Captain America: Civil War 2016 9+ out of 10
(SPOILER WARNING)
Captain America: Civil War was exactly everything that Batman vs Superman should have been......Really great that is.
As I mentioned in my blog about Batman v Superman--those were the comic book characters I grew up with. Batman and Robin, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and yes even lazy ass Aquaman. I actually remember reading some Batman and Flash comic books as a child and cutting pictures out of them
(I know horrible). I watched the Superfriends cartoon on TV and the old Batman TV show with Adam West. I thought Captain America was a lame character until the first new movie came out.
I had no idea who Ironmen was because other than Star Wars I didn't really read comics. When I heard that they were making an Antman movie all I could picture was Patrick Warburton as the Tick from the short lived TV. Things have definitely changed. Marvel has turned characters I had never heard of or could care nothing about into box office giants. Captain America: Civil War blew Batman vs Superman out of the comic book water in my personal opinion.
I could go on and on and on about the details of the movie and the great scenes that made me love it so much -but I like to mix things up and do things a little different some times. So instead of talking about the near perfect action scene the takes place at the airport in which Antman (steals the show in my opinion), I'll discuss the two major differences between what this film did right vs what Batman V Superman did wrong.
1. The Reason that the heroes fight each other:
Marvel has done a great job of building their universe and their characters. They have slowly developed angst between the arrogant playboy Ironman and Captain America since the first Avengers movie. Here they are at odds even back in the first film
The two characters are very different in their personalities and have a natural clash as a result. The film did and excellent job of keeping both characters as heroes that were just on different sides of an issue. It was believable and reasonably for the two characters to be fighting each other. Here is a great clip of them going at in in Age of Ultron.
In other words Marvel built to this moment over several films. They built up to the events in Civil War over time until the audience could see the battle between Ironman and Captain America happening. Both are heroes --but the circumstances that occur in the film lead them to fight.
D.C. did no such thing. D.C. just wanted to achieve what Marvel spent years building all in one film. So instead of building to the moment where their two legendary comic book characters fight they wrote a story where Batman and Superman spend half the movie just complaining about what the other guy is doing. Their anger and hate for each other seems forced and unnatural. And Lex Luthor is able to exploit this in order for the fight in the title to take place. That fight in Batman vs Superman --was the one great thing about the film, but it never should have happened because it was so contrived. D.C. didn't earn their fight between the two heroes and it was therefore a lot less satisfying. The battle of heroes in Civil War smoked anything Batman v Superman presented on screen. Batman v Superman teased things in their trailer that turned out to just be dream sequences --because in the actual film it took the two characters forever to actually fight and they had to create a false tension with those dream sequences.
2. How it Ended:
The biggest difference in the two movies was how they ended.
In Batman v Superman the movie ended with them abruptly ending their fight for one of the dumbest reasons in movie history. The dreaded our mom has the same name scene. This fact causes Batman to not kill Superman and all of a sudden work together immediately as if nothing had ever happened. This scene caused me to tune out the rest of the film because it was so bad.
It was a shame. The first 1:30 minutes of Batman v Superman were so dull and boring that by the time things got interesting I didn't care anymore. The fight between Batman and Superman was actually good --but how it ended made the film lose all credibility with me.
Captain America: Civil War did just the opposite. It lead us to believe we were going to see and epic battle where Ironmen and Captain America were fighting side by side again against a team of Super Soldiers. Instead it gave us another great battle between the Ironman, Captain America and The Winter Soldier. You wanted to see them fighting side by side again with everything between them being patched up, but instead we get something far more satisfying, real and personal.
Marvel has earned their Cinematic Universe...
D.C. tried to buy it without doing the work.
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