Archive for Captain America

Countdown to Avengers 3: Captain America: Civil War review

Posted in movies with tags , , , , on April 6, 2018 by Paxton

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began. And here we are, along with Robert from To the Escape Hatch and CT on Nerd Lunch doing a third “Countdown to Avengers” series. AND, we are joined by a new blogger, Jay from Life vs. Film. You can check out the start of this series with Robert’s post about Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Robert, Jay, CT and I are all splitting the films up in anticipation of May’s Avengers: Infinity War. With this film and next year’s Avengers 4, the expectation is that we will be done on some level with this iteration of the MCU.  But I doubt it’ll go away completely.

For now, let’s talk about what I came here to talk about…Captain America: Civil War.

Quickly, before we start, my hot take on the first two Captain America movies. The first one is a good, but not outstanding origin movie with lots of great performances including Evans, Atwell, and Weaving. I liked the movie more than I expected and I liked Chris Evans as Cap a *lot* more than I expected. Winter Soldier was a game changer not only for the MCU but for this version of Cap as well. We see Cap in a modern movie kicking all kinds of ass and being awesome. We also get the introduction of two more awesome characters in the Winter Soldier and Sam Wilson, aka Falcon. And while the movie is a great action movie, the political intrigue subplot is well played out as well. The Winter Soldier movie was an eye opener and made Chris Evans’ Cap my new favorite MCU hero over Iron Man.

Fast forward to Civil War. Some may even call it Avengers 2.5. The Avengers taking sides over the fate of Winter Soldier. The first appearance of several new characters. I was pretty excited to see it going into it. And it more than delivers. As these movies have gone on, especially the Avengers movies, I think one of my favorite parts are the cold openings. Usually we see the group in the middle of some mission, working together, bantering, being “The Avengers”. The teamwork and dialogue in these scenes are so fun and I love it. Civil War doesn’t disappoint. It opens with the current Avengers, plus Wanda and minus Tony, in Lagos trying to stop Brock Rumlow from stealing a biological weapon. We get to see everyone in action, Falcon has Red Wing who gets to shine in battle. Lots of really fun stuff here. Then the drama starts with the thrust of the plot and the entrance (and return!) of General Thunderbolt Ross (shout out to The Incredible Hulk movie!).

The crux of the plot makes sense.  Honestly, even the split of the heroes makes sense to me, each hero going where their natural proclivities lie.  I love the return of Clint.  I know his character gets a lot of crap from fans, but you know what, I like Renner and I like his portrayal of Hawkeye.  How we haven’t gotten a Black Widow/Hawkeye team up movie is beyond me.  We also get the appearance of Scott Lang from Ant-Man (which CT reviewed a little while ago) and he’s great in several *almost* show stealing scenes (Giant Man!).  They continue to build out Winter Soldier’s character.  He gets better and more interesting every single movie he’s in.  And if I don’t get a Winter Soldier/Falcon buddy movie at some point, we will have words, Marvel.

There’s so much to unpack I’m not sure where I want to go next. How about the debut of Black Panther? I’ve read comics since the mid-80s, I’ve never really read Black Panther but this particular iteration of him made me a fan and the Black Panther solo movie further cemented that. The debut of the new Spider-Man? Amazing (pun intended). Tom Holland *nails* Peter Parker. And he *nails* Spider-Man in the suit. Again, the Spider-Man solo movie cemented *that* even further. There’s not much I don’t really like about this movie. The action set pieces are drop dead gorgeous. When Cap goes to confront Bucky while special forces are busting down the door to his apartment…fantastic. Perfectly staged. And the Berlin airport sequence? I don’t need to expend any more words describing how awesome that whole sequence is.

So I said there isn’t really anything I don’t like about this movie.  Let me amend that a bit.  I feel like, and this has been a progression since Iron Man 2, Tony Stark is more and more becoming a crazy asshole.  I mean, I know he was always an asshole but his heart was in the right place and he was still lovable.  Continuing that progression here, he seems to go off the deep end a bit with these Sekovia Accords.  He acts like if the team had been under oversight from the beginning, then the people who died in New York, Sekovia and Lagos would have been saved.  Like, if the UN had oversight over the Avengers, then that kid building sustainable housing in Sekovia (Alfre Woodard’s son) during the Ultron incident wouldn’t have died.  I posit that if the UN had been involved that not only would he most likely still have died, probably millions more would have died as well.  But I also get this progression as ever since New York, Tony has been on edge with PTSD, then he created Ultron, causing all that death and destruction.  I totally get why he’s overcorrecting here.  But it just makes me love it more when he goes to Russia to bury the hatchet with Cap, and then it completely breaks my heart when he sees the video of his parents getting killed and it starts all over.  Such a powerful ending to this movie that I really hope when we get to the next Avengers movie that these issues are addressed in some form.  I don’t want these things to be brushed aside easily.  They really need to address the ending of this movie HARD (they don’t at all in Spider-Man: Homecoming or Black Panther).

