Dawn of Justice v Civil War

 The first thing that you might have thought on reading the title is, the hell is a film review doing on a tech blog?
     Well I don't have the answer to that either. The 'Interesting Reads' section of this blog is about off-topic things from around the web. I guess I decided to contribute some original material as well. =)

     The blockbuster superhero market saw two huge releases this year, with Marvel kicking off it's phase 3 with Captain America:Civil War and DC finally entering the fray with Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Although based on the same concept of let's-make-a-protagonist-an-antagonist, The two films had sharply different receptions. Civil War is now touted to be the best Marvel film to date, while BvS wound up on the wrong end of the critical shotgun.

     While several reviews try to avoid comparisons, this is a direct comparison between the two films. As you might expect, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. If you haven't seen either film and plan to see it in the future (You should, by the way.), stop reading now.

The Similarities

     Both films share the same concept at heart. While BvS squares off Batman against Superman, arguably the most popular superheroes pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Lex Luthor plotting to get them to go off at each other, Civil war pits Captain America against Iron Man with Zemo pulling the strings. Both involve using the superhero's emotional ties to their parents as a motive for the big fight. The similarities end there though.

Marvel trailer vs DC trailer

     Although I haven't seen this mentioned in most reviews, this is arguably where it started to go wrong for BvS. The trailer shows Batman and Superman squaring off against each other, Lex Luthor presented as a shady character, Wonder Women entering the fray, and the trio teaming up in the end to fight Doomsday. Or in other words, the entire plot of the film (sans "Martha". More on that later).

     Civil War did a much better job, 'wow'ing all the viewers, and sent the comic geeks, regular viewers and the overall hype of the film into overdrive when the internationally-loved web slinger, finally free of Sony, did a superhero landing and said "Hey everyone" at the end of trailer two. While that arguably cost them the biggest surprise they could reveal in the film, it sure as hell increased the number of moviegoers by quite a lot.

Luthor vs Zemo

     Zemo was a Sokovian general who wants vengeance for his family who were killed because Ultron decided to use said city as his personal Asteroid of extinction in Avengers: Age of Ultron. As for Lex...well he just wants to make Batman and Superman kill each other. God knows what for. Although brilliantly played by Jesse Eisenberg, the character suffers from a complete lack of depth. Either way, both villains turn out to be completely forgettable ones, unless they have a further role in upcoming films Justice League or...one of the several ones Marvel plans to drop next year. (Most likely Black Panther.)

BvS split vs Steve-Tony split

     While the factors in both films that turned the heroes against each other seems to be ignoring a LOT of good things they've done together, Civil War manages it in a much more realistic and subtle manner than BvS. Batman and Superman happen to simultaneously decide that the other hero is a threat to humanity, while 'humanity'decides both the heroes need to go for the greater good. In the end humanity ends up nuking Doomsday (giving him even more energy to absorb) while doing nothing much else except calling Superman into a courthouse and being fed 'Grandma's peach tea' by Lex. To be fair, the film did attempt to set the morality and reasoning straight, but for most it was a dredging of philosophy and dialogues that provided neither excitement nor plot progress. (Remember BvS has a longer running time than Civil War)

     Also this split results in both Batman and Superman clearly trying to kill each other, and nothing short of that. (Once again, ruined by the 'Martha' moment). Although the #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan formed the spine of the Civil War hype train, the 6 on 6 airport battle (Also hands down the best moment of the film) is just Tony and co trying to stop Steve and Bucky from escaping the government's grasp. The films never gets into kill-everybody mood (Romanoff: "We're still friends, right?" Barton "Depends on how hard you hit me") and Falcon even tries to save Rhodes when Vision's missed shot sends him and his War Machine suit into free fall. Even during the final fight between Bucky, Steve and Tony, there are no attempts to 'kill' despite the emotions running high.

