Finally Saw CA:CW Yesterday...
May. 29th, 2016 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoYes it's good. It didn't disappoint even though I had fully spoiled myself on the plot before walking into the theater. (Aside: And a nice theater it was too; a new AMC at the New Park Mall which had large leather couches for seats, with an electronic foot rest. Nice.)
It did feel a bit more like an Avengers film than a strictly Cap film, mostly due to the large ensemble cast and the extra focus on other character arcs besides Cap's. Of course, as an Avengers film, I think it'd probably the be best of the three, just slighting inching out the first Avengers film.
As a Cap film, I still think CATWS is better, but this one is certainly not bad, and can tie for second place with CATFA.
The part I liked the best about this film was the characterization and character progression. The background and world building aspects of the MCU still continues to be a bit WTF and full of plot holes. But once the plot kicks off and people on both sides start making it worse, pretty much all of their actions give me the impression of "yeah, I can see them doing that, the idiot" rather than "OOC! slander!" More than anything else, this movie shows the audience our heroes' feet of clay, and it does it well like many other MCU movies.
As for the specific character arcs... I think Tony's and T'Challa's were the best done, while as a fangirl I was most invested in the Cap/Bucky relationship.
Also, about Tony's arc... well in some ways you could call the whole movie - The Continuing Downward Spiral of Tony Stark's Manpain. The man has a history of making bad decisions...or rash decisions based on emotional trauma. So of course he gets suckerpunched in the feels right at the beginning of the film and it gets worse from there. His murderous rampage at the very end was well foreshadowed by the way he just out of hand shoots Sam, even though Rhodey's fall was the direct result of a friendly fire accident (and the fact that Sam was the nearest EMT fergodsakes).
On the other hand, the Cap/Bucky arc was just a bit disappointing in how little of it we got. Yes, I know they had to share a lot of the screentime with everyone else. And yes, I shouldn't expect the movie to have these 'manly men' go all weepy and make goo-goo eyes at each other like all the fanfics do. But still... *pouts*
The fangirl in me is just not satisfied considering this movie kinda puts a coda on the Steve/Bucky ship, which makes post-movie fics of anything but the AU sort not really workable. It also razes the Steve/Tony ship to the ground, not that I was invested in that ship anymore after getting tired of all the pro-Tony section of fandom.
Now, some stuff I didn't like...
I still think a lot of the background/world-building of the MCU still doesn't make any sense, and this film is no exception. I mean, 117 nations are ready to ratify something mere days after the latest Avengers mission? Either that or it was in the works since Sokovia but no one had heard of it until now? Really? Bureaucracy doesn't work like that. International politics doesn't work like that...
Ross' whole presentation was nonsensical and I think the problems with it has already been raised by other fans online.
The villain's hyper-competence was a little hard to swallow since he was un-enhanced, working alone, and not particularly noted to be a genius/savant or whatever. But I could find enough SoD to let it go.
I also thought the airport fight scene was a little too long and action-porny. Rather like the IM/Hulk fight from AoU. But I guess I wasn't the targeted audience for that segment. I doubt the various versus forms would be satisfied with everyone's showing though...
One final note of something I liked about this film. It managed to avert the trope of "miscommunication kills", which is the tiresome way that normal Hollywood films use to push plot along. In CW, at the critical junctures, people do try to concisely explain why they're doing what they're doing. The conflict arises instead from the idea of "there's no talking to someone who won't listen", which is a much more human and empathetic failing.
The driving characters (Tony, Cap, Ross, T'challa) have all made up their minds at the beginning, and simply aren't open to actually listening to anything contrary. They rationalize away how their opponents must be wrong, and how their argument is the only way. Then add in the time crunch and it's no wonder everything imploded.
The Avengers are all people with extraordinary powers/skills which are fully capable of handling most external threats. But they're also fallible human beings, many of them with histories of trauma and no therapy, and thus utterly vulnerable to attacks from the emotional/domestic side of things. I mean, hell, that was already foreshadowed in Age of Ultron.
It did feel a bit more like an Avengers film than a strictly Cap film, mostly due to the large ensemble cast and the extra focus on other character arcs besides Cap's. Of course, as an Avengers film, I think it'd probably the be best of the three, just slighting inching out the first Avengers film.
As a Cap film, I still think CATWS is better, but this one is certainly not bad, and can tie for second place with CATFA.
The part I liked the best about this film was the characterization and character progression. The background and world building aspects of the MCU still continues to be a bit WTF and full of plot holes. But once the plot kicks off and people on both sides start making it worse, pretty much all of their actions give me the impression of "yeah, I can see them doing that, the idiot" rather than "OOC! slander!" More than anything else, this movie shows the audience our heroes' feet of clay, and it does it well like many other MCU movies.
As for the specific character arcs... I think Tony's and T'Challa's were the best done, while as a fangirl I was most invested in the Cap/Bucky relationship.
Also, about Tony's arc... well in some ways you could call the whole movie - The Continuing Downward Spiral of Tony Stark's Manpain. The man has a history of making bad decisions...or rash decisions based on emotional trauma. So of course he gets suckerpunched in the feels right at the beginning of the film and it gets worse from there. His murderous rampage at the very end was well foreshadowed by the way he just out of hand shoots Sam, even though Rhodey's fall was the direct result of a friendly fire accident (and the fact that Sam was the nearest EMT fergodsakes).
On the other hand, the Cap/Bucky arc was just a bit disappointing in how little of it we got. Yes, I know they had to share a lot of the screentime with everyone else. And yes, I shouldn't expect the movie to have these 'manly men' go all weepy and make goo-goo eyes at each other like all the fanfics do. But still... *pouts*
The fangirl in me is just not satisfied considering this movie kinda puts a coda on the Steve/Bucky ship, which makes post-movie fics of anything but the AU sort not really workable. It also razes the Steve/Tony ship to the ground, not that I was invested in that ship anymore after getting tired of all the pro-Tony section of fandom.
Now, some stuff I didn't like...
I still think a lot of the background/world-building of the MCU still doesn't make any sense, and this film is no exception. I mean, 117 nations are ready to ratify something mere days after the latest Avengers mission? Either that or it was in the works since Sokovia but no one had heard of it until now? Really? Bureaucracy doesn't work like that. International politics doesn't work like that...
Ross' whole presentation was nonsensical and I think the problems with it has already been raised by other fans online.
The villain's hyper-competence was a little hard to swallow since he was un-enhanced, working alone, and not particularly noted to be a genius/savant or whatever. But I could find enough SoD to let it go.
I also thought the airport fight scene was a little too long and action-porny. Rather like the IM/Hulk fight from AoU. But I guess I wasn't the targeted audience for that segment. I doubt the various versus forms would be satisfied with everyone's showing though...
One final note of something I liked about this film. It managed to avert the trope of "miscommunication kills", which is the tiresome way that normal Hollywood films use to push plot along. In CW, at the critical junctures, people do try to concisely explain why they're doing what they're doing. The conflict arises instead from the idea of "there's no talking to someone who won't listen", which is a much more human and empathetic failing.
The driving characters (Tony, Cap, Ross, T'challa) have all made up their minds at the beginning, and simply aren't open to actually listening to anything contrary. They rationalize away how their opponents must be wrong, and how their argument is the only way. Then add in the time crunch and it's no wonder everything imploded.
The Avengers are all people with extraordinary powers/skills which are fully capable of handling most external threats. But they're also fallible human beings, many of them with histories of trauma and no therapy, and thus utterly vulnerable to attacks from the emotional/domestic side of things. I mean, hell, that was already foreshadowed in Age of Ultron.