So, as it stands, this is very nearly my favorite MCU movie to date.  And that’s a loaded statement because this movie lives on the backs of almost the entire 10 years of history of the MCU to date.  But that’s what makes it so special.

But I wasn’t the only one with thoughts on this movie, here are some final thoughts by CT:

That 14 minute airport fight was something I had waited my entire life to see. Super heroes are notorious for fighting amongst themselves in the comics. And we got a few seconds of an Iron vs. Thor battle in the first Avengers, but here we have two teams, each at “Avengers-level,” facing off. Not only that, to see Giant-Man make his debut here was a nice added touch.
 
While I’m “Team Cap,” if it were real life, I think I’d be Team Stark. The beauty of this movie is the debate between the two is one worth having. The downfall is that the discourse breaks down quickly and devolves into fighting. Hey! Just like the internet!
 
It was also great to see William Hurt’s Ross again which again confirms the Ed Norton movie is a part of this. A fact that some Marvel fans need to be reminded of. Yes, it would have been great to have Ruffalo retroactively in that film, but recasting is a part of life (see also War Machine).
 
This is an MCU-changing film drastically affecting the status quo and leaving things in an interesting place for Infinity War. The family has been shattered. Now they have to work past everything again to take on Thanos.
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Fourth of July Showdown: Uncle Sam vs Captain America

Posted in comic books, holiday, nostalgia, pop culture with tags , , , , , , , , on July 1, 2016 by Paxton

Cavalcade Comics

Happy 4th of July! To celebrate today I’m back with a quick holiday themed Cavalcade Comics cover. If you remember, July 4th last year, I showed you Uncle Sam: The Ultimate Ninja. Well, I thought it was time to bring Uncle Sam back. But instead of my Ultimate Ninja version, I’m bringing you a more traditional version of the character. And he has a few words for Captain America.

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Yikes, Sam, that’s gonna leave a mark. I thought this idea was too perfect to pass up on this, the celebration of America’s Independence Day.  And I thought labeling it Civil War II was appropriate since Marvel is actually doing Civil War II right now.

So, where did I get the images? I found Uncle Sam from the cover of Freedom Fighters #8, June 1977.  The cover was done by Rich Buckler.

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Captain America was taken from his own title, issue #124 from 1968. It was drawn by Marie Severin.

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I had to jockey around a few things but for the most part the images fit together nicely. Now, the background. I’ll admit, I had the HARDEST time finding a background that worked. I originally wanted the background from Freedom Fighters but it was a generic city street. I wanted something more “Washington DC”, like the White House or Capitol Building. I was close to using The Flash #200 from 1970 as it had the dome in the background.  But then I happened upon another Cap issue, #444 from 1995.  And I decided to roll with that.

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As you can see, it’s got the nice government building in the background and I thought it would be great to have Cap and Sam slugging it out on the steps of that building.  I had to change the perspective a little and use layers upon layers to hide Cap’s shield, but I think it turned out nicely.

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Countdown to Avengers 2: Captain America the Winter Soldier

Posted in comic books, movies with tags , , , , on April 22, 2015 by Paxton

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As we did back in 2012, the blogs at Nerd Lunch, To the Escape Hatch and Cavalcade of Awesome are doing a Countdown to Avengers as we lead up to the release of Age of Ultron. In this countdown we are reviewing all the Marvel content that we can from within Phase 2. This is one of those reviews.

Captain America: The First Avenger was the last solo film of Phase 1 before The Avengers. So, appropriately, the Captain America sequel is the last solo movie of Phase 2 that will lead directly into The Avengers sequel. Coming in, I loved the first Cap movie. I loved it’s time period, I loved the cast, I loved pretty much everything about it. And I had a lot of doubts about the movie before it began in that I thought Chris Evans was all wrong for the role and I didn’t initially like that the movie took place back during World War II (even thought that’s the perfect place to set the movie).

