Captain America: Civil War trailer

I know I said in my review of Rocky Balboa that I'd be doing Creed next... but I realized that I'm a little bit late on my reaction to the Civil War trailer. So before I do my review of Creed. I do feel I should get this little rant post out as soon as I can because the wonder of this trailer is probably dying down by now and I meant to get this out a couple days ago.

I didn't expect this trailer to drop so soon. I had heard rumors that it was going to show up in front of Star Wars. And I was fine with that. I think we were all waiting for this trailer to drop any day now but this really came out of nowhere, at least for me. But my god, was it a fun surprise. I remember looking at Facebook at about midnight last and seeing the Civil War teaser trailer. Now I thought it was just gonna be a short teaser before a larger drop later this week, but after watching it, it turned out to be a full 2 1/2 minute trailer. Again, a welcome surprise.

So the first thing to note about Civil War, from this trailer, on the surface this seems like a smaller, more personal story about Captain America standing up for his friend Bucky Barnes who he wants to save from the government. However, I can tell there's still more this trailer isn't filling us in on about this movie because while this trailer seems small, there are big things to note about this trailer.

The first thing to note about this movie is that there is obviously some kind of attack that Bucky is blamed for. This will undoubtedly be perpetrated by Baron Zemo (who is being played by Daniel Bruhl) and/or Crossbones (played by Frank Grillo in Captain America: The Winter Soldier).

I'm kind of wondering if Zemo is going to have just as big of a villain role as Baron Von Strucker did in Age of Ultron (Am I the only one who feels like that was a little bit of a waste? I'm not totally aware of the character or what he does, but I would have liked to see Thomas Kretschmann do a little bit of evil stuff as Strucker, I digress though). The more important part is that this sets the government after Bucky, as well as on the path to implementing an accountability system of superheroes, especially the Avengers.

This is going to be one of the things I imagine will make this story a lot bigger than this trailer is letting us believe. Its really only mentioned once and the trailer makes us believe that this issue is more about Captain America and Bucky Barnes, which it will be. But I think that Bucky connects to a larger plot with this piece of legislation.

I mean the Avengers do look like they are divided on something, they're fighting against one another. I can't imagine that it just revolves around Bucky.

Now in the comics of Civil War, the superhero registration act is a piece of legislation that requires superheroes to reveal their secret identities to the world. This leads to the big connection Spider-man has to the story (oh we'll get to Spider-man) in that his secret identity helps keep him safe but he is torn between the ideology of Iron Man and Captain America. The problem with that of course is that secret identities don't exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at least within the Avengers.

Thanks Iron Man

But this trailer does a pretty good job at giving us an initial idea of what the legislation is going to do and the beginning of why there might be a divide between the Avengers on it. 

Oh by the way, Hi Thunderbolt Ross (played by William Hurt) Yeah remember General Ross from The Incredible Hulk. Yeah, apparently he's the Secretary of State now. That's something I didn't pick up on until my third of fourth viewing, he's not wearing a uniform in this movie, he's in a suit and tie. I had to look it up to know that he's the Secretary of State but from the trailer you can tell he's in the politics world now and I love it. 

I really hope Thunderbolt Ross has a bigger part to play in the rest of Phase 3 because you're missing an opportunity if this is going to be his only reappearance and the Hulk is not in this movie. 

I know Marvel is smarter than that. Its good to see William Hurt reprise his role as Thunderbolt Ross and I have no doubt that he is going to be just an awesome addition to this movie. 

So obviously there's an attack, it gets blamed on Bucky, the Avengers can't stop it, their abilities are put into question, Thunderbolt Ross (and maybe also Martin Freeman?!?!) bring in the legislation and Captain America finds himself once again fighting the establishment for what he believes in.

And as Captain America starts going a little bit rogue, its obvious who they bring in to reel him him.

I loved how they treated the relationship between Tony Stark and Captain America in this movie. I think when they first brought out Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr to promote this movie at its announcement. I thought Tony was going to be somewhat of a villain, heading up the campaign for the legislation. And I'm sure that's how he's going to be, but the fact that he's going up against Cap seems to bother him more than I thought it would.

And that's obvious from a lot of points in this trailer.

Its obvious that this is not a personal battle. Tony isn't going after Cap because he dislikes him or he feels threatened by him, its clearly an issue of ideology between these two. And while that can bring people to blows, it seems to hurt both of them that its coming to that.

And of course that ideology splits the different members of the Avengers into two teams.

I kind of mentioned the two sides of Civil War in my Phase 4 rant, but I don't know if I really broke them down as much as I could have.

On Captain America's side, you have Falcon (obviously) Bucky (obviously) Hawkeye, and Agent Sharon Carter from The Winter Soldier (Played by Emily VanCamp). On top of that, the trailer suggests that Scarlet Witch is on the side of Captain America as well.

All these people make a lot of sense to be on Cap's side. Bucky and Falcon are obvious because they're going to be on Cap's side no matter what. Hawkeye makes sense because he has a family that he wants hidden and any kind of legislation that focuses on more control over him makes the possibility of them being exposed a higher risk. He obviously doesn't want the government involved with his family so that's probably a big part. Scarlett Witch is sort of the same, she probably has some kind of fear of the government and therefore sees Cap's side as the obvious one. I mean she's fighting with Cap in the trailer so I don't see any reason why she wouldn't be on his side throughout the film. Sharon Carter is the interesting one for me because she wasn't much of a character in Winter Soldier. I hope they'll develop her a little bit more. She's kind of in the same realm of Bucky and Falcon in that she's probably going to follow Cap anywhere, but I want her to have her own character and see her become a bigger part of Cap's life in this movie.

