(no subject)
I loved that A LOT. A LOT A LOT.
I know for some people this wasn't the Steve/Bucky movie they wanted, but for me, that was EXACTLY what I wanted: a Bucky/Steve reunion full of suppressed feelings, without a clear-cut resolution so we can continue writing a billion "How Steve and Bucky fixed each other" fics.
I loved Bucky shyly buying plums in Romania. I loved them fighting side by side. I loved Steve completely losing his shit when Bucky was threatened. I loved Bucky's tired, resigned defeat when he was captured. I loved that trigger words are now canon. I did not like them putting Bucky into cryo at the end, but I am certainly looking forward to what fandom's going to make of that.
That said, I've read so many fanfic versions of this story by now that this felt less like Canon Handed Down From On High and more like "just another fan's version of how things could go." You know, "Good job on the repressed pining, A++ Bucky characterization, eh, a little heavy-handed on the execution of the "Tony discovers that Bucky killed his parents" trope, I've seen that done more subtly in other fics, that ending needed another five thousand words, overall: excellent fanfiction experience, would watch again."
I'd probably feel differently if, say, they'd killed off Steve like we feared they would, or done something else that radically altered canon as we know it. But as it is, they gave us some slight variations on themes we'd already been playing with, and did not take away any of our toys. Me, I'm pretty happy with that.
Other things I loved:
I loved the team. In a lot of ways, CW felt like the Avengers 2 I desperately wanted and never got: the Avengers fighting together as a well-honed fighting machine made up of friends who like to tease each other. (Although now I'm EXTRA sad I'll never get that movie with the original Avengers. FUCK YOU for not being that movie, Age of Ultron.)
I loved that their love for each other was still there even when they ended up on opposite sides of a fight. I was deeply apprehensive when I first heard they were doing the Civil War story line, because I really, really did not want a movie full of Steve and Tony hostilely sniping at each other. (FUCK YOU for unexpectedly being that movie, Age of Ultron!) But Civil War managed to put them on opposite sides without doing that, and in fact there was a lot less of it than the trailer made me expect. (Even the "Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth" line came across as less hostile to me in the movie than it did in the trailer.)
I did not entirely buy into Tony's choice re: the Accords, partly because AoU (FUCK YOU) did such a super shitty job setting up Tony's motivation. Tony's character arc in that movie was basically "Only I can save mankind! Oh shit, my grandiose plan backfired and will kill us all! ONLY I CAN SAVE MANKIND NOW! Phew, oh, thank God, that worked. Good job, me! Saved mankind yet again!"
Yeah, that's the arc of someone who's gonna sign the Sokovian Accords, right.
The one thing that made that more or less work for me after all was that in the end Civil War treated the Sokovian Accords as nothing but another of Tony's grandiose gestures that he always makes when he's feeling guilty, and then immediately abandons the moment a crisis comes along. ("I've gone overboard with the building of Iron Man Suits, I'll destroy them all for you, Pepper!" "Oh shit, my friends are in danger, good thing I built 357 more Iron Man suits!"
"I screwed up and need government oversight!" "Oh shit, my friends are in danger! Hey, government oversight dude, let me just put you ON INDEFINITE HOLD!")
I thought that Spider Man felt slightly pasted on, although maybe that's coming from my knowledge that he was only included belatedly. I somewhat resented the screen time they spent on him when they could have given us more of Bucky, Steve, Sam or Natasha instead, and I desperately wished they would have given us Miles Morales Spiderman instead of yet another bland white dude. On the other hand, if they did have to include this Spiderman, I loved what they did with him - I thought he was charming and funny and exactly the right kind of wide-eyed astonished at the other members of the Avengers.
Black Panther! I am super excited for his movie.
Overall: A+++, will watch again on Sunday.