9 WTF Moments In Captain America: Civil War

With a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Captain America: Civil War is - in the eyes of critics at least - one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. It's the highest-rated MCU movie to date and has been a killer so far at the box office; a hell of a way to kick off Phase Three of the Marvel Universe. It's also a damn weird movie when it wants to be. Like any MCU film (the universe prides itself on being different than the average blockbuster), Civil War has its share of offbeat moments. Marvel Studios work with high-concepts ripped straight from comic books, with their bold ideas sometimes arriving as WTF moments when they reach the big screen. Here are nine such moments that stand out to us in Captain America: Civil War. Obviously, spoilers will follow if you haven't seen the film yet. 9) Young Stark Uncanny valley is the term used to describe the unease that comes with seeing a computer-generated character that moves and acts human, but is still quite clearly a fake. There isn't anything much creepier than a character that's languishing in the valley, that dreaded cinematic realm between realism and artificiality. Unfortunately for the Russo brothers, they find themselves there within the first 30 minutes of Civil War. The younger version of Robert Downey Jr. that appears early in Civil War - played by Downey and some heavy post-production de-aging - in a flashback-cum-Stark presentation at MIT, is located firmly in the uncanny. It's distracting enough that Downey tries his hardest to alter his body language into that of a moody teenager's, but that doesn't quite top the fact that young Tony Stark is a blemish-free, android replica of the adult version. Sometimes CGI can't fix everything. 8) The Dean Makes A Cameo Civil War is packed with so many surprise appearances that it's hard to keep up. There's Hope Davis as Tony Stark's mother; Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, Joint Counter Terrorism Center big shot and Black Panther ally; and Marisa Tomei as Peter Parker's "surprisingly attractive" (Tony Stark's words) Aunt May. Oh, and there's also Jim Rash, aka the Dean from Community, showing up as an MIT faculty member that pesters Stark for grant money. Anthony and Joe Russo - former producers and directors on Community - appear to be making their Community/MCU crossover cameos into a regular thing, with Rash's appearance following Danny Pudi's brief turn in Winter Soldier as a S.H.I.E.L.D. technician. Rash's appearance in Civil War is just as bizarre: both feel like inside-joke cameos and almost as though the Russos have allowed characters from their old universe to spill over into their new one. 7) Alfre Woodard Is Playing Who? When it was revealed Alfre Woodard would be a part of Civil War, it seemed pretty obvious to anyone keeping up with Marvel's TV output who she'd be playing. The upcoming Marvel/Netflix series Luke Cage has Woodard in a major role, as Mariah Dillard, someone who many assume will later become the key villain Black Mariah. So having Woodard in Civil War makes sense - like the cameo-ing Freeman and Tomei, it's Marvel teasing future characters and upcoming projects. Only that isn't who Woodard plays in Civil War at all. In fact, she plays a completely different character named Miriam Sharpe, a woman who lost her son in Age of Ultron's battle of Sokovia. It turns out Woodard's casting was actually the result of a slip up: Robert Downey Jr. suggested she appear in Civil War before anyone involved in the film knew she was going to also turn up in Luke Cage. It appears the MCU has become so big that an actress can now take on two separate parts without anyone even noticing. 6) Nieces Of Dead Old Flames Aren't Off-Limits To Steve Rogers There was something quite sweet about the thawed, 21st century Steve Rogers holding out for old flame Peggy Carter, despite the fact that by Winter Soldier she was 96-years-old and in the throes of dementia. Steve refused to even consider any other woman until Peggy died, which indeed she finally does in Civil War. At that point though, according to Cap, anybody's fair game, even if the first woman he sets his eyes on is Emily VanCamp's Agent 13, aka Sharon Carter, aka Peggy's actual niece. Yep, Steve Rogers breaks his 70 year dry run by getting it on with an immediate relation of the woman he loved for decades, and he makes it so much worse by first making eyes with Sharon at Peggy's funeral! The set-up suggests Cap and Sharon Carter will continue a romance on down the line. Still, no one in history has moved on that quickly, and even fewer decided to do it at the wake of their former love interest. 