So I've seen the Captain America Civil War film now. The visuals were really good and the fights entertaining but the story is forced, contrived and not believable. They never even address the two major villains in the film (neither of whom are the Zemo guy or the armored guy at the beginning).
So what's wrong with the story? It has no real conflict that comes naturally. It is made up and sustained, out of whole cloth, merely to drive the movie along. The conflict between the major characters wouldn't even survive 30 seconds of rational thought by the characters themselves. None of the characters, aside from the two minor villains, have any real motivation for what they do.
But before we actually address the story, the villains, the real ones, should be identified:
Tony Stark - Iron Man
Yes, he is a villain.
How so? Simply put, he is a megalomaniac who's actions directly lead to the deaths of many people. He is also a textbook example of a narcissist who engages in a massive amount of projection of blame onto others.
Let's do the math: minor villains and major villain in his initial story come into being because of his own actions. In the last Avengers movie the major baddie is literally his own creation that almost results in the total death of all human life on the planet. All that in that movie comes to past because of his actions. In this latest film, he projects blame onto the Avengers in general, portraying himself as the white knight who wants to do the right thing.
In Civil War we see Stark ignore his job with the Avengers to give an address at MIT, leaving a mostly B-Team level group to deal with a very dangerous and unstable situation in a shit-hole African country that is harboring deadly WMDs. One could convincingly make the case that, had Iron Man been there, the end result would have been vastly different. Captain America should have thrown all that in Stark's face when he was making his impassioned appeal for everyone to sign the accords. It wasn't the rest of the team that needed oversight, it was just him.
He also goes for full out murder at the end. It would have been murder of an INNOCENT person, btw. In case you have forgotten, morally and legally a person is not accountable for actions they committed when they had ZERO choice of action, which we are given to understand was the case for the Winter Soldier guy.
That's one villain down, but who is the other?
The Government / United Nations
The most annoying part of the film for me was when the general is showing footage from the Avengers' battles in an effort to shame them with guilt. However, none of the cases he shown proved his point, and in fact, did more damage to it.
The New York / Alien attacks: OK, what exactly were they supposed to do? NOT fight? How would having been under UN command at that point made any difference in ANY way in the outcome? The 'oh so concerned with civilian casualties' government also tried to nuke New York as well, so the general's argument there is a bust. What about Sarkozia (spelling? Meh, I don't care)? Again, how would it have turned out ANY differently? Delay would simply mean that the evil robot's plan would have succeeded as no bureaucracy would have reacted fast enough. (Remember what happened at Benghazi in real life?) And even if they HAD been under UN command, what would have changed? Nothing.
If I understand the characters correctly, the general in the film was also responsible for causing the destruction involving the Hulk and Abomination. So much for 'there would be consequences'. He seems to have kept his stars and even been given more power.
So why is there no natural conflict? Captain America is shown agonizing over if he should sign the accords. The problem is that for someone like him, who is a modern incarnation in fiction of the medieval paladin, there is ZERO choice there. Considering how much DIRECT evil the UN engages in on a constant basis (from supporting or ignoring wars of aggression waged by member states that deliberately target women and children like it does in the dirty conflicts in the Middle East now, to winking at active slavery in nations in its membership.) "No, I will not submit to UN control" should have come off the Captain's lips as easy as saying "No, I won't be a hitman for the Russian mob."
Oh, and Nigerian Batman shows up in the, but I'm not sure why I should care.
Enough for now, it's late.
