart from the typical overblown finale when I started to glaze over.

 

All of the following are spectacular:

• The Splinter Cell assault on the ship
• Nick Fury trapped in his impregnable SUV
• Cap in lift with SHIELD heavies
• Street battle with Hydra mercs and Bucky

 

[Liquid Myth]

On 12 April 2016 at 4:52 PM, Sabreman said:

Someone's been reading the SA Comic Book Movie Megathread.

 

Maybe it should be more like Neogaf.

[Alex W.]

Aside from the street battle, which was a shapeless fiasco without any real sense of who was where, Winter Soldier did have some really nicely edited action. There's a good rhythm of threats popping up, becoming complicated, then being resolved. It's not exactly The First Avenger in terms of crisp visual storytelling but those scenes were readable and tense.

 

It's the flattest-looking of all the Marvel movies though, and the scenes outside of the action are put together in the most boring and straightforward way imaginable. Fortunately the dialogue is strong enough to carry those scenes but it's basically at the prime-time TV level.

[Pob]

4 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Aside from the street battle, which was a shapeless fiasco without any real sense of who was where

That's the best bit! In fact I think the opposite of what you said there - there's a really good sense of the different actors and their proximity to each other.

[Glasgowchivas]

Motherfuckers it had Robert Fucking Redford dying and muttering "Hail Hydra"; it's a fucking 10/10

[Alex W.]

1 minute ago, Pob said:

That's the best bit! In fact I think the opposite of what you said there - there's a really good sense of the different actors and their proximity to each other.

 

I did think that they made the individual engagements clear enough, but it was for me to hard to tell where those pockets of action were relative to each other until near the end of the sequence. It's not so much an issue of range - you knew who was moving into and out of combat with who - but of direction.

[Jarik]

1 hour ago, Glasgowchivas said:

 

From what I've read there's a general drive to make the Avengers more accountable, which some are for and some are against that gets escalated further when some very specific events happy involving Bucky. By all accounts Tony is the one who keeps trying to cool things but it's Cap who, through his loyalty to Bucky, keeps escalating events. It's a nice little twist when it would have been easy to make Tony the one who acts without thinking, especially based on his actions in the last few films.

 

It does seem strange that everyone's out to kill Bucky rather than giving him a chance to explain himself, especially if Cap's willing to vouch for him & the whole Hydra Brainwashing thing (does anyone else know about that?), but there's probably a lot of context from the film that I'm missing.

[Delargey]

2 hours ago, Mr Cochese said:

But the framing was off. I don't get why people give Marvel films a free pass over the framing being off and the shots lacking depth or whatever, because those are self-evident major issues.

 

What do you mean by the framing being off? 

[mikeyl]

Out of frame were the Fantastic Four and the X-Men watching trailers of upcoming Justice League movies on their Surface Pros

[Alex W.]

I don't think it's about the flash and bang so much as the relatable and entertaining character arcs that make the movies resonate with the general public. That's the real Marvel formula, and not coincidentally it's a big reason why the first two Spider-Man films worked. It's really the standard action blockbuster thing, where the flawed person gets wrapped up in a big conflict and learns something about themselves and comes out the other side a better person as well as some sort of saviour.

 

(I think that's why people are getting a bit sick of Iron Man; we've watched him go from being a warmongering arrogant prick to a humbled arrogant mess to a selfless arrogant hero on at least three and possibly five different occasions now, it needs a rest.)

 

I'm agree that their formula is at odds with their efforts at serialisation though. People like closure, Marvel's plots always give them it. I think it's interesting that they've already said up-front that Infinity War I and II won't just be two halves of the same story like, say, the Matrix sequels. There's going to be one story with a beginning, middle, and end, and then a second story.

[Liquid Myth]

3 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

I'm agree that their formula is at odds with their efforts at serialisation though. People like closure, Marvel's plots always give them it.

 

Marvel's films don't have closure, I thought that was the complaint...?

