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MAY 9, 2016 @ 10:56 AM
'Captain America: Civil War' Shows Exactly Why 'Batman V. Superman' Failed
Paul Tassi , CONTRIBUTOR
News and opinion about video games, technology and the internet
This weekend, Captain America: Civil War became the latest Marvel film to open as both a critical darling (90% on Rotten Tomatoes) and a box office smash hit ($181 million domestic). That means four of the six highest box office openings of all time are now Marvel movies released in the last five years.
But past being yet another commercial success, Civil War is just an exceptional film in every way. As many have noted, despite the “Captain America” in the title, this is effectively an Avengers film. Yes, it subtracts Thor and the Hulk, and the central conflict doesn’t involve the end of the world, but with its expansive cast and blockbuster scope, it’s an Avengers movie, plain and simple.
With the film receiving such positive reception, it’s easy to think back to just a month and a half ago when DC’s Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice debuted. While the film made a lot of money (though probably not as much as it would have liked), it was torn apart by critics and many fans. Now, looking at Civil War, it’s even easier to see why.
It isn’t just that Captain America: Civil War is another fun, funny, colorful, high-quality Marvel movie, while DC’s offering is dour and gloomy and not as well-made. Rather, the two actually share a central storyline, heroes turning against each other. Only Civil War is a roadmap for how to do this kind of thing correctly, and it serves to show precisely how Batman V. Superman mangled the exact same concept.
And what exactly did Civil War do right that BvS bungled? Where to even start…
Spoilers for Captain America: Civil War and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice begin
Civil War’s Central Conflict is Earned and Coherent
Civil War and Batman V. Superman aren’t only just about heroes fighting one another, one of the core issues is the same as well, heroes being responsible for collateral damage. It’s the reason Bruce Wayne hates Superman (as he watches his building get demolished in the Zod fight) and why the Avengers are split down the middle by the Sokovia Accords (based on the destructive events of Avengers 1 and 2, Winter Soldier, and now Scarlett Witch accidentally blowing up a building in the opening of Civil War).
The problem? One of these conflicts has been years in the making, while the other was developed over the course of an hour, at best. We have almost a decade invested into these specific Marvel characters at this point, so when Iron Man turns against Captain America after being allies for so long, it actually means something. We feel the weight of that conflict, while in Batman V. Superman, these are characters we essentially just met, and the idea that they would be slugging it out with each other almost has to rely on some sort of stupid misunderstanding rather than years of character development that’s led to this point.
That’s the other great thing about Civil War. The conflict actually makes sense, and you can see both sides of the argument. While I think Captain America is on the “more right” side, as it certainly does not seem like a good idea to simply let the UN dictate precisely what the Avengers do or do not do, Tony’s side isn’t nonsensical. He feels crushing guilt from all these events, and while the Sokovia Accords themselves are flawed (watch them get thrown out the window the second Thanos shows up), it’s his way of trying to do something, anything to absolve himself of shame. And if something goes wrong the next time, maybe he can blame the UN instead of himself.
Tony’s side of the story is particularly fascinating. It’s the guilt of the deaths combined with a recent split from Pepper, and just when you think he and Captain America get past the Sokovia spat, the film pulls a hard left to reveal that a brainwashed Bucky killed Stark’s parents years ago, and Captain America kept some of the details covered up.
Now that is an effective reason to have a superhero vs. superhero brawl. Captain America tries to explain to Tony that Bucky didn’t know what he was doing, but Stark just says “I don’t care, he killed my mom.” That kind of motivation works. That’s what creates believable conflict with actual stakes to it.
In contrast, we have the entirely incoherent struggle of Batman V. Superman. It starts out the same way, with Bruce Wayne believing Superman is dangerous due to the innocents that die in his wake, and because if he ever turned against humanity, he’d be impossible to stop. The problem is that his solution is to just straight up murder Superman, which, even if this is a new version of Batman, goes against everything we’ve ever known about the character.
For Superman’s part, he doesn’t really even seem to have motivations, other than getting people to stop hating him, and stopping specific threats when they pop up. That’s in part because the character barely has forty lines in his own movie, so how much motivation can you really establish there? (Fun fact: Spider-Man has more lines in Civil War than Superman did in BvS). Making him fight Batman through…essentially blackmail, is poor motivation, and though the fight itself was exciting, the reasons for it were stupid. Civil War bests BvS in many ways, but in this area in particular.
Civil War’s Villain Has Clear Motives and a Creative Plan
Honestly, Batman V. Superman’s biggest problem wasn’t even either of the two heroes, it was its villain, Lex Luthor. Not just because Jessie Eisenberg’s portrayal seemed off (Mark Zuckerberg tripping on meth), but because nothing he did made any sense.
Why does Lex hate Superman? We’re never given a reason, other than vague speeches about gods and power. Why does Lex want Superman to murder Batman, someone else he doesn’t know at all? Why does Lex build Doomsday? Why does Lex more or less just want to murder and destroy everything? None of this is ever made clear. Lex, one of the DC’s smartest, most capable villains, is reduced to a poor man’s version of the Joker, creating anarchy for anarchy’s sake.
