Before Anthony and Joe Russo were directing superhero movies, they worked on a little show called Community. The series, oddly enough, had some common ground with The Avengers. Both were about seven people from different backgrounds who came in with their own damage, bounced off one another in interesting ways, but would, now and then, come together to do amazing things.
But one of the most remarkable things about the was its mastery of tone. The series was pitched as a comedy, and true to that billing, it was a damn funny show. And yet it could just as easily shift into something quiet and personal, something unremittingly dark, or something complex and difficult without the easy answers that are seemingly required on a network sitcom.
So when watching Captain America: Civil War, I couldn’t help but see how the Russos had brought that amazing ability to balance different characters and tones and translated it onto a much bigger stage without missing a beat.
Because Civil War is hilarious. It is action-packed and all kinds of fun. It’s full of impressive moments and inventive sequences and fights big and small that are filled with feeling and imagination. And at the same time it is, in its own way, a very dark film. It touches on big ideas like moral responsibility and guilt and the dangers of unchained power, but grounds them in characters, and individual moment, and personal relationships. It is a smorgasbord of moods and stories that makes you laugh, makes you gasp, and make you feel the tragedy of a given moment, without letting it clash. And that is one hell of an achievement.
That achievement is all the more impressive given how many moving parts there were to this clockwork behemoth of a film. Civil War features no fewer than twelve heroes, three major villains, and a bevy of supporting characters, and nearly all them get a moment in the sun. Nevermind the fact that on top of all of this, the film had to introduce two new characters slated to get their own films -- one of whom was under the radar for most non-comic book fans, and another who was laden with the expectations that come from being a household name with two prior uneven franchises under his belt.
But Black Panther was far from a third wheel amid the super-powered clash at the top of the card, and his motivations and outsider status with The Avengers gave him a unique role to play in the narrative, an important arc in the film. Spider-Man, for his part, had the kind of chummy-if-overwhelmed vibe with Tony Stark that you’d hope for, and proved himself an enjoyably free spirit in the big battle. And everyone else in the film, from Ant-Man’s show-stealing humor, to Vision and Scarlet Witch’s endearing connection, to Rhodey’s loss, had an important part to play, without anyone getting lost in the shuffle.
That balance is made all the more difficult by how much oxygen Captain America and Iron Man take up at the top of the card. There is a history between the two characters. They have never seen eye-to-eye, and the films in the MCU have never shied away from that, even as they’ve brought the two of them together for their shared struggles. And again, Civil War does well by using the disagreements and difference between these two men as symbols for a larger debate, for bigger issues between them, while never detracting from the personal side of their beef.
To be frank, it took some work to convince me that Tony Stark would be in favor of the Sokovia Accords, which put The Avengers under the supervision of a U.N. Committee. And yet, the film shows Tony’s interaction with a woman whose son perished in the rubble of Sokovia. He’s seen the collateral damage of their actions and he’s feeling the guilt of it. The film does well to couch Stark’s position in terms of his weapons dealing -- he made his living in an industry where his seemingly harmless actions were leading to innocent people being hurt and killed, and he realized he had to do something. For Tony, this is no different. He’s worried about the collateral damage from their actions.
Steve Rogers, for his part, is understandably much less trusting of government supervision. He’s the one who blanched at the discovery that Shield was using Hydra technology to create weapons; he’s the one who saw Hydra take over the organization he worked for from the inside, and use good people to ill-ends, and he’s the one who’s seen his best friend brainwashed and used as a weapon for geopolitical conflict when the higher ups felt it necessary.
At the same time, he’s also concerned about there being a need that he can’t respond to because of red tape. He’s worried that innocent people will suffer, that people who need saving won’t be saved, because the people who try to do right will be too hamstrung by procedure and approval while the good people suffer. He’s worried about the collateral damage from their inaction.
But these are not simply grand philosophical difference between the two of them. Civil War ties it into their unique psychological baggage, which comes to a head in a confrontation between the two of them in the second act of the film. Tony has lost the people in his life that matter to him -- Pepper and his parents, and their absence casts a major shadow over his part of the film. This fight, this struggle, has kept him from the parts of his life that made it all worth it for him, that gave him his Batman-like need to protect them, to create a world where no one would have to suffer that kind of loss.