Spidey and Panther vs Wonder Woman

     The Russo brothers did an Amazing job off juggling around more than a dozen heroes, giving crucial plot importance to everyone (except Ant man and Spidey, who are called on as Allies). Spider-man couldn't have asked for a better comeback, with Toby Maguire's emotional and serious character and Andrew Garfield's high school hero giving way to Tom Holland's 15-year-old nerd-genius sarcastic-backtalking Spidey, which is the most accurate representation of the Comic book Spidey so far, and the one that the audience really deserved all along. The chemistry between Tom and Robert Downey Jr is beyond perfect, and that alone made the airport sequence so much better.

     Wonder women in contrast feels forced into the plot. It would have went just fine without her (Except that Batman would have died if she wasn't there to block Doomsday's energy beam, lol). The whole point of her inclusion in the film seems just for the final conversation with Bruce Wayne, in which they decide to form the Justice League. That said Gal Gadot did pull off a pretty powerful character, seductive and deadly at the same time.

Humor vs Darkness

     This has been the pivot of all Marvel v DC discussions for the last decade or more. Right from the witty "Billionaire playboy genius philanthropist" introduced to us in 2008, Marvel films has never failed to get the whole theater crowd to burst into laughter. (This trend recently visited Fox, whose Deadpool film had nearly everyone rolling on the floor with laughter. But the Fantastic 4 reboot was a failure on a different level, though.) The Marvel tradition of throwing a random joke in what is supposed to be a serious situation and getting away with it without undermining the gravity of the task at hand still works, and works phenomenally in, for like the 4th time in this review, the airport sequence.

     However one cannot criticize DC for being dark. After Christopher Nolan pulled of a near-perfect trilogy of Batman films shrouded in darkness and emotional depth, we know the absence of jokes does not make a superhero film bland. It just makes it Un-marvel-istic, which is probably exactly what DC is looking for. If they need to successfully evolve a cinematic universe, they need their own identity, and perhaps this darkness is what that identity is. But as a personal opinion, this darkness is likely to keep casuals (The "I haven't picked up a comic book and haven't watched the other movies in the universe either" people) out of DC films.

Martha vs Howard

     Finally, we get to the moment. The moment that finally pushed Tony over the edge and had him go at Cap and Bucky, and the moment that reconciled the son of Krypton and the bat of Gotham. There is little to say about the Civil War moment. It seemed pretty much in line, pretty much what you would expect. The fact that Tony failed to identify that Zemo was doing this to split the Avengers (Unlike in Age of Ultron, where he clearly does identify Ultron's intentions and walks away from a possible fight with --guess who-- Steve Rogers.) can be compensated by the emotions running high by that point. It wasn't perfect- but it wasn't bad either.

     But the "Martha" moment though. That ruined the film for me. BvS was enjoyable despite its failings, until that moment. That had me, and several others like me, flipping out like "Dude, you where a second away from killing Superman, achieving what you've been blabbering about the whole damn film and you stop because MARTHA?!?!" This was made worse because of the brutal intensity of the fight clearly meant it couldn't stop at something subtle. 

Plot Holes

     I might add more to this section later, these are just some I got off the top of my head.

     Superman can fly to the middle of a desert in seconds to save Lois Lane, know when she's drowning or being pushed off a skyscraper but doesn't know when Lex kidnaps and injures his own mother Martha?

     Lex frames superman for killing people in the desert sequence. By sending his mercenaries to kill some people using guns. So superman ditched his super-strength and lazer-eyes for guns, huh?

     Ant man gets super strength when he grows to a giant size. The reason why Ant-man can cause some real damage while in the tiny form is because his weight does not change, so his punches have the same force acting on a lesser area, amplifying his power. So by the same logic, when he grows to a giant size, his weight should remain the same and his power should go down. So how did he rip off wings from airplanes and throw them around?

     

     Anyways, All that was something I've been wanting to write down somewhere, no offence to anyone. Thanks for reading, if you actually did. =D