Captain America: Civil War (5 Stars)

This is the 13th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, released in May 2016. Despite being called a Captain America film, it has so many of the Avengers in it that it could be called an Avengers film. There's no Thor or Hulk, but there are 12 super-heroes, of which seven are Avengers (Captain America, Falcon, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision), three are new characters (Black Panther, Spider-Man, Ant-Man), one is a former enemy (Winter Soldier) and one who's a government soldier (War Machine). Call it whatever you like. It's a great film.

And then there's Stan Lee.

This is another film in which Stan Lee appears late, almost as an after-thought after the action is over, though not as late as in "Ant-Man". He appears three minutes from the end as a FedEx delivery man with a package for Tony Stark, which he mispronounces as "Tony Stank". We only see him for four seconds, but every moment that he spends on screen is glorious.

There are two new characters, or at least they're new to the MCU. The first is the Black Panther, King T'Challa of Wakanda. To be precise, in the picture above he's still Prince T'Challa, because his father hasn't yet died.

The other new character is Spider-Man. Long months of negotiation were needed to get him into the film. The MCU films are created by Marvel Studios, a subsidiary of Walt Disney, but the rights to Spider-Man in film were sold to Sony many years ago.

A character who unexpectedly returns is General Thunderbolt Ross, who we last saw as the Hulk's nemesis in "The Incredible Hulk". He's gained more power by retiring from the army and moving into politics. He's now the US Secretary of State. He fits well into his new role. He's someone who's always mistrusted super-powered beings, so if he can't destroy them he at least wants to contain them. He's a key figure in the creation of the Sokovia Accords, a document restricting super-heroes like the Avengers. Rather than act on their own initiative the Avengers will only be allowed to act if instructed by the United Nations.

The reason for this is that the Avengers have been blamed for hundreds of deaths caused in Sokovia in "Avengers: Age of Ultron". That's obviously stupid, but it's no less stupid than what real world politicians say every day. Did General Ross forget that Ultron was planning to drop Sokovia from the sky with an impact great enough to destroy all life on Earth? The Avengers saved billions of lives, and now they're being punished for the few hundred that perished as collateral damage in their battle with Ultron? If the Avengers had already signed the Sokovia Accords they would still have been sitting in America waiting for the United Nations to reach a decision when the Earth ceased to exist.

A question I didn't deal with when writing about "Age of Ultron" is where Sokovia is located. It's a fictional country, so it can't be pinpointed precisely, but an important clue is a statue that we briefly see in the background.

The statue is identical to the statue of Robert Peel in London, but the plaque at its base gives more information.

The plaque honours Prince Constantine of Imereti, a prince of Georgia. This identifies Sokovia as a micro-country that has broken away from Georgia, placing it somewhere near the East of the Black Sea.

Of course, this might be a red herring planted by the directors when they created the fictional city-state as a patchwork of scenery and townscapes from all over Europe.

We met Ant-Man in the last MCU film, but here we see the other side of his character. He can't just shrink, he can also grow in size, increasing his strength in the process. He's strong enough to tear an aeroplane apart. Or should I call it an airplane? I normally avoid Americanisms, but the American word has become very common in England in recent years.

It's no coincidence that the camera shows Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff against the background of the church stained windows. The cameramen must have been crawling on the floor to get these upward shots. Is it supposed to suggest that the two have divine qualities?

Natasha Romanoff (codename Black Widow) and Clint Barton (codename Hawkeye) might have been close friends while they worked together at SHIELD, but now they're on opposite sides. Natasha signed the Sokovia Accords, Clint didn't. Their consciences have separated them, but once again: how could any of the Avengers have signed the Accords? Isn't it obvious that the whole reasoning behind the Accords is flawed?

Wanda Maximoff's powers have very little in common with the Scarlet Witch created by Stan Lee in 1964. Is she even a mutant? She doesn't call herself Scarlet Witch, as if she hasn't yet accepted that she's a super-hero.

Tony Stark has gone from one extreme to the other. In "Age of Ultron" he was still trying to go it alone by creating an intelligent robot or android to keep peace on Earth. Now he's decided to submit to the control of the United Nations and General Ross. It's his bad conscience affecting him, but if he'd been more stable he would only have modified his plans rather than rejecting them completely.

The Vision was created by Roy Thomas in October 1968 and rapidly became a fan favourite. Fans were touched by his philosophic musings and his struggle to become human. At the time of publication Roy Thomas was accused of basing the character on Star Trek's Spock, which he strongly denied. In a way, the Vision was the opposite of Spock. Spock was a Vulcan-human hybrid who was always fighting to suppress any emotions he felt. The Vision was an artificial being without emotions, but he tried to learn emotions to make himself more human. The Vision has more similarity with the android Data who didn't appear in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" until 1987.

I have difficulty deciding which Captain America film I like more, "Winter Soldier" or "Civil War". They're my two favourite films in the MCU so far, but they're very different. "Winter Soldier" has the atmosphere of a spy thriller, whereas "Civil War" is a high octane action film throughout. They're both masterpieces, each in their own way. I find it difficult to understand why "Black Panther" was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Film but "Civil War" wasn't. I'll never understand the mentality of serious film critics.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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