In Civil War, Zemo is an entirely different story. If you didn’t even know the guy’s name by the end of the movie, I wouldn’t blame you, nor should you be expected to recognize him in the comics. He’s a nobody. He’s a Sokovian spy whose family was killed in the chaos sowed by the Avengers fighting Ultron. He wants revenge.
It’s a simplistic motive, but Zemo ends up being probably one of the best and most effective villains I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. I love Loki as much as the next person, but Zemo’s plan to split the Avengers through an almost impossibly simple plan is genius. He frames Bucky for the UN explosion, igniting tensions already set aflame by the Sokovia Accords, which by itself practically cleaves the team in half. He re-activates Bucky for real this time, reinforcing the split, and leading to an all-out brawl between the two sides. And then in his final stroke, just when you think he’s about to activate an army of super-soldiers for a big brawl that reunites the Avengers, he simply kills the potential supervillains instead, reveals what he knows about Stark’s parents’ death, and watches Captain America and Tony Stark almost murder each other.
He understands that he has no real strength himself, and could never hope to fight the Avengers directly, so he makes them fight each other. He is the most subtle supervillain that’s ever been in a movie like this, but in terms of actually achieving what he set out to do, he’s one of the most successful, and one that’s done the most direct damage to the team, even if no cities were leveled in the process.
Civil War is Expansive but Not Bloated
I mentioned before that this is effectively an Avengers film, given the massive size of the cast. And it is massive. Yes, Captain America and Tony Stark headline, but the film also prominently features War Machine, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Black Panther, Falcon, Ant Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch and Spider-Man as heroes. Hulk and Thor are missing, but that’s actually more heroes than the Avengers films themselves.
Somehow, despite this, the film does not feel bloated or overcrowded. It isn’t just because we enjoy seeing these heroes slug it out (the airport fight is one of the best in superhero movie history), but because when these characters are given scenes, they’re tight and effective. Black Panther is expertly woven into the narrative throughout, and somehow, with everything else the movie is doing, it serves as a great set-up for his own standalone film. Vision and Scarlet Witch are given touching, sad moments together. Ant Man steals the show with a half dozen lines of joke-dialogue. Spider-Man is introduced in one of the movie’s best scenes as Tony Stark meets Peter Parker, and is the most fun part of the main fight. And of course, the main conflict between Cap and Iron Man throughout the film is powerful and effective. It’s a lot going on, but the directors have juggled it all expertly.
It’s the opposite in Batman V. Superman. This is a movie that feels overcrowded with just three heroes. While I may have had no issue with the Gal Gadot’s version of Wonder Woman as she was presented, the fact remained that the movie did not give her an actual reason to be in the film. She felt tacked-on, and her biggest moments include opening a bunch of email attachments to discover other future JLA members, and participating in the Doomsday fight in a way that negated most of the conflict they were trying to set up (If Wonder Woman can chop up Doomsday with her magic sword, why exactly do they need this Kryptonite spear?). The film was already bursting at the seams with just Clark and Bruce, but Diana Prince was extra baggage by herself. I can’t imagine how a full JLA film would feel at this point.
Civil War’s Resolution is Uncomfortable, but Logical
Again, Civil War takes the expected ending, the Avengers reunite to fight Zemo’s super soldiers, and turns it on its head, as Captain America and Iron Man brutally attack each other. In the end, there’s no repairing the fracture, not fully, anyway. Captain America has to literally break his captured Avenger friends out of prison, and Tony Stark is left to pick up the pieces at home base, with most of his team having deserted him.
Even if it’s obvious where this is heading, the Avengers being forced to come together to beat Thanos in Infinity War, I like that Civil War didn’t try to mend all its fences. Given everything that happened, it wouldn’t have made sense. In contrast, we have the now-infamous “Martha” moment in Batman V. Superman, where the two stop fighting because Batman realizes their mothers have the same name. Five minutes later, Batman is rescuing the mother of the man he was just trying to kill. It makes close to no sense, and by the end, everyone is best friends.
Of course, that isn’t how it ends, which is another problem with BvS. Killing Superman for some attempt at shock value accomplishes nothing. No one believes that Superman will die two movies into the new DCCU. Hell, even the movie itself can’t resist teasing his resurrection before the movie even ends. That was just Zack Snyder wanting to kill him to build in more Christ mythology (because Superman definitely needs more of that) and to do something in keeping with the “darkness” of his created universe.
Civil War easily could have pulled an ultimate “shock value” card and killed Captain America or Tony Stark (Cap is actually killed in the comics storyline). Or they could have pulled a Harry Potter and killed a few minor characters in the conflict, like Hawkeye or Vision. They did neither. The biggest physical casualty is War Machine, who will probably be fine thanks to Tony’s tech, but the film lets the biggest death speak for itself, the death of the Avengers as a team. And they didn’t need to literally murder Tony or Cap to make that point.
Civil War is a phenomenal film, and very well might be Marvel’s best ever, which is really saying something. There’s a reason movies like this are held up to a gold standard, and at this point, DC is going to be lucky if they can produce a film that’s even half this effective. That’s not fanboy talk, that’s just coming from someone who likes well-made movies, great characters and coherent stories. And right now, only Marvel has all of those things. We’ll see what the future holds.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/05/09/captain-america-civil-war-shows-exactly-why-batman-v-superman-failed/#5c0fe7be46bb ___
it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. - sherlock holmes
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