Captain America: Civil War
Apr. 28th, 2016 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrThis was exactly what I expected from the trailer: a well made, entertaining superhero film with great fights, nice character moments and utterly repulsive political subtext. On the plus side it abandons it's pretense to ~realism about halfway through and becomes purely character/explosion driven, at which point I stopped thinking "bloody Americans" every five minutes and was actually able to enjoy it.
***Spoilers for the basic premise and political subtext stuff, but not the ending****
So. The premise of this film is that People, including Tony, decide that the Avengers have hurt too many innocent people while saving the world and need oversight. The UN organises accords with 117 countries to achieve this. Steve doesn't trust any organisation to give oversight, and he and a bunch of other Avengers refuse to sign up. "What if they give bad orders?", he says.
And then the UN gives the order to find and kill Bucky because of Reasons, and Steve fights them off to rescue Bucky, and it turns into a big Avengers vs Avengers fight.
There's a whole bunch of imagery of innocent people being hurt by the Avengers, including an angry woman holding up a picture of her African American son she blames them for killing. I think it's reasonable to see paralells with real world criticisms of the US military and police for killing innocent people overseas and at home.
Except of course, as is always the case with these films: the criticisms are wrong. There is zero argument/example given for how the Avengers could have done things differently, in order to have saved the world and not hurt innocent civilians. And looking back, the only mistake I can think of that any of them really made in previous films was Tony creating Ultron, and that would have been solved by nothing more than being honest with the other Avengers and making a group decision. If the UN had been in charge and he'd still kept things to himself it'd have gone no differently. The UN gives zero helpful suggestions, and don't even get the chance to be in charge for a single successful mission. The only orders they give involve capturing Bucky, Steve etc, eg the heroes.
The grief of the survivors about the deaths of innocent people is taken seriously, but there's just as much emphasis on how sad it makes the Avengers to be responsible. There's some self blame, but no substantive focus on actual things they could have done differently. The beginning of the film is 100% in the "US War Film About How Killing Civilians Makes Americans Sad but is Neccesary to Protect Peace" genre, except with some superhero trappings. THIS IS AN AWFUL GENRE(*). WE DO NOT NEED MORE OF IT. We also absolutely do not need movies whose message is that the UN complaining about civilian deaths by "US based individuals" is an understandable but ultimately irrational emotional response to unavoidable collatoral damage, and that the people with the biggest guns should be trusted to make decisions on their own.
There is the tinest attempt to give real voice to the people the Avengers have hurt, in the form of the Black Panther, who is from the made up African country of Wakanda. But even though he starts out part of the accords, caring about the global situation etc, in the end his most significant motivation is personal feelings, and like Wanda in the previous film his initial protests against the Avengers exist largely to make it more satisfying when the Avengers are Proven Right All Along.
When I ranted about this on the way home Cam argued that the subtext isn't as bad as I say since Tony etc's arguments for oversight are reasonable. But the thing is: they may be reasonable, but they're proven wrong. The film has taken real life criticisms of violent murderers committing war crimes and hate crimes and had them parroted by people who are proven wrong, and has all the "violent murderers" being criticised be decent, well meaning people who deserve trust and respect. The fact that the arguments sound reasonable at first excuses Tony, but it doesn't excuse the writers.
After discussing it we agreed we'd both have enjoyed the movie more if they'd avoided the real world parallels like the UN more and used some made up World Council or something like they did in the last film. This is a silly superhero film with nothing deep to say about politics and should accept that.
Once the political pretext has gotten all the Avengers fighting with each other it's largely forgotten and the movie becomes a very well made but otherwise unremarkable superhero film. The characters are well drawn enough to be engaging even though there's a huge cast that mostly doesn't get much individual screen time, and there's lots of cute, well drawn moments of connection or lack thereof between different pairs and trios etc. Lots of fodder for the various shippers, I look forward to the influx of Minor Annoying Dude Played By Martin Freeman/Dr Strange (he's not in this movie but is played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Also there's fodder for VICIOUS SHIPPING WARS, especially about Steve's True Love, so, that'll be...fun) The fights are well choreographed and thrilling. It manages to make the two subgroups of Avengers believably opposed to each other and genuinely fighting but still all sympathetic and decent. The final part of the film does a great job of focusing in on the core of the story and bringing it to a satisfying conclusion.