And then you have the Iron Man team.

 On his team you have War Machine, Black Widow, Black Panther, and Vision. We don't see any Vision in this movie but we do see a lot of War Machine. Rhodey is an entity of the government so its obvious that he's going to be fighting to uphold the law. Black Widow is always the wildcard and I've heard theories that she's a double agent. But this trailer really makes it sound like she's absolutely on the side of the government, even though it doesn't make her very happy. I'm really looking forward to see how Black Widow plays into this movie. She's become such a good character within the last few movies and she's bound to make this fight even more interesting. She also looks fantastic as ever in the trailer so I am definitely looking forward to where she stands in this film. But the main component of Stark's team in the trailer was War Machine.

Now I said in my Phase 4 tangent that I think Rhodey is going to bite it in either this movie or Infinity Wars. And this trailer doesn't exactly disprove that theory.

I mean... shit.

Its probably too on the nose and I'm sure with Marvel's track record with "having people die", Rhodey is probably just injured in this shot, I don't think he's dead. However, if anybody was going to die in this movie, Rhodey is probably the person that is going to.

And then there's Black Panther.

And my god... Black Panther looks amazing.

I still have no idea how he plays into this movie, how the King of Wakanda can be a superhero and I do not care because he looks flipping amazing in this trailer. I have no idea why he's on Tony's Team but again, I don't care. Black Panther looks amazing in this trailer.

Now here's what I hope.

I of course am looking forward to the next trailer. And I think what I liked about this trailer was despite how much this movie looks like a huge epic movie like an Avengers 2.5, it still feels like a personal story of Captain America. While I like that, I kind of hope that the next trailer for this movie is from the perspective of Tony Stark.

Because my god, this is actually a Civil War. This is brother against brother, hero against hero and I'm pretty sure, as much as I want Marvel to have a good villain, Baron Zemo is going to be insignificant to the relationship between Captain America and Tony Stark.

The ending scene of the trailer when Captain America is like, I'm sorry Tony, you know I wouldn't do this if I didn't have any other choice... but he's my friend. And Tony just responds, So was I. It gave me shivers.

I love how this storyline is going to tear this friendship apart. So much that Captain America feels the need to double team Tony with Bucky and just beat the living shit out of him.

I wish I could have had a gif of that fight (SOMEONE MAKE THAT)

But I hope that they make the next trailer from the point of view of Tony Stark. Because this trailer made Captain America obviously seem like he was the person in the right, how awesome would it be if they continued to confuse the audience and see things from the side of Tony in the next trailer so you have no idea who you're rooting for before you enter the movie. 

They probably won't as this movie is called Captain America, but I want to see that. 

One other things worth mentioning about this trailer is the distinct lack of Spider-man. 

Now honestly, I didn't notice that Spider-man wasn't in this trailer until I saw a video and somebody mentioned that. 

Honestly, I don't know how much this movie really needs Spider-man. Don't get me wrong, I'm still really excited to see this rebooted Spider-man and how they explain his sudden appearance, but after this trailer, if this movie came out without Spider-man in it, I wouldn't mind too much. This movie seems epic enough without an obligatory Spider-man cameo in there.

Which makes me a little bit nervous about this film because I'm kind of worried that Spider-man is going to be thrown in this film the same way Falcon was thrown into Ant-man. 

If you read my review of Ant-man, I thought the film was fantastic outside of a really forced Falcon cameo that I think was only in there to tie into the larger universe and provide some kind of connection to Ant-man to this movie Civil War. And while I understand they want to bring in as many characters as they can into Civil War including Ant-man to really get the feeling of a war between the Marvel characters, the scene in Ant-man with Falcon took me out of it. I didn't like it. 

I want to see Spider-man in Civil War and I want to see him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (even though he still could potentially fail at Marvel). But I want his appearance in Civil War to actually mean something instead of just being there because there's a contract between Sony and Marvel and Spider-man needed to show up in this film. 

Now I have faith in Marvel that they will find some way to make Tom Holland's Spider-man mean something in Civil War, but I don't think he's going to be a quintessential part to the story and if he's not, why bring him in at all? 

Now this is all based off of my dislike for the Falcon cameo in Ant-man so don't mistake it for me not wanting Spider-man in Civil War, I do. I just want it to mean something. 

But back on point, I don't feel like I needed Spider-man in this or any of the future trailers. I would like him in it if he has an important role in the movie, but I'm getting the feeling that he doesn't. I don't know, I'm having a difficult time with Spider-man right now. 

Overall, I'm really looking forward to Captain America: Civil War. This trailer was awesome and it just makes 2016 the year that I was hoping 2015 was going to be. You've got Batman V Superman in March and this movie coming out in May. I am incredibly pumped for this movie. It really shows how Captain America has gone from probably the most white bread superhero in the MCU with The First Avenger to probably the most interesting. 

But what do you think? Did you pick up anything from this trailer that I didn't. Comment and discuss below. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies and topics I should review. If you want updates on future movie news and reviews, you can also follow me on twitter and you might get live tweets from movies I'm watching. 

I'll leave you with this. I found this video, hopefully you find it kind of funny, I know I did. Enjoy!