As moviegoers will no doubt remember from this year’s Captain America: Civil War, Steve “Captain America” Rogers and Tony “Iron Man” Stark did not exactly see eye to eye on the issue of superheroes registering with the government. Simply put, Stark was in favor of it, Rogers was not, and it turned into a whole thing. Characters from throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe chose up sides, and it took 147 minutes and $250 million before the dust (sort of) settled. Was all that necessary? A witty new stop-motion animation film by Keshen of Custard Productions suggests otherwise. Made with toy building blocks and scowling plastic minifigs, Lego Civil War distills the superhero-on-superhero conflict to under four minutes and still manages to pack in plenty of violence and destruction while getting some jokes in as well. For those with short attention spans, this could even be considered a satisfactory substitute for sitting through Civil War.
Paying tribute to the source material but having fun with it as well, Lego Civil War presents Captain America as a grim, humorless super-patriot whose utterances largely consist of the word “America.” For this guy, “America” is a sentence all on its own. For his part, Iron Man is a glad-handing, fast-talking double dealer who tries to bluff and bullshit his way through every conversation. This guy is such a relentless schmoozer that he’s even been photographed while hot tubbing with Marvel baddie Doctor Doom. The two costumed crime fighters are simply not compatible, so their disagreement quickly becomes violent. From then on, it’s full-tilt Lego-on-Lego action with a pleasing amount of mayhem. It’s true that characters such as Black Widow and Spider-Man are only glimpsed in cameos, but their presence is not really missed here. This is about Cap and Shellhead throwing down, without all those other freaks getting in the way.
The third major character in this miniature drama is Cap’s troubled sidekick Bucky (voiced by Forrest Whaley). Grim as this character can be, Bucky provides a lot of the laughs in this short film. To give away the jokes would be dirty pool, but that character might want to upgrade to more high-powered vehicle if he’s going to compete in the superhero world.
[via Laughing Squid]