Also it's pretty diverse for a superhero film: 3 white women and 3 black men get to be fairly central, kickass, three dimensional characters (one day "black men and white women" will not be as good as it gets, but, hey). I was a bit worried about Black Panther being a cardboard antagonist but while he's a bit Noble Warrior Race Guy he's pretty cool (and also really cute >.>) It's ultimately a story about white dudes, though. Speaking of which I am annoyed they went with Peter Parker instead of taking the chance to introduce Miles Morales, but he is a pretty good Spiderman given how little time he has onscreen. I was discussing it with Cam and being a secondary character means he's not written as wish fulfillment for teenage boys but instead written as a teenage boy, which is entertaining and makes a nice contrast from the other characters.
But the subtext, ah.
Oh well. You can't have everything.
(*)I've seen some great criticisms of it but have no links to hand. But for example I kept being reminded of Rules of Engagement, which isn't quite in the genre but has a similar "in the end no matter how bad it looks/feels, the people critising US soldiers are wrong" moral.
***Spoilers for the basic premise and political subtext stuff, but not the ending****
So. The premise of this film is that People, including Tony, decide that the Avengers have hurt too many innocent people while saving the world and need oversight. The UN organises accords with 117 countries to achieve this. Steve doesn't trust any organisation to give oversight, and he and a bunch of other Avengers refuse to sign up. "What if they give bad orders?", he says.
And then the UN gives the order to find and kill Bucky because of Reasons, and Steve fights them off to rescue Bucky, and it turns into a big Avengers vs Avengers fight.
There's a whole bunch of imagery of innocent people being hurt by the Avengers, including an angry woman holding up a picture of her African American son she blames them for killing. I think it's reasonable to see paralells with real world criticisms of the US military and police for killing innocent people overseas and at home.
Except of course, as is always the case with these films: the criticisms are wrong. There is zero argument/example given for how the Avengers could have done things differently, in order to have saved the world and not hurt innocent civilians. And looking back, the only mistake I can think of that any of them really made in previous films was Tony creating Ultron, and that would have been solved by nothing more than being honest with the other Avengers and making a group decision. If the UN had been in charge and he'd still kept things to himself it'd have gone no differently. The UN gives zero helpful suggestions, and don't even get the chance to be in charge for a single successful mission. The only orders they give involve capturing Bucky, Steve etc, eg the heroes.
The grief of the survivors about the deaths of innocent people is taken seriously, but there's just as much emphasis on how sad it makes the Avengers to be responsible. There's some self blame, but no substantive focus on actual things they could have done differently. The beginning of the film is 100% in the "US War Film About How Killing Civilians Makes Americans Sad but is Neccesary to Protect Peace" genre, except with some superhero trappings. THIS IS AN AWFUL GENRE(*). WE DO NOT NEED MORE OF IT. We also absolutely do not need movies whose message is that the UN complaining about civilian deaths by "US based individuals" is an understandable but ultimately irrational emotional response to unavoidable collatoral damage, and that the people with the biggest guns should be trusted to make decisions on their own.
There is the tinest attempt to give real voice to the people the Avengers have hurt, in the form of the Black Panther, who is from the made up African country of Wakanda. But even though he starts out part of the accords, caring about the global situation etc, in the end his most significant motivation is personal feelings, and like Wanda in the previous film his initial protests against the Avengers exist largely to make it more satisfying when the Avengers are Proven Right All Along.
When I ranted about this on the way home Cam argued that the subtext isn't as bad as I say since Tony etc's arguments for oversight are reasonable. But the thing is: they may be reasonable, but they're proven wrong. The film has taken real life criticisms of violent murderers committing war crimes and hate crimes and had them parroted by people who are proven wrong, and has all the "violent murderers" being criticised be decent, well meaning people who deserve trust and respect. The fact that the arguments sound reasonable at first excuses Tony, but it doesn't excuse the writers.
After discussing it we agreed we'd both have enjoyed the movie more if they'd avoided the real world parallels like the UN more and used some made up World Council or something like they did in the last film. This is a silly superhero film with nothing deep to say about politics and should accept that.
