Batman vs Superman vs Captain America: Civil War (oh, and Deadpool says hi!)

Well, I teased this topic in my last update and while it’s taken a bit longer to get around to it than I intended I figure a promise is a promise so, here we go.

So, let’s start with Deadpool, the rated R superhero anti-hero movie of the year. What is there to say other than that is was just fantastic? This was the role that Ryan Reynolds was born to play, him being a huge fan of the character and it showed. The movie was full of comedy, Deadpool style fourth wall breaking and a brilliant female lead in Morena Baccarin. Going into the movie I was a bit worried that we’d see too much of Reynolds’ face (something that’s been an issue in the Marvel movies with pretty much no-one caring to conceal their superhero identities), but for most of the movie the mask stayed on! Now for added humor, add the coolheaded Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (yes, I had to Google the name, didn’t remember it out of the box) and the movie is fun for the whole family (or at least those family members with a wicked sense of humor and who are allowed into a rated R movie :P). Now, stop reading this crap and go see it at once!

So, if you didn’t follow my advice about stopping then we’ll get to Batman vs Superman. The funny thing here is that the thing I was most worried about going into the movie turned out to be the best part of the movie; namely Ben Affleck as Batman. Affleck did a less than great Daredevil a few years back and hasn’t really shown any sign of having the acting chops to pull off Batman, but damned if he ever did. Personally I’d probably rank him as the best Batman I’ve seen so far. He portrays an older Batman, who’s been kicked around and suffered losses, very jaded and brooding. At his side is Alfred, played by Jeremy Irons, taking the role in the same direction that it’s been taken in the Gotham TV shows, where Alfred is much less of a gentleman and more of a badass than he ever used to be. The rest of the cast though… We have a Superman who’s quite frankly rather uninteresting (wish we had more Clark Kent!), Jesse Eisenberg playing Lex Luthor (though I think he must’ve gotten the wrong memo, because what he seemed to be trying to play was the Joker) and… well, a fairly good appearance by Wonder Woman. Now, the rest of this discussions will go into spoiler territory.

Spoiler — reveal content
Now the problem with this movie is that it obviously tries its best to catch up with Marvel and epically failing. While Marvel had solo films for all the heroes before starting the Avengers (some heroes even got more than one solo movie first) DC is trying to bring Justice League into the picture with only two movies before it. Here we get Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, plus a scene with videos showing the other Justice League members… Geez, DC, pace yourself a little. While Wonder Woman performed brilliantly, she just felt like another character that wasn’t really needed to make this movie work. Speaking of things that didn’t work in this movie, the biggest issue is that they’re trying to squeeze so many movies into just one. Here we have “Batman meets Superman and they get into a fight, only to become best friends when they realise their mom’s have the same name”, “Wonder Woman joins the club” and “Doomsday kills Superman”. These could all have been brilliant solo films, but squeezing them into one just felt forced.

Now this is not to say that the movie doesn’t have brilliant action sequences, just that they tried to do too much and failed. Still would recommend seeing it, just don’t expect a brilliant story.

Captain America: Civil War. With a title taken from one of the better Marvel comic arcs (yes, it had a crappy ending, but it was good while it was going) the movie hasn’t taken much else from that arc… I wish movies would stop this trend of naming themselves after brilliant stuff, then ignoring the source material completely (looking at you, I, Robot). We get to see pretty much the whole Disney own licensed Marvel cast in this movie plus a new Spiderman who does a brilliant role. Where DC tried to do too much stuff without little build up Marvel has over years and years done all the build up needed and here it pays off. Now, for the spoilers.

Spoiler — reveal content
Now, this movie is a story of how after an operation by the Avengers leads to huge collateral damages the governments of the world decide that they can’t have any more free running superheroes doing whatever they please but that they should be a UN commanded task force (because we all know how effective the UN is at getting anything done). Half the team lead by Iron Man is ok with this, the other half, lead by Captain America, not so much. Add to this a plot where Bucky (Cap’s best friend) is suspected of assassinations leading to Team Stark going after him and Team Cap protecting him and we get a brilliant action movie where superhero fights superhero, all the while being manipulated by the villain Zemo. To finish it off, just as Iron Man starts trusting Cap and Bucky again it’s revealed that a mind controlled Bucky killed Iron Man’s parents and Iron Man goes nuts trying to kill him. This leads to a rather epic Cap & Bucky vs Iron Man fight.

Over all I enjoyed the movie. Sure, it had some plot holes (like why  would Longshot and Scarlett Witch side with Cap?), but all the build up Marvel has done over the years sure paid off here. I’d say it’s the best movie so far in the Avengers plotline (though I can’t wait for the possibly upcoming Black Widow solo movie, go Scarlett Johansson!).

And that’s that, a loooong post once again, hope at least one reader got to the end of this :D. I’ll write again soon, or not, we’ll see…

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