But Steve, despite his status as a man out of town, found his family. The Avengers, new and old, gave him a place where he felt like he belonged, people who had fought alongside him like the Howling Commandos once had, and became his brothers and sisters in arms. Steve is this close to signing the accords until he finds out that because of them, Tony has Wanda Maximoff under what amounts to house arrest. That’s a bridge too far for Captain America. He isn’t worried about getting people back; he’s worried about outside forces taking them away.
So there is a schism, caused by Secretary (nee General) Ross from above, and Zemo from below. The former is the liaison of the Sokovia accords, who attempts to maneuver his way into corralling more superheroes after his run-ins Hulk, and the latter is a man who lost his family thanks to The Avengers, and is determined to use any means necessary to tear them apart, to have their empire crumble from within. And in the middle of that schism is Black Widow, who’s pragmatic enough to know that Tony’s right in the logistics of it all--that they’ll get a better deal agreeing to conditions than having them forced on the group, but sympathetic enough to understand why Steve can’t get on board, what his connection to her and this group means, and the threat posed by anything with the ability to forcibly sever it.
And then there’s Bucky. While Black Widow is a tie that brings Captain America and Iron Man together, The Winter Soldier is a wedge that drives them apart. When Steve sees Bucky, he sees his childhood friend, the one who knows his mother’s name and, with the death of Peggy Carter, is his last real tie to the life he used to live and the man he used to be. He sees family, and connection.
But when Stark sees him, he sees, by dint of Zemo’s machinations, the man who killed his parents, who took away his last chance to tell his father that he loved him, who, brainwashing or no brainwashing, snuffed out a light that Tony needed desperately in times like these. He sees the end of family, and the severing of a connection he will never be able to get back.
That’s what makes Civil War so powerful. In a genre of escalating bombast, it brings the conflict back to the small and personal. The film’s opening action scene gives a moment in the spotlight to each of the new Avengers; the subsequent chases and rumbles featuring The Winter Soldier are a visual treat, and it all culminates in an internecine conflict among the heroes that stands as one of the most creative, entertaining, and thrilling action set pieces since the Battle of New York in the first Avengers film.
But instead of that continued escalation, the film narrows its focus after that. The climax of the film comes from a personal reveal -- not only that Bucky was the Starks’ assassin, but that Steve knew and had the gist of it, if not the specifics, but never said a word. A film with so many characters and themes and stories comes down to a conflict between three people. That is the heart of the film -- a dispute, a wedge, that is as personal as it is philosophical, that is as meaningful because of the characters as we’ve watched them grow and develop as because of the fact that it’s two icons locked in combat with one another.
And that too, was one of Community’s strengths. For as outrageous and absurd and cartoony as the show could get, at its best, it drew all that weirdness and humor and conflict back down to the simple, emotional, and human. Tony Stark is still quick with a witty, sarcastic remark. Steve Rogers can still take a beating and deliver one in return. And their conflict is the culmination of more than that, of difference of opinion, of lifestyle, of their place in life and their place in relation to one another, with their team and their family.
As grandiose and ambitious and multi-faceted a film and narrative as Civil War presents, at its core, it’s a story about two people who care about each other breaking away, about the elements of their relationships and their histories and psyches that drives them to do it, and the extraordinarily human reasons that both pull them back together and tear them apart. These are the kinds of themes the Russos brought with them from their old gig, and they make Civil War more than just the flash and excitement of the good guys coming to blows; it’s a film that crystallizes from the connections between its characters, between the emotions and experiences that drive them, between the humanity, humor, and heart that drives the Marvel Cinematic Universe and produced what may be its greatest film to date.
The main reason I decided to watch this movie was because of all the good things I'd heard about it. The fact that it's in black and white did put me off a bit but because when modern movies are made in black and white it's a style choice and most of the time it doesn't really add much to it. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) was also black and white and I enjoyed that one so I decided to give it a try.
I can't say I was as blown away by this movie as a lot of other people were but it definitely wasn't bad. After 1 hour of watching it I still wasn't sure what the point of the movie was but as it turns out it's just a story about a womans day to day life working for this not-so-perfect family. It is very real though and not in some epic very hollywood way. It just shows a very real human experience.
It's a slow movie and it's definitely not dramatic(although it does have its intense moments) so if you're expecting something grand and fast-paced you're bound to be dissapointed.
The amount of dog shit in this movie gave me anxiety. I also really wish I could kick Fermín in the nuts, proper dickhead that one.