Once the political pretext has gotten all the Avengers fighting with each other it's largely forgotten and the movie becomes a very well made but otherwise unremarkable superhero film. The characters are well drawn enough to be engaging even though there's a huge cast that mostly doesn't get much individual screen time, and there's lots of cute, well drawn moments of connection or lack thereof between different pairs and trios etc. Lots of fodder for the various shippers, I look forward to the influx of Minor Annoying Dude Played By Martin Freeman/Dr Strange (he's not in this movie but is played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Also there's fodder for VICIOUS SHIPPING WARS, especially about Steve's True Love, so, that'll be...fun) The fights are well choreographed and thrilling. It manages to make the two subgroups of Avengers believably opposed to each other and genuinely fighting but still all sympathetic and decent. The final part of the film does a great job of focusing in on the core of the story and bringing it to a satisfying conclusion.
Also it's pretty diverse for a superhero film: 3 white women and 3 black men get to be fairly central, kickass, three dimensional characters (one day "black men and white women" will not be as good as it gets, but, hey). I was a bit worried about Black Panther being a cardboard antagonist but while he's a bit Noble Warrior Race Guy he's pretty cool (and also really cute >.>) It's ultimately a story about white dudes, though. Speaking of which I am annoyed they went with Peter Parker instead of taking the chance to introduce Miles Morales, but he is a pretty good Spiderman given how little time he has onscreen. I was discussing it with Cam and being a secondary character means he's not written as wish fulfillment for teenage boys but instead written as a teenage boy, which is entertaining and makes a nice contrast from the other characters.
But the subtext, ah.
Oh well. You can't have everything.
(*)I've seen some great criticisms of it but have no links to hand. But for example I kept being reminded of Rules of Engagement, which isn't quite in the genre but has a similar "in the end no matter how bad it looks/feels, the people critising US soldiers are wrong" moral.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 01:36 am (UTC)There's a really weird cult of exceptionalism in the US, and it permeates US media almost totally (there are exceptions, of course, but they're not the standard by any stretch). Folks are just so hesitant to even remotely say anything that is critical of US foreign policy (domestic policy is a different animal, but not exempt from the overall sentiment that there's something inherently amazing and wonderful about the US that makes everything the US does okay). And the left in the US is no better I'm afraid, mostly because the left has allowed the center and the right (and to be honest, the center in the US would be considered the right just about anywhere else) to frame any valid criticisms as some insidious socialist/communist attempt at undermining the 'Greatness of the US,' which is, of course, completely ludicrous.
Anyway, all this is to say that I agree with you.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 12:07 pm (UTC)Yeah, as someone from outside the US it gets pretty tiring, not that Australians can't be caught up in our own self image in our own way too.
I was REALLY RELUCTANT to watch the first Captain America movie since his character seemed designed to be all about how "America" is great. And indeed I was not a fan of it, but enjoyed the Winter Soldier a lot more than I expected, and thought it handled it's mild social commentary reasonably well. So I had vague, vain hopes that this one would be ok too. Oh well.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 12:02 pm (UTC)Glad to help!
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 02:09 pm (UTC)Ahahaha. Yeah. Marvel keeps playing with the idea of critiquing this sort of...manifest destiny of justice then going "But actually they're the HEROES so it's OK", which is so much grosser than if they just never questioned it at all. It's why I gave up on Agents of Shield. I see more vids along the lines of Handlebars and US in our future, though they're less negative than I feel right now ( http://deejay.livejournal.com/121608.html and http://archiveofourown.org/works/3807721/chapters/8484694)
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 03:21 pm (UTC)Haaaaa! Thank you for giving it a name!
And thank you for this review. I wasn't going to go see this, and I'm glad it sounds exactly like what I expected it to be.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 03:42 pm (UTC)I can't take credit, there was a bunch of essays about it after American Sniper came out. And...yeah. Given that the moral core of the film is pretty much that black people and Eastern Europeans need to let go of any anger at the US for their loved ones being collatoral damage it might not be the best fun escapist film for you this movie season.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 03:56 pm (UTC)Ah! Then my comment still applies, because it is totally everything you just described. Which I didn't mind but I can see how it would be annoying.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-12 03:17 am (UTC)T'Challa!! BEST PART OF MOVIE FOR ME. I'm already wading through his tag to find good fic about him as well as Sam.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-12 03:09 pm (UTC)Any recs?
no subject
Date: 2016-05-14 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-14 09:11 am (UTC)Thanks!