More busy than exciting

Rating: 5/10 (18 May 2016)

An operation in Lagos, Nigeria to stop the theft of a virus turns deadly and there's a lot of collateral damage. As a result, the UN drafts a plan to put super-heroes under international control. Iron Man buys in, Captain America doesn't, setting the stage for the Civil War within the Avengers. First off, blaming the Avengers for the damage to New York (caused by Loki and his alien allies) and Washington (caused by Hydra) is just plain stupid, like blaming the RAF for the damage to London during the Blitz. Anyway, as the accords are about to be signed, a terrorist bomb demolishes the building where the meeting is being held. Captain America and his allies go after the villain, and Iron Man and his allies try to take them down. Because the UN would totally not care about stopping whoever tried to blow up their meeting.
The bad guy is Baron (Colonel in this film) Zemo, whose family was killed in the battle with Ultron. We learn that Cap's friend Bucky was engineered by the Soviets into the Winter Soldier, and could be activated by reciting a list of code words (see AI and Telefon for other examples). There are five more just like him, stored safely in an Arctic stronghold.
So there are battles with all the Marvel characters, including Ant- Man and Spider-Man. Leipzig airport gets trashed, although since the previous action took place in Berlin, I'm still puzzled how they ended up in Leipzig. Bucky gets captured, then sprung by Zemo. (Never answered, what DEactivates Bucky?) It's confusing as heck, trying to keep straight who's fighting whom, or what exactly they're fighting for.
We finally end up at the Arctic stronghold where the other Winter Soldiers are stored. Zemo violates the First Rule of Movies, which is, you never, ever kill off prime villains. These people, according to Bucky, "speak thirty languages and can take down a country overnight." So after waiting impatiently for them to be reactivated and pose a formidable enough threat to reunite the Avengers, or at least furnish a basis for the next film, Zemo shoots them in their sleep, saying one Winter Soldier is too many. Despite seeing for himself that there really had been a threat from Zemo, Iron Man is consumed by rage upon learning that Bucky (as Winter Soldier) had killed his parents, and attacks Captain America because reasons.
One person free-lancing through all this is the new character Black Panther, son of an African chief killed in the UN attack. Black Panther, a role handed down for centuries, had been his people's guardian, though I did wonder how people in Africa centuries ago made super-hero suits. Black Panther captures Zemo, proclaims that the others may be overcome by their desire for vengeance, but he is through, and prevents him from killing himself. We end up with Zemo in a cell that presents serious Eighth Amendment problems, Captain America's allies about to be sprung, and Bucky in cold storage in Black Panther's secret African lair until they can figure out how to undo his malware.
Not only are the fights busy and confusing and mostly pointless, but the best element of all, having a rival, evil set of Avengers, is thrown away. Will Marvel salvage them? Maybe they also have super- healing so their brains can recover from being shot. Maybe Zemo's allies will come up with some way to clone them or fix them. Maybe there's another batch somewhere. But a conflict with these villains would be way more interesting than the set-piece battles in this film. Though I really did like Black Panther.