[9.4/10] Stop and consider the magnitude of this achievement. Avengers: Endgame is not just a film. It is not merely the “season finale” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the culmination of eleven years of multifaceted storytelling that balances dozens of characters, ties off story threads that have stretched and weaved and intersected over the past decade, and crafts a final challenge worthy of being the capstone to this mega-franchise. That it happened at all, let alone that the series ends on a note so poignant, funny, and exhilarating, is an absolute miracle -- or at least, if you’ll pardon the expression, a marvel.
Rest assured, if you’ve never seen an MCU movie before and decide, for some inexplicable reason, to jump in here, you will be helplessly lost. Those hoping for standalone accessibility will be frustrated. But one of the best features of Endgame is how layered yet modular it is. If you’ve only watched the Avengers team-up flicks, you can still keep up with the film given its easy-to-follow structure and brief explanations of how we arrived here. (The latter are typically laden with wisecracks to help the medicine go down). If you’ve dipped into the other major MCU films here and there, you’re liable to appreciate the cameos and connections that make this installment feel as much like a reunion as it does a finale. And if, like yours truly, you’ve watched the whole series from beginning to end, you’ll love both the little callbacks to past moments and personalities, and the way the film expertly weaves twenty movies’ worth of relationships and personal developments into one final, unfathomably satisfying tapestry.
Endgame can be essentially divided into three parts: (1.) the hangover from Infinity War (2.) the “Time Heist” and (3.) the final confrontation and epilogue. For a film with as many characters and stories as this (presumably) last outing for the original Avengers team has, that structure helps keep the movie from feeling ungainly. There are clear goals and distinct changes in the objectives from hour to hour that keeps the film manageable, even nimble, as it ties so many stories and personalities together.
The first hour of Endgame is easily the most heartbreaking. The most commendable thing the film does is take time to show our heroes coping with that unimaginable loss. Endgame certainly takes a page from the first Avengers flick by spending its first act getting the band back together, but not before it deals with what split them apart. Having an opening twenty minutes where the good guys kill Thanos, but all hope of reversing his grim deeds has been lost, is a deft choice that immediately pumps the brakes on the audience’s expectations, and gives the Avengers reasons to make good on tensions that have been bubbling up for years. Before the film dives into making things right, it stops to process what went wrong.
That means taking stock of where the Avengers are five years after the events of Infinity War and feeling their pain and efforts to heal. There is something heartening in seeing Steve Rogers still leading support groups and trying to make lives easier for people. There’s something piercing about Natasha keeping the lights on for The Avengers but still feeling the loss of her wayward best friend. There’s something funny but sympathetic about Thor’s reaction to his belief that he’s failed being to wallow in distractions and simpler pleasures. There’s something touching about Ant-Man reuniting with his now-grown daughter who thought she’d lost him forever. There’s something bitter about Hawkeye turning into a murderous ronin after the devastating loss of his family. And there’s something oddly right about Tony only being able to accept the quiet life after his worst fears have come to fruition, with a wife and a daughter and a cabin on the lake. Savvy viewers know that the dusting at the end of Infinity War is destined to be undone, but Endgame doesn’t shy away from showing the effects it had on the survivors in the ensuing, difficult five years, which makes those losses matter and serve as meaningful motivation, even if we know they’re unlikely to be permanent.
But, of course, a blockbuster film can only permit itself to wallow for so long. After everyone is reunited and convinced that Scott Lang’s longshot effort to right what went wrong is worth a try given the magnitude of what was taken, the fun, and the “Time Heist”, begins.
It’s there that Endgame becomes, at least for long stretches, an enjoyable romp, finding a different, more diverting gear that most Marvel movies kick into sooner or later. The chance to have our heroes dip back into key moments of MCU history, playing around with old friends and enemies, using knowledge of the past and the future to bring humor and clever twists to the fore, is an utter delight. Whether it’s Captain America having to go toe-to-toe with himself like some live action Capcom game, or War Machine and Nebula reframing the opening to the original Guardians movie as idiocy, or Steve sidestepping another elevator fight with a well-placed “Hail Hydra”, this stretch is what lets the Avengers be those lovable, mischief-making scamps that we’ve enjoyed watching even apart from the world-moving stakes and personal struggles.
