Three Ways to Make Me Even More Excited for 'Captain America: Civil War'

The release of the third Captain America movie, subtitled Civil War, is now less than a week away.  At risk of appearing unprofessional, or worse, jinxing it, I have to say it looks incredible.  I was a fan of Captain Steve "America" Rogers when he was boy scouting through the 1940's in a Joe Johnston period piece but there's no denying the Russo Brothers took it up a notch with the 2014 sequel Winter Soldier.  Chris Evans as Cap ended 2011's The First Avenger by falling into a cryogenic slumber, waking up just in time to team up with Iron Man and his mighty friends to fight aliens in The Avengers.  Winter Soldier brought him back down to Earth, forcing him to face his feelings about his time displacement while struggling with a new socio-politico-cultural landscape; put simply, Cap learns about libertarianism and Star Wars.  Now the team is back at it and splitting up.  Civil War sees Cap take up arms against his best frenemy Iron Man, effectively splitting the Avengers roster down the middle.  Did I mention this movie looks incredible (knock on wood)?  With only a week left until its release there are just a few things that could make me more excited for it than I already am.

Dustin Hoffman Could Be In It

If you removed all the superhero aspects of Winter Soldier you would still be left with one of the best political thrillers in decades.  It was very clearly influenced by movies of the same kind from the 1970's like Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, and All the President's Men.  That's what makes the casting of Robert Redford as the villain particularly inspired.  Not only is he ridiculously talented and capable of conveying a chilling authoritativeness, but he played the protagonists of two of the three movies I just mentioned, Three Days of the Condor and All the President's Men.  In the former, he was joined by Dustin Hoffman, who also starred in Marathon Man.

All The President's Men is more exciting than it seems.

I consider those two living legends as representative for the genre of political thriller as John Wayne is for Westerns or Chadwick Boseman is for biopics.  I absolutely love Redford's role in Winter Soldier and I would be delighted if Hoffman made an appearance in Civil War or the inevitable fourth in the series.

The Promotional Material Could Stop Asking Me to Choose A Side

One way Winter Soldier stands out from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is its political subtext, namely the topics of privacy and drone warfare.  That kind of thing isn't exactly new to the MCU (the first Iron Man movie is a hop, skip, and jump away from being directed by Kathryn Bigelow) but that aspect fell between the cracks for a while.  The topicality of Winter Soldier is another of the many reasons I love it even if I'm far from a savvy Washington insider.  Although, I'm not exactly ignorant either.  I'll put it like this: I know enough about the current election to be very anxious about it and I have been for months.  Again, I'm not really an expert but if you're looking for an endorsement, I'll tell you that in the primaries I wrote in "So, that's a definite 'no' on Joe Biden running?" even though there wasn't a write-in option.  Now Marvel's two most political characters are going head to head and the marketing team really wants people to choose a side.

The time is now — let the world know who you stand with. You never know who’s listening… https://t.co/ZOvwuL2Obk

— Captain America (@CaptainAmerica) April 11, 2016

I usually try to avoid movie promotion so I can go into the theater knowing as little as possible but this time I'm also putting off any decision making until both candidates characters can make their case.  Regardless, I spend a lot of time on the internet reading about movie news so I already know more about this film than I would like.  As far as I can tell, Captain America is pretty libertarian like I said before and Iron Man is pro-government.  It's like choosing between Paradoxically Rich Bernie Sanders and Benjamin Button Ron Paul.  (If I meant Young Ron Paul I would have said Rand Paul.  I mean someone who is technically very old but looks young and has a slight Brad Pitt vibe.)  So, there's no chance of getting Joe Biden in one of those metal suits?

Captain America Could Be Wrong

I watched Captain America: The First Avenger last night just in case I missed something the first five times.  I've seen it more than any other MCU movie because, frankly, I'm a sucker for the boy-scouty borderline sanctimonious type characters.  I like Punisher and Deadpool as much as the next guy but my favorites have always been the most righteous, Cap, Superman, Spider-Man, Nightcrawler from the X-Men.  Nite Owl is my favorite character from Watchmen.  That's freaking insane!  Like, Rorschach from Watchmen level crazy.  I just prefer superheroes who are unabashedly heroic.  That's why I am deeply troubled when creators try to reinvent these characters by making them raging jagweeds.  On the other hand, every time I've watched The First Avenger something has stood out to me.  Doctor Abraham Erskine tells Cap that the serum he created, the serum that turns whimpy Steve into the Vitruvian wet dream and turns Nazi scientist Johann Schmidt into the face of literally everyone's nightmares, "amplifies everything that is inside, good becomes great, bad becomes worse."

He started off with an orange face.

He isn't just talking about the physical.  The whole point of the conversation is that Steve was chosen for the experiment because of his moral fiber but even I have to admit it would be boring if he were perfect.  That means he has to have faults and those faults would be as magnified as his moxie and his chiseled jawline.  The last thing I want is for Cap to go full villain, just for his imperfections to be highlighted a bit more.  For all I know, that could be exactly what happens in Civil War.  I'm confident that a movie pitting two heroes against each other will contain at least a bit of moral relativity but that's a difficult thing to exhibit in any number of trailers.  I predict that his fatal flaw will be his conviction that the ends justify the means.  He is introduced in First Avenger as he is committing fraud to trick the United States Military into accepting someone wholly unqualified, albeit for noble reasons.  In Winter Soldier he admits to Nick Fury during an argument that after he entered the war he and his brothers in arms crossed the line at times, just not to the extent and for the reasons that Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. were planning with Project Insight.  I would be thoroughly impressed to see that trait lead Steve astray without destroying the heart of the character.  If anyone can pull it off its the team that made Winter Soldier.




Side note: I would also like to point out that Anthony Mackie appeared in a decent remake of what I consider the greatest political thriller of all time, The Manchurian Candidate.