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rainwatersparkThis movie was not about accountability, unless it was meant to be a joke.
(Spoilers below the cut.)
What the government does in CA:CW:
- Order a task force to shoot Bucky on sight, instead of capturing him so he can be put on trial.
- Imprison the Avengers who helped Steve in a secret supermax prison without any kind of legal due process.
This is not what accountability looks like. This is not what any government would do unless it's broken and/or corrupted. The side of accountability was turned into a complete strawman by painting the government and legal system as completely, totally wrong. This movie had no mature, nuanced debate about accountability vs. freedom; the message was just "the government is always wrong and evil and wants to take away all of your freedom, so don't trust the government."
The Avengers go wherever they want and cause massive collateral damage in densely populated areas, and yet the idea to subject them to oversight is treated like the Evilest of Evils. There is no talk of cooperation; it's either "they're going to control us" or "we need complete 100% freedom and discretion." Steve, notably, has no answers to the question of "What happens if the Avengers' actions cause collateral damage and civilian death?" Ultimately, he deems it unimportant compared to letting the Avengers do whatever they want, because only the Avengers know what's right for the world, apparently.
Characterization
Steve's characterization is completely off in this movie, as he actually shows a somewhat callous disregard for the collateral damage caused by the Avengers, when he asks Ross to turn the footage of the past destruction off. And he doesn't tell Tony about how his parents actually died because...it would make him feel bad to acknowledge what Bucky did? That's a shockingly selfish decision for Captain America to make—and since when has Steve put his own feelings before honesty and doing the right thing??!
Steve and Bucky have very little interaction in the movie; they hardly feel like friends. Despite what you may have heard via internet chatter, Steve doesn't go after Bucky initially because he thinks Bucky's innocent. In fact, he thinks Bucky is guilty. His only rationale for going after Bucky is because he doesn't want Bucky to die (again, the government is shown as being evil and not actually caring about accountability at all) and he thinks he's the one best equipped to bring Bucky in without getting killed (which is probably true and he really should've talked to the government about that to reach a mutual understanding for pragmatic purposes). It's not until Bucky gets mind-controlled (ish) by Zemo reading the trigger words to him that Steve starts to realize Bucky might be innocent. And even then, after Bucky wakes up with his mind back, Steve doesn't show much conern for him, only coldly asking "which Bucky" he's dealing with.
I didn't care for Tony going into the movie, and the movie failed to make me care about him afterwards. It also failed to make me care about Vision. Sam had cool fight scenes, but his only character in the movie was "help Steve."
T'Challa was a great character, I will say, but unfortunately he couldn't salvage the movie for me.
Natasha's characterization was decent, but the movie fails abysmally concerning the other two main female characters, Sharon Carter and Wanda. Sharon got so little characterization that I felt personally insulted (as a fan of her in the comics); there is no explanation as for why she decides to help Steve at the cost of her own career, and there was no build-up to her and Steve's romance at all. Wanda was subjected to the tired and sexist trope of "woman with immense powers who can't control them and therefore is scared of herself." Both Vision and Tony treated her with incredible condescension, putting her under house arrest "for her own protection." Gross.
Plot
The plot was a complete mess that made no sense whatsoever.
There are still more complaints I have with the movie—terrible treatment of mental illness by completely stripping Bucky's agency and essentially making him commit suicide; very clunky cinematography that actually made me start to hate establishing shots—but the awful characterization of Steve, complete mess of a plot, and complete joke of the movie's supposed premise of accountability is enough for me to be completely, 100% done with the MCU.
(Spoilers below the cut.)
What the government does in CA:CW:
- Order a task force to shoot Bucky on sight, instead of capturing him so he can be put on trial.
- Imprison the Avengers who helped Steve in a secret supermax prison without any kind of legal due process.
This is not what accountability looks like. This is not what any government would do unless it's broken and/or corrupted. The side of accountability was turned into a complete strawman by painting the government and legal system as completely, totally wrong. This movie had no mature, nuanced debate about accountability vs. freedom; the message was just "the government is always wrong and evil and wants to take away all of your freedom, so don't trust the government."
The Avengers go wherever they want and cause massive collateral damage in densely populated areas, and yet the idea to subject them to oversight is treated like the Evilest of Evils. There is no talk of cooperation; it's either "they're going to control us" or "we need complete 100% freedom and discretion." Steve, notably, has no answers to the question of "What happens if the Avengers' actions cause collateral damage and civilian death?" Ultimately, he deems it unimportant compared to letting the Avengers do whatever they want, because only the Avengers know what's right for the world, apparently.