And yet, the film also uses those hops through time to underscore those internal struggles as much as it revels in the fun of being a cameo-coated heist flick. Iron Man and Captain America both go back in time to the 1970s, where Tony resolves the daddy issues that have been at the fore of his personal issues since Iron Man 2, and Steve is haunted by being both unimaginably close and unimaginably far from his greatest love. Thor has an unexpectedly touching reunion with his mother circa Thor 2, that helps him recover from the debilitating sense of being a failure. And last, but anything but least, Black Widow and Hawkeye realize what it takes to obtain the soul stone, and struggle with one another to pay its price themselves.
It is one of the more affecting sequences in the film, as two heroes essentially compete to save the other and sacrifice themselves. It’s one of the tensest fights in the film, given the obvious stakes, and shows the pair of “badass normal” in the Avengers at their best, in ways both personal and pugilistic. Natasha wins, and firmly and finally erases the red from her ledger, giving her life to save the world and doing so for the family and feeling she never thought she’d fine. It is a noble, satisfying, and hard but heartening death, that gives Black Widow the high point of the act before the massive, final rumble begin.
That’s one of Endgame’s canniest choices. It shows our heroes succeeding in their wildly improbable (if somewhat inevitable) mission, but that being only half the battle. The time-skipping reassembly of the Infinity Stones, and a painful but fruitful snap from The Hulk brings all of the old dust mites back, but that’s when the final bout of trouble begins. In a clever twist, 2014 Thanos used 2014 Nebula’s connection to her 2019 predecessor against her and, with knowledge of the Avengers’ plan, travels to the future to stop hit. Surveying the aftermath of his original plan, he decides that it did not go far enough. He resolves to gather the stones once more to remake the universe in his image from the ground up, one without a memory of what was taken from them, and calls in his army to see that it happens.
It’s there that the rousing fanservice of the film erupts in earnest. Every fight-worthy MCU character of note (save those poor unloved T.V.-based heroes) bounds onto the screen at once to tear through Thanos’s goons together and stop the Mad Titan from completing his plan. The outcome of the skirmish is never in doubt, but its beats are as fistpump-worthy as anything you’re likely to see in cinema. Captain America calls Thor’s hammer as he, Iron Man, and the God of Thunder himself take on Thanos in three-on-one close-quarters combat. Black Panther saunters in triumphantly with his usual infectious resolve and Spider-Man swings back into action to ease Tony’s conscience. Captain Marvel gets the “Big Damn Hero” moment, and the utter thrill of seeing every warrior, fighter, and ally The Avengers ever crossed paths with assembled in one place take on Thanos’s equal and opposite army is a brand of high mark no other film can claim.
It is, in a word, uproarious, in the best possible sense. That final rumble is pure crowd-pleasing, with moments that verge on the pandering, but which never stop flooding the audience’s pleasure centers with superheroic dopamine. While the results are inevitable, the chills and spills to get there are too enjoyable to care, as Endgame makes good on its ultimate crossover promises to give anyone and everyone a moment to shine.
That closing salvo feeds three themes that have been with the Marvel Cinematic Universe almost since the very beginning. Time and again, the Avengers flicks have focused on the idea that these heroes are vulnerable when trapped in discord, but nigh-unstoppable when working together. For Tony Stark in particular, Endgame works as the final confirmation idea that, however much he may want to put the world on his back and go it alone, it takes trusting his teammates, and seeing the fruits of so much affection and connection from so many people, to save the world.
That effort, however, costs Tony his life. When all other options are exhausted, Tony himself nabs the Infinity Stones from Thanos’s gauntlet and, at the cost of his own life, snaps his enemy’s forces out of existence. It is a mirror image of the end of Infinity War, with all of the alien aggressors fading to flakes of ash, and Thanos himself crumbling under the weight of his crestfallen disappointment rather than looking with satisfaction upon a grateful world.
But those events mirror Infinity War in another, more spiritual way. Time and again in that film, Thanos was able to win because The Avengers were not willing to sacrifice one another to stop him. They were not willing to let others die, let alone put them in harm’s way, even to secure a victory. Here, on the other hand, we see the opposite side of that nobility. All of these heroes put their lives on the line to stop Thanos, but only Natasha and Tony know and accept the specific costs of their actions. Thanos loses not only because of the friendships and alliances forged in the name of defending what’s right, but because he underestimated the magnitude of the sacrifices that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would make in order to protect the people they love.
