Phase Three of Marvel’s box-office-breaking cinematic universe gets underway on April 29. While the next tranche of films will introduce a whole host of new characters – Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and possibly The Inhumans, the film to kick it all off sees familiar faces battling it out.
Based on Mark Millar’s 2006-07 crossover comic series, Civil War, the third Captain America film sees Tony Stark, haunted by the destruction he and his Avengers buddies caused in New York, Washington and Sokovia, decide superheroes must be kept in check and proposes a registration act for those with special abilities. Captain America, believing that to be the ultimate infringement of rights, digs his heels in and refuses. Their respective superpowered friends are forced to take sides and line up for an almighty scrap that will leave the Marvel Cinematic Universe looking different forever.
Filming took place in Berlin and Atlanta, among other places, and sees the return of Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans as Iron Man and Captain America, along with Don Cheadle as War Machine, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Anthony Mackie as Falcon, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Paul Bettany as Vision, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man and Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter, and introduces Tom Holland as Spider-Man, Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther and Daniel Brühl as Helmut Zemo.
But enough of that, a new trailer appeared online last night. Here are five things we learned from watching it repeatedly.
We see Spider-Man for the first time
We have to wait until the trailer’s final scene, but we finally get a glimpse of Spider-Man for the first time. No, not Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, nor Andrew Garfield’s, but Tom Holland’s take on the webbed wonder. It’s the first time Spidey has appeared in a Marvel film – his screen outings so far have been made by Sony, who wisely seem to have realised they’ve twice ballsed up the character and have loaned him to Marvel to get a new version of the wallcrawler off the ground. Spider-Man plays a crucial role in the Civil War comic, so his presence in the film is both important to the storyline and exciting for what’s to come when he gets his own film in 2017. Even better is that vibrant red-and-blue suit, smooth and cartoon-like with animated eyes. There had been rumours Spider-Man wasn’t going to appear in Civil War in full costume, rather a more makeshift ensemble to reflect the young age of this version of the character. We can quite clearly see that’s not the case. He steals the show in trailer just as easily as he steals Captain America’s shield.
It presents Iron Man in a better light
The comic book Civil War makes no bones about who to root for in the Cap v Iron Man face-off. On one side you have Captain America, true patriot and all-American hero versus Iron Man, bad guy, billionaire douchebag destined to be on the wrong side of history. The film adaptation, however, is far more even-handed, presenting their conflict as a real dilemma for the audience. The first trailer for the film was more on Cap’s side. The way this second trailer presents the carnage from New York, Washington and Sokovia makes it seem like Tony Stark’s Superhero Registration Act is a sensible plan, and that Captain busting his assassin friend Bucky Barnes out of prison is a treacherous thing to do.
War Machine gets taken out
Civil War is all about what happens when ideological differences escalate into something way more personal. That’s ramped up even more when the Winter Soldier – a character Stark doesn’t like in the first place – shoots down War Machine, Stark’s best mate James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes. Whether he pulls through remains to be seen, but Don Cheadle’s character looks pretty lifeless lying on the ground here, and the rage Stark flies into after that scene suggests War Machine could well be Marvel’s first big casualty. The trailer’s opening line, “We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn’t mean everybody”, could be a heavy hint not everyone is going to make it to the closing credits.
More Crossbones
Brock Rumlow, played by Frank Grillo, was a small player in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and in their short tussle in the lift of the Triskelion, he had his arse quite swiftly handed to him by Rogers. Now Rumlow’s transformation to Crossbones is complete and they’re more evenly matched, with the villain seen knocking Cap across a crowded market. Grillo has apparently gained a couple of stone of muscle for the film to look as menacing as possible. And if the film goes where the comics eventually do, he could well have a critical part to play. Don’t Google that unless you want a potential spoiler explained to you.
The sides seem unfairly matched
In the comic, which features scores more superheroes not included in the film, Captain America and Iron Man’s respective teams are pretty evenly matched. In the film, however, it doesn’t quite stack up. Captain America, the first super-soldier, is pretty handy in a scrap, but he’s mortal. So too are the Winter Soldier, Falcon, Hawkeye and Ant-Man. Blessed as they are with fancy technology, they’re still just men. Scarlet Witch can be seen in the trailer getting the better of Vision, the most powerful of Tony Stark’s allies, but still that’s only one ace card. Alongside Iron Man and Vision, who’s virtually a God, there’s the mystical-powered Black Panther and super-weapon War Machine. Team Iron Man’s only human is Black Widow, who looks as if she’s going to switch sides anyway. Unless rumours are true of Ant-Man swapping shrinking down for supersizing himself to become Giant Man, this fight might not last very long.
