Picoreview: Civil War: This is probably my second favorite MCU film*, in part because Evans & RDJ do SUCH A DAMN GOOD JOB in their roles. The scene where Tony brings those pens to the table is SO GOOD. They’re really powerful performances from both actors, and without their convictions being so believable, the story wouldn’t work at all.
And it not only builds on Steve’s isolation and his desperation for a connection (connections; there’s the whole Peggy thread of these two movies, too) to the world as he knew it, but really finishes the journey from being the Righteous Soldier to the Righteous Man. He no longer fits that mold, and it’s a nice touch that Sharon Carter gives the “No, you move” speech, because as somebody said, having a powerful white man deliver that line in the modern era isn’t quite the same as when Cap said it in the comics.
But it does really solidify who Steve Rogers has grown up to be. The cause he fought for in WW2 was just, but he can’t accept now living and acting in a space that he sees as shades of grey. If the world is wrong, then he’ll do what’s right to save it, to the degree that he can. And yeah, obviously there’s a shit ton of grey IN that space, because why does Steve get to decide what’s right? But he’s not wrong about the Avengers answering to a political entity to decide their missions, either, and Steve is generally morally right.
…which is what makes the emotional rift, rather than the political one, between himself and Tony so good. His defense for defending Bucky is just “He’s my friend.”
It’s pretty clear that even Steve knows that’s not really the morally defensible standpoint. He knows what Bucky’s done, specifically that the Winter Soldier murdered Tony’s parents. And he knows that it wasn’t Bucky…but it also was. So yeah, it really is his least defensible stand. But it’s not just that Bucky was his friend: it’s that Bucky is his oldest friend, his link to who he was seventy years ago. Bucky is all he has left, and the Avengers and the shield aren’t enough to weigh against that. The political aspects aside, it’s all incredibly heartbreaking and every one of the main players brought their A-game to the story. (RDJ deserved an Oscar, honestly.)
And then enragingly Steve offers that excellent apology letter. :D He was wrong not to tell Tony what he knew, and he owns that, and you can SEE both how aggravated and emotionally compromised Tony is by the graciousness of that letter. RDJ really did deserve an Oscar.
ALL THAT ASIDE, this is also the movie where we start to see present-era Bucky coming into his own both as a character and to a smaller degree as an obvious super soldier, which I’ll talk about a bit more later. (Plus flipping motorcycles, raar.)
It’s a really busy movie. There’s a LOT going on, finishing the setup for the Infinity Saga’s conclusion, but it never loses the thread, which is pretty impressive.
*Infinity War and Endgame get a list of their own for ‘faves’ because it’s not fair to count the culmination and payoff of ten years of buildup in with the rest of the movies. They aren’t actually as good, structurally, as a bunch of the others, but the PAYOFF, MAN, the PAYOFF…