Movie Plot 101

Rating: 4/10 (2 June 2017)

I generally enjoy Marvel movies, in spite of the simple story lines and lack of depth. They are still fun and make for good entertainment. This particular release from Marvel Studios is, however, the pinnacle of a miserably meaningless storyline put on display with the aid of an outrageous budget. I get it, we all wanted to see some big battle with all the Avengers fighting each other, but could they not have come up with a decent plot for it all? I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let me take a step back and explain my thoughts.
In Captain America: Civil War, the most readily apparent conflict centers around the "Hero Registration Act," the government's attempt to gain some control over the Avengers. Some of the Avengers are in favor, and some are not. This creates a situation that could have been a nice break from the standard hero's journey rehash that typically constitutes a Marvel movie because neither of the two conflicting sides was in the wrong. Hey, that's kind of interesting. At this point, as I watched the movie, I was feeling optimistic about how it would turn out.
Then Bucky Barnes, previously the Winter Soldier and friend of Steve Rogers (Captain America), bombs a U.N. building! Quickly, the whole Hero Registration Act conflict fades into the background and becomes unimportant. Now some of the Avengers are defending Bucky and some are seeking to turn him in. Now that is the main conflict between them. Turns out he didn't actually bomb the building—it was just a mysterious new villain with a flesh mask.Now this mystery man is the apparent antagonist in the story—don't get too excited, we're not going to actually know ANYTHING about this guy until the very end and it's going to turn out he's a nobody who will quickly be disposed of and not cause problems again. Not really a super- villain or anything. As the movie goes on, a lot action and fighting happens, including a huge battle between all the Avengers, though by now I'm not really sure why they're fighting. They just were... yeah.
Eventually they figure out that this mystery villain is going to some bunker where there is an army of sleeping super soldiers he can awake and take control of. Okay, now we've got something concrete: an antagonist (though we still have no idea who he is or what is motivations are) causing an actual big problem that needs to be fixed and a set of protagonists to face the problem. It's like the writers finally learned the basics of plot! Protagonist, antagonist, conflict, and now we're building to a climax. The movie's almost over, but oh well.
Anyway, they go to this super soldier army only to find that the villain killed all the super soldiers in their sleep so there isn't actually any real threat to anyone. The writers have yet again destroyed their plot. So where are they going with this? We've blown through three "main" conflicts, two of which were left unresolved and the last of which immediately resolved itself without any effort on the part of the protagonists. Now we're left with a powerless man who doesn't like the Avengers because while they saved the world in a previous movie, his hometown was destroyed as collateral damage (never mind that it would have been destroyed anyway). But hey, at least that could be a super-villain... except he isn't. He's just a normal guy with some misplaced vengeance, and what on earth is he going to do now that he's sitting powerless before two of the leading avengers (Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, aka Iron Man and Captain America)?
This part really gets me. They've had this whole over-complicated buildup with a bunch of action sequences, a huge battle, and droves of overblown drama—all that build up to the pathetic villain showing Tony a video of brainwashed Bucky killing Tony's parents—a video that HE COULD HAVE JUST EMAILED TO HIM. So now we have yet another conflict, this one introduced in the final minutes of the movie. Maybe this could at least be the set up for a future movie? Nope. After a few more minutes of drama and the fighting, the writers even throw in a bit showing a gesture suggesting that Tony Stark got over the whole "you killed my parents because you were brainwashed" thing and we are left with a world that is more or less as it was before.
None of the plot mattered. The vast majority of the plot didn't even have relevance to a singular main conflict. Basically, I just watched a movie of a bunch of stuff happening. It was all confusing and didn't actually contribute to a real storyline, and ultimately nothing came of it. I haven't felt this disappointed in a plot structure since the TV drama Lost (at least the last few seasons). A twelve-year-old fan fiction writer could have come up with a better story and produced a better film on a fraction of the budget.
I'm sorry, but Marvel, the simplistic plot line, outrageous budget blockbuster thing you're trying to do is just not that hard—could you please just put SOME thought into it? I get that you'll make millions no matter what, so you don't really have any reason to care, but I'd appreciate it. I just want something enjoyable. I'm not asking that you actually make something meaningful or with any level of depth, just that you do the bare minimum of half-decent story for me to follow.