That’s been Tony’s goal since the prospect of an unstoppable alien threat first emerged in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2012’s The Avengers. From his endless array of alternate suits meant to account for any possible threat in Iron Man 3, to his efforts to put an iron shield around the world in Age of Ultron, to his desire to save his compatriots from themselves with Sokovia Accords, Tony has arguably been obsessed with defending the world from the worst it can offer. In his final moments, Pepper tells him that he’s succeeded, that they’re safe now, that his long labor is finally over and he can rest.
The predictability of that end weakens the moment a little, but it’s buoyed by the reactions of those closest to Tony, and the ballast that comes from paying off eleven years of personal struggles, trials, and travails from the signature character of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It’s only in the film’s closing segments, where it tries to grieve quickly and pass multiple torches that its fumbles the ball a bit. Whereas most of the Endgame’s events have a surprising amount of focus given the scope of the film, it’s that last little stretch where the movie’s supports start to buckle under so much weight, and the moments start to feel more scattershot. And yet it all ends on a high note, with Steve Rogers finally getting the happy ending – the long, joyful life with the woman he loves – that he had lost for so long. The move requires a little movie magic, and some timeline-shredding consequences, but rides on the total joy of him finally getting that long-awaited dance with Peggy Carter, and the beautiful future it implies.
That scene epitomizes Avengers: Endgame, a film that by all accounts, shouldn’t work, and shouldn’t even have happened. If you think about the details of Steve and Peggy’s reunion for too long, the whole thing is at risk of falling apart. And yet it’s the end product of so many great emotional moments, so many clever twists, so many pieces of plot and character and feeling that have been sewn together over the past decade of storytelling, that it cannot help but feel earned. Endgame is an unprecedented achievement, one that marries the lighter thrills of comic moments and superpowered fisticuffs, with committed, long term character work and emotional depth. The Marvel Cinematic Universe will continue, but we still never have a cinematic event as big, as momentous, and as multifaceted as Endgame ever again. Thank goodness for all of the assembly that was required, undertaken, and finished with this capstone.
History became legend. Legend became myth.
And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.
Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic masterpiece "The Lord of the Rings", Peter Jackson took up the challenge, that for the longest time was told about Tolkien's book: "Too complicated to bring a true version onto film, it cannot be done."
Describing "The Lord of the Rings" to the uninitiated may perhaps be best compared trying to describe the taste of wine: Sweet, a little bitter, and intoxicating. Yet to those, who have never tasted wine, the meaning behind this description will forever elude them.
What makes this trilogy stand out amongst other equally brilliant movies, is each individual aspect of this movie is an astonishing work of art and ties "The Lord of the Rings" to something larger than the sum of its parts. The cinematography is breathtaking, in the most literal sense of the word. At times you will hold your breath being consumed by the sheer beauty of Middle Earth. You will quickly forget your surroundings and be plunged into this world. The original score composed by Howard Shore can be considered a masterpiece and Shore's magnum opus, his most brilliant work to date. Inspired by Richard Wagner, he composed the soundtrack around 80 different Leitmotifs, each focusing on an individual character/area/scene with recurring melodies throughout the trilogy. At the time of production, the most popular composers were James Horner and Hans Zimmer, and the music scene was quite astounded at Jackson's choice for the relatively unknown Shore. Jackson said his decision heavily depended on Shore's very unique style (as seen in 'The Cell') and his ability to bring something unique to each of his work.
The (special) effects are equally amazing and more importantly, believable. You will never feel like "Ah, special effects!", but be mesmerized by their authenticity. It almost seems nonsensical to talk about the performance by leading and supporting roles. They were real. I did not see them in their previous roles or as actors, they completely filled out their roles and added their own personality.
"The Lord of the Rings" is certainly not perfect, but if you came to expect perfection, you will forever be feeling disappointed.
It is however the closest thing to perfection as one might get without feeling pretentious.
If you watch this movie for the first time and have very high expectations from all the positive reviews, forget the reviews and watch it with an open mind, but also don't watch it thinking it could never live up to your high expectations, as you might miss out.
I, for one, will be watching this movie for many many years to come, and it has become quite the tradition to watch it at least once a year.
10/10 - You will witness the events unfold through the eyes of the Fellowship and come across joy, sorrow and even great despair. A true work of art that should not be missed.
"The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true. " Galadriel