[El Spatula]

32 minutes ago, sir_shrew said:

I think comic fans want different things from these movies to movie fans. The general movie-going public are getting enough flash and bang not to care, and I understand that, I keep going to watch these things even though I'm sick of superhero movies. It's just all there is now, the constant promise that the next story is going to be "it", the next Dark Knight or Spider-man 2. But I've yet to witness a Marvel film that felt complete and self-contained... save for maybe Iron-Man 3, which has by far the best script and villain out of any of the Marvel movies, with it's nod to Heaven's Smiles. Seeing Iron Man face off against yet another Marvel hero, it's like watching WWF/E wrestling match. You know they'll all be back next time doing the same shit and as such the conflict and action can look as heavyweight and bruising as you want (or in Marvel's case lightweight and tame) but it's ultimately inconsequential and meaningless. Even Guardians cheated us out of a proper climactic battle, by relegating the antagonist to minion, and letting other antagonists escape. How can you really be invested in it beyond watching varying standards of fight choreography mixed in with increasingly sophisticated CGI? I mean, I get it's spectacular pop-corn entertainment, but Robert Redford saying "Heil Hydra!" is not entertaining to me in any way shape or form. It's drivel, honestly: a vacuum where meaningful story-telling should be.

 

And maybe it's exciting because that's how it was in the comics, but here's a little secret:

  Hide contents

the stories in superhero comics are mostly shit.

 

 

 

Hark at Captain Superior over there with his almighty brain. Comic book fans are clearly too stupid to watch films properly.

[Alex W.]

2 minutes ago, Liquid Myth said:

 

Marvel's films don't have closure, I thought that was the complaint...?

 

Yeah I explained that poorly. As a standalone picture each movie has closure of its own little local conflict and whatever character arc was going on: Captain America versus SHIELD, Iron Man versus the Mandarin, whatever. The quasi-serialised backdrop - SHIELD versus Hydra, Loki versus Earth - doesn't get any closure, no. They're not even really treating it as a story, more as a framework to hang movies off. So the general public who's going to the movie for some familiar characters going on some adventure, it's very satisfying. For anyone who's looking for an overarcing coherent narrative running through, there's not much.

[RubberJohnny]

Yeah I agree with Alex, the reason they succeed are because they're characters first and foremost - I mean you can kind of predict which films will flop ahead of time because they're trying to push superheroes that don't really have a personality and are just a bundle of powers.

 

It's that Red Letter Media Star Wars Prequel test: "Describe this character without saying what they look like, what their powers are, what their occupation or role in the movie was." Iron Man - asshole genius with a heart of gold, Captain America - earnest and noble nerd, Spiderman - kid struggling with power and responsibility.

 

Now do Cyborg, or Aquaman. Good fucking luck.

[Liquid Myth]

1 hour ago, RubberJohnny said:

Yeah I agree with Alex, the reason they succeed are because they're characters first and foremost - I mean you can kind of predict which films will flop ahead of time because they're trying to push superheroes that don't really have a personality and are just a bundle of powers.

 

It's that Red Letter Media Star Wars Prequel test: "Describe this character without saying what they look like, what their powers are, what their occupation or role in the movie was." Iron Man - asshole genius with a heart of gold, Captain America - earnest and noble nerd, Spiderman - kid struggling with power and responsibility.

 

Now do Cyborg, or Aquaman. Good fucking luck.

 

But the definition of the characters you've picked (at least IM and CA) have changed drastically between films, none moreso than Cap. He gets a brilliant full arc from the beginning to end of CA1 (the best one), turns into a bumbling meme idiot with a surface-level defined idea of "patriot" in AA, a practical libertarian in CA2, and a constantly concerned mannequin in AoU. Meanwhile, IM's character arc resets after every single film, though IM3 was good for it.

 

That this film is building up Cap vs. IM is all sorts of ridiculous, because their (current) ideological beliefs conflict way less than Cap and the Red Skull in the first CA.