Characterization
Steve's characterization is completely off in this movie, as he actually shows a somewhat callous disregard for the collateral damage caused by the Avengers, when he asks Ross to turn the footage of the past destruction off. And he doesn't tell Tony about how his parents actually died because...it would make him feel bad to acknowledge what Bucky did? That's a shockingly selfish decision for Captain America to make—and since when has Steve put his own feelings before honesty and doing the right thing??!
Steve and Bucky have very little interaction in the movie; they hardly feel like friends. Despite what you may have heard via internet chatter, Steve doesn't go after Bucky initially because he thinks Bucky's innocent. In fact, he thinks Bucky is guilty. His only rationale for going after Bucky is because he doesn't want Bucky to die (again, the government is shown as being evil and not actually caring about accountability at all) and he thinks he's the one best equipped to bring Bucky in without getting killed (which is probably true and he really should've talked to the government about that to reach a mutual understanding for pragmatic purposes). It's not until Bucky gets mind-controlled (ish) by Zemo reading the trigger words to him that Steve starts to realize Bucky might be innocent. And even then, after Bucky wakes up with his mind back, Steve doesn't show much conern for him, only coldly asking "which Bucky" he's dealing with.
I didn't care for Tony going into the movie, and the movie failed to make me care about him afterwards. It also failed to make me care about Vision. Sam had cool fight scenes, but his only character in the movie was "help Steve."
T'Challa was a great character, I will say, but unfortunately he couldn't salvage the movie for me.
Natasha's characterization was decent, but the movie fails abysmally concerning the other two main female characters, Sharon Carter and Wanda. Sharon got so little characterization that I felt personally insulted (as a fan of her in the comics); there is no explanation as for why she decides to help Steve at the cost of her own career, and there was no build-up to her and Steve's romance at all. Wanda was subjected to the tired and sexist trope of "woman with immense powers who can't control them and therefore is scared of herself." Both Vision and Tony treated her with incredible condescension, putting her under house arrest "for her own protection." Gross.
Plot
The plot was a complete mess that made no sense whatsoever.
- No one really cared about accountability and the Sokovia Accords after the beginning of the movie; it's not even really what the airport fight is about.
- If Zemo's goal was to tear the Avengers apart, why didn't he just slip Tony a note saying the Winter Solider killed his parents at the beginning?? (It doesn't make sense to say Tony would not believe him unless he saw the video.) And even then, all Zemo did was make Tony and Steve beat each other up; that's hardly tearing all of the Avengers apart.
- Alternatively, just framing Bucky for the bombing of the UN did a good enough job of pitting Avengers against Avengers; the only point of the rest of the movie was to make reconciliation more difficult, I guess.
- There was no point to the 5 other Winter Soldiers plotline, whether for logical or thematic purposes, except to set up the massive airport fight between the Avengers.
- Peggy's funeral was pretty unnecessary; they could've found a different way to introduce Sharon Carter and motivate Steve.
- Tony believes in accountability...and then goes and recruits a child soldier. Gotcha.
- Why wipe Bucky's memories if they have the trigger word system (which is almost completely scientifically implausible), or vice-versa, considering that both functions would be redundant? Why wasn't the trigger word system alluded to in the previous movie? (Answer: Because it's a really transparent retcon.) And why have the trigger word system if it has the danger of making the Winter Soldier(s) dangerously unstable? Where is the goddamn logic to any of this???
- Why was there a video camera pointed at the exact deserted road where Bucky shot the Starks' car? Why didn't Bucky, a supposedly competent assassin, get rid of the camera? Why did Bucky kill Howard and Maria in the most gratuitously violent ways instead of just shooting them in the head?
- Every problem in the movie could've been solved if the characters actually TALKED TO EACH OTHER. They could've avoided the final fight if Steve told Tony about his parents. The Avengers (probably) wouldn't have fought if Steve got the chance to explain about the (perceived) threat of the other 5 Winter Soldiers. Steve, Bucky, and Sam wouldn't have had to fight the SWAT (??) guys if Steve told Ross or whoever that he was the one best able to bring Bucky in peacefully. (1) If your plot can be resolved by having characters talk to each other, and they don't, 9 out of 10 times that's sloppy writing. (2) It's a toxic message to suggest that (male) characters can never resolve their problems by talking to each other, they have to beat each other to a pulp instead.
There are still more complaints I have with the movie—terrible treatment of mental illness by completely stripping Bucky's agency and essentially making him commit suicide; very clunky cinematography that actually made me start to hate establishing shots—but the awful characterization of Steve, complete mess of a plot, and complete joke of the movie's supposed premise of accountability is enough for me to be completely, 100% done with the MCU.
