Want to know what were the biggest failings of Captain America: Civil War. Go ahead, take a read!
1. Very weak development/explanation of Baron Zemo. This is my main gripe. In this film, Zemo is a Sokovian special forces-esque soldier who lost his family when Sokovia fell (pun somewhat intended). While this is horrible and unfortunate, it doesn’t make him stick out from the thousands (or perhaps millions) of other people whose families suffered the same fate. As far as villainous motivations go, the final reveal of his was underwhelming.
Also, there is no explanation as to how he found out so much about the HYDRA’s Winter Soldier program even before he strung up the HYDRA general in his own home. How did he find about about the HYDRA general at all? How did he know to ask specifically about Dec. 16, 1991? How did he know which psychologist the Joint Counter Terrorism Centre would use to for interrogation? What did he have against super soldiers to make him shoot the remaining cryogenically frozen super soldiers? Too many unanswered questions here.
2. Killed off Crossbones too early. At the end of Winter Soldier, we see Brock Grumlow barely alive, foreshadowing his return as Crossbones, but he ended up getting the Baron Strucker-treatment (or alternatively, the Count Dooku-treatment) and relegated to a simple plot device.
3. Numerous physics inconsistencies. I understand this is a stretch since it’s a superhero movie we’re talking about, but noticed some of these immediately:
– There are many things about Ant-Man and his powers that make me raise an eyebrow, but since when did growing in size make your suit bulletproof and missile-proof as well? War Machine unloaded his arsenal on him and it barely tickled him. Recall that somebody was able to taser Ant-Man effectively in the Ant-Man movie, so his suit should hardly be bulletproof.
– Okay, this one isn’t physics, but Spider-Man’s spidey-sense probably should have kicked in when Falcon’s bird was coming at him inside the airport. Also — how did Falcon and Winter Soldier get out of Spider-Man’s webbing? If brute strength is all it took, then Captain America could have done this easily at the beginning and wouldn’t have needed Hawkeye to shoot him free.
4. Bucky just happened to make Howard Stark’s car crash exactly in front of where a camera was stationed? And then he decides to shoot the camera AFTER he kills him and his wife? Also, SHIELD let Howard Stark transport five super soldier serums in the back of a trunk without any sort of protection/escort. Sure, Bucky would have killed them all anyways, so it wouldn’t have changed the result, but all the more reason they should have added a few guards. Details!!!
All this aside, very entertaining movie. Black Panther was amazing; I enjoyed every fight he was in and I think Chadwick Boseman did a fantastic job (not to mention nailing the African accent). Spider-Man was great as well and managed to make an excellent impression with his limited screen time. Humour
Words: Justin Tsang