So, I wound up loving the first movie and then came this sequel.  And again, I was not sure until I started seeing images of Chris Evans in the “stealth suit”.  And then the first trailer hit.  And the cast came together.  Black Widow.  Falcon.  Modern day SHIELD.  ROBERT F**KING REDFORD is now in a Captain America movie.  It just ballooned into so much awesomeness that the actual movie couldn’t possibly live up to what I was seeing.

And on watching, the movie is every bit as awesome as I wanted it to be.  It’s amazing what the directors did with this sequel.  This movie is completely different in tone, color scheme, sensibilities and setting than it’s predecessor but it completely works.

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First off we see a more seasoned Captain America.  He’s been in our time for a few years and has trained extensively with SHIELD.  The opening mission, storming a hijacked freighter, shows you everything you need to know to understand that THIS Captain America is BAD ASS.  We’ve seen Captain America be pretty awesome in The Avengers, but this movie cranks that idea “up to 11” and hammers that home.  We also see that Cap is becoming a little concerned with the direction that SHIELD is taking in response to external threats.  There are several really good scenes with Cap and Nick Fury debating this very issue, is SHIELD protecting or promoting fear.  It’s a valid and very relevant discussion.

Speaking of Nick Fury, we finally get to see him do something.  The attack on Fury’s car is a wonderful little scene where we get to see Fury’s quick thinking and quick acting save himself from capture and possible death.  And how awesome was the AI in that car?  And the hidden dashboard cannon?  Great little scene.  Another little scene I liked when I saw the movie theatrically was Steve going back to visit an elderly Peggy Carter.  However, now that I’ve watched Peggy in the Agent Carter mini-series and re-watched the original Captain America movie, that scene becomes HEARTBREAKING.  There are several more levels of heartbreaking sadness and loss that permeate that scene.  Especially thanks to the excellent Agent Carter series.

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And I love the addition of Anthony Mackie as Falcon.  I originally thought Falcon was a sort of, “we don’t need him but we need to add a new character” addition.  But I was wrong.  Mackie crushes it and I now want him in more movies.  Plus, how great is a movie that implies a giant action scene that we never get to see?  Cap, Black Widow and Falcon have to break into a military installation to steal back the Stark wing technology, but we never see it!  That needs to be a movie.  NOW.

And I haven’t even talked about the return of Sebastian Stan as The Winter Soldier.  He’s a great foil for Captain America.  I really liked him as a villain, but he’s more of a henchman than a mastermind.  I do hope we see more of him.

Now that the movie is over, I’d love to see a Captain America and Falcon movie where they are chasing Bucky.  The end of this movie teases that, but it looks like the next Captain America movie is going to be Civil War, which I can only assume does not cover that.

The status quo that this movie leaves will make the next Avengers movie interesting because I’m not sure how many years later it is in the new movie.  SHIELD was destroyed and has to be rebuilt.  I assume the Avengers are sort of an autonomous entity without any governmental connection.  Will that be addressed or has enough time passed that that doesn’t really matter anymore?  I don’t know.

As it stands, I liked this movie so much that I think it’s my third favorite overall Marvel movie behind only the original Iron Man and the first Avengers movie.  We’ll see if this changes after Age of Ultron.

But I’m not the only one that has ideas about this movie…here’s CT with his thoughts:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has been referred to by some as Avengers 1.5. I wonder just how integral it will be to Avengers: Age of Ultron. It is the Phase 2 film that will have changed the world the most since the first Avengers film. The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. is huge and will have to at least be addressed since they will no longer play a role in bringing the team together. I look forward to seeing if Black Widow and Cap have any interactions in Avengers 2 since they worked so well together here. Black Widow now has strong ties with all the Avengers except maybe Thor.

Besides pieces set up for Avengers and the plot lines sets up for future Cap movies, the big set up for future movies is the mention of Stephen Strange. Sitwell references him as though Strange is already a known person, at least by Cap. Is he already Sorcerer Supreme or just a really, really famous surgeon? It will be interesting to see how that plays out in a couple years. 

Other Countdown to Avengers reviews:
CT’s review of Iron Man 3.
Robert’s review of Thor: The Dark World

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