So we have 2 very different super hero movies about the heroes fighting each other. One gets it right, the other fails miserably. I am sure, unless you have been living in a cave, you already know which one of the 2 I think worked. To start I will give a brief review of each; Then I will give my thoughts on where things went right and wrong.
Batman V Superman
Now what I am about to talk about may seem a little off topic but bear with me, it will all make sense in the end. In 2012 a movie called Battleship was made, it was based on the popular board game of the same name. Now instead of making a World War 2 naval epic the studio thought it would be a better idea to set it in modern day, and make it about fighting aliens. I am sure none of you have seen this movie because it was terrible; but be warned I will be spoiling the climax of this truly bad film. Through most of the movie the good guys are on a destroyer class ship, because battleships are not used any more. Their ship is destroyed, and it looks like all hope is lost, until they arrive at the USS Missouri, a World War 2, steam powered, battleship that is currently acting as a museum. They don’t have the knowledge or the crew required to get it running; but a bunch of veterans show up to help take their ship on one final mission. Thunderstruck by AC/DC starts to play, the engines are fired up, the canons are loaded and the ship sails out to fight the big bad alien vessel. When that battle ship does a hard 90 and unloads its broad sides it is glorious! The vets have of the best lines like “Lets unload some led on these mother fuckers” and when their ship is taking some damage “They aint going to sink this battleship, no way”. This entire sequence is powerful and full of nostalgia, pride and emotion. But it is only 10 minuets long of the total 130 minuet run time. And the rest of the movie is total garbage. This is exactly how I feel about Batman V Superman, a movie that is total garbage except for 2 short sequences where Batman gets to be mother fucking Batman!
I find it fascinating the stories about how Ben Affleck saw the train wreck coming; and how he tried everything he could to try and correct the course of the film. And in the end instead of being like all ‘I told you so’, he is sad, because he truly loves the character of Batman and really wanted to make a good move.
Captain America: Civil War
Civil War is a great Captain America movie and a great sequel to The Winter Soldier. It has one of the most amazing and fun action sequences I have ever seen. This alone is worth the price of admission, but the movie brings so much more. The Winter Soldier started as a smaller more intimate film, with the twist that it ends up become a much bigger world threatening event. Instead Civil War goes the exact opposite direction. All the trailers and build up to this movie show it as some epic earth shattering event, but the twist is that it becomes a smaller more personal movie. And at the core of the movie is a great moral debate between the two stars. Captain America on the side of unalienable freedom and Iron Man on the side of government oversight and security. Its this debate that frames the conflict and helps create deep characters that pull in the audience and turn the great action in to something more.
I don’t know how much more I can say about this film with out spoiling the ending. It is one of the best Marvel movies to date and one that everyone should go see. Now on to why this movie works where Batman V Superman fails.
Morality & Reason
I rewatched Man Of Steel to see why I named it the best film of 2013, and to find the differences between it and Batman V Superman. What I found, behind the epic visuals, was a story filled with moral conflict. General Zod wanted to do whatever it takes to guarantee the survival of his race. In contrast Jor-El, Supermans farther, saw the deep moral flaws, that were leading his people to destruction. That his people, in their turn to a communistic society, had lost what had originally made them great. The movie then becomes about Superman discovering his own morality, inspired by his time growing up in America. Its in this that he rejects his race and their ideas, and instead embraces the ideas of truth, justice and the American way.
Batman V Superman contains no rational moral arguments of any kind, instead it is driven by emotion. Unlike Civil War, where we understand at a philosophical level why they are fighting, we are treated to some stupid dream sequences. Any movie that relies on dream sequences is already greatly flawed and any writer that resorts to this should find another profession. There is no good reason Batman wants to kill Superman, just some irrational fear brought on by some irrational dreams. And because no good reason is given, the fight between them is unable to pull the audience in and have them become invested. The reason the fight ends is even more ridiculous and is now being used as a punch line.
Superman’s story is even worse. I admit that Superman is difficult to put in to films, he is so powerful that showing any kind of conflict, especially of the physical kind, is hard. Man of Steel was the fist movie that made me really love seeing Superman on the big screen. Because of that, I was really looking forward to this movie. In the trailer it showed a scene where Superman was going to be questioned in front of the senate. I thought this was going to be amazing. Just imagine Superman being questioned by our immoral politicians, and then having him use morality and reason to justify who he is and why he does what he does. Answers that harken back to the Founding Farthers and what originally made America great. But instead before anyone can speak a bomb goes off killing everyone but Superman. The rest of the movie shows Superman being all depressed that not everyone in the world loves him. This is pathetic and again shows the filmmakers choice to use emotion instead of reason to define their characters.
In Conclusion
My hope is that the people in charge will learn from there mistakes, or are let go. That they will find someone that truly understands why the Marvel movies are so great. That they will create intelligent movies, with well thought out philosophically based characters, instead or resorting to the lowest common denominator, emotionalism. I really want to see what Ben Affleck can do with the next Batman film, he has already proven himself to be a talented director. I just hope they can find some talented writers, because getting the story and characters right is far more important then filling the movie over the top CG. I think the main reason Man of Steel succeeded where Batman V Superman failed is because they had Christopher Nolan create the story. He truly understands the importance of good characters, as seen in the fact that he created the greatest super hero of all time: The Dark Knight.