5) The Vision/Scarlet Witch Romance Captain America and Sharon Carter's isn't the only awkward hookup in Civil War. Somewhere around the end of the first act, with Scarlet Witch under virtual house arrest and Vision left to baby sit, we discover that a spark is also developing there, between the purple humanoid one and the oddly-accented spell-conjuring one, making for a strange match made no less strange by the fact that this romance already happened in the comics. He's a synthetic robot man who's barely a year old, with an innocent, child-like wonder about the world and a jewel stuck in the middle of his forehead. She's a young Sokovian woman with magic powers. At some point you have to wonder how that's even going to work in the long-term. Who knows, but Vision seems happy to try and make it happen, cooking for Wanda and gazing longingly into her eyes as he opens up about the pain of being made out of zeroes and ones. 4) Cap Beats Chopper There are a lot of moments in Civil War that stretch the imagination. Of course - it's a comic book movie, not a Ken Loach film. Enjoying Civil War or indeed any Marvel movie requires you get on board with there being a team of vigilante crimefighters living in the world, among them a nonagenarian supersoldier, an Eastern European witch and a billionaire dressed up as an angry Tin Man. Still, there is one moment in Civil War that absolutely beggars belief, partly because it defies the MCU's own internal logic, and partly just because it looks ridiculous. When Captain America grabs the helicopter Bucky Barnes is escaping in and brings it back down using nothing but his muscles, it looks like the Russos are outright flirting with parody. We know Cap is strong, but this makes Steve Rogers look he could take on the Hulk. 3) Ant-Man Goes Big There are a few minor surprises in Civil War's big final set-piece - the sight of Tom Holland's rebooted Spider-Man fighting for the first time, Ant-Man teaming up with Hawkeye by hitching rides on his arrows, Black Widow turning on Tony Stark to help Cap and Bucky escape - but there's one giant (literally) WTF moment in the climactic brawl that stands out from the rest. Of course, it's the moment Ant-Man uses his technology to go from being the smallest Avenger, to many times bigger than everybody else. It makes sense that this could happen - Ant-Man can shrink himself and increase back to normal size at will, so why wouldn't he be able to size up to giant proportions? Still, the sight of Scott Lang turning himself into a giant (and then being felled like he's an AT-AT Walker) is one of the most unexpected blockbuster moments this year. 2) "Tony Stank" Civil War has its share of lighter moments. Bucky and Sam Wilson's brotherly hate relationship yields some laughs, while Tom Holland's Spider-Man and Paul Rudd's Ant-Man seemingly tease a chuckle with every line. None are more effective in bringing the LOLZ, however, than the typically bizarre cameo from Marvel mastermind Stan Lee, interrupting one of the film's more solemn scenes with a huge one-liner. As Rhodey learns how to walk again with the help of some Stark technology, he expresses his regret to Tony at how his life will never be the same again. Then, Stan Lee dressed as a FedEx deliveryman bangs on the window and waves a package asking if a "Tony Stank" is home to collect it. It's one of Lee's odder and perhaps more inappropriate one-liner cameos, considering the sheer gravity of the moment. It's definitely funny, though. 1) Bucky's Capitulation At the end of Civil War, after two hours-plus of running from authorities and fighting off superhumans, Bucky Barnes has Steve Rogers re-freeze him, deep inside a facility in Wakanda. His reasoning is that he's just too dangerous to remain conscious and free any longer; which, all things considered, is pretty sound (if extreme) logic. It begs one question, though: why does Bucky resist in the first place? The question is an important one, because Bucky deciding to run near the start of Civil War sets in motion the plot of the entire film. The reason we have two-and-a-half-hours of movie, and the reason why the Avengers split and fight, is because Bucky chooses not to be taken in. Cap defies Stark and half of the Avengers in order to prevent them from taking Bucky away - only for him to later sit back and watch, as Bucky willingly puts himself back into deep freeze.