Captain America: Civil War - Trailer Review

Spider-Man! Okay now we have that out of the way I can talk about other things within this trailer. Immediately it sets the tone for what sparks this whole series of events, as opposed to the Stanford incident of the Civil War comic this initiator feels more grounded and suits the MCU more. Rather than one singular event the registration act (or regulation act as it seems to be here, or however the event is being adapted into this film) it’s the culmination of several incidents, and clearly not just from the events of ‘Age of Ultron’ as we initially thought, it’s mounting case backed up with the battle of New York and S.H.I.E.L.D takedown in Washington D.C (as of course seen in ‘Avengers Assemble’ and ‘The Winter Soldier’).

But the trailer even included a tiny section to introduce Black Panther to the events. In what seems like the bombing of some international summit we get a brief shot of Chadwick Boseman crawling through the rubble, giving him a direct tie to the events and it seems like a good way to adapt his character in general, as opposed to a prince of Wakanda he now seems to be a representative of it, and Wakanda itself might not even be a country in this version, just an organisation. Either way it sounds excellent.

Once again we see a clear conflict between Stark and Rogers, we witness two friends turned enemies and there is also a slight hint of how that will progress throughout the movie within the trailer. Tony seems to start off simply trying to get his argument across and reach a peaceful resolution, by this stage he is far from a villain, just another opinion. But following what may look like, dare I say, the death of Rhode (which is a big move on behalf of Marvel if it’s true), his position becomes personal and this war becomes a vendetta against Cap rather than one based on facts. Perhaps that is personified by the brusing on his face that looks as if it’s there to stay for most of the movie. A sign of his darker side perhaps? Then of course they repeat the shot we saw in the Super Bowl trailer, where Bucky nearly shoots him at point blank range. It’s even more obvious here that Bucky is shooting to kill, for whatever reason, he wants Tony Stark dead.

Speaking of Bucky, this trailer seemed to have less of an emphasis on his relationship with Steve. That’s not necessarily a criticism of the trailer as it depicts an escalating conflict between multiple superheroes and the first trailer did a pretty good job of putting the focus on their friendship, but I would hope that it stays that way for the actual movie, advancing their story against the backdrop of this civil war.

This may come as a surprise, but my favourite shot of the trailer was not Spider-Man, it was fairly early within the trailer. When General Ross was playing footage of the Serkovia attacks, Scarlett Witch looked troubled by the images, and from across the other side of the table, Steve noticed this and asked Ross to switch off the footage, saying “That’s enough”. He knows that brings back bad memories for her and he cares about her enough to do that, little things like that are why we love the characters these movies have established and why it will be painful to see them come to blows.

There are a number of other great shots like the glimpses we get of a fight/chase between Black Panther and Bucky, Hawkeye using an arrow to propel Ant-Man onto Iron Man so he can run up his arm, Crossbones and Cap meeting again as well as Vision getting his ass handed to him. But let’s not beat around the bush, Spider-Man is in this trailer. Can I immediately say that this is another example of how fickle the internet can be? When the first trailer came out everyone cried “Why didn’t you show us Spider-Man” and not they’re crying “Why did you show us Spider-Man”, it’s just stupid. Some people are comparing this to the Doomsday reveal from ‘Dawn of Justice’ but I’d disagree, we have seen Spider-Man but we still don’t specifically know his role within the movie, how he enters the conflict and what his development will involve. We essentially know all of this about Doomsday based on the ‘Dawn of Justice” trailer.

This design is simply fantastic. For anyone that is complaining about the eyes being too small or any other ridiculously tiny and ultimately irrelevant detail, look up some images of Spider-Man from the Steve Ditko era of Marvel comics, because that is essentially the design we have here. The fact that it resembles Ditko’s Spider-Man most of all is hugely significant, as Marvel have been stating ever seince they got the rights to the character back that this would be a back to basics Spider-Man, a portrayal that would capture the core concepts of the character, the teenage superhero, the wisecracking web slinger, the nerdy alter ego. These core concepts that we associate with Spider-Man were largely established during the Ditko era, so paying tribute to that style bodes well for this incarnation of Spider-Man. So right now, all things considered, it’s pretty hard not to get excited for this movie.