 The greatest gladiator matchup in the history of the world is The Dark Knight vs. The Star Spangled Avenger, it's The Cape Crusader vs. The Iron Man, Marvel vs. DC, Captain America Civil War vs. Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. That was my Jesse Eisenberg impression, and this is Movie Feuds. Players on both sides of this, Captain America Civil War has an amazing set of characters popping up left and right, but it's very much a Steve Rogers and Tony Stark picture at its core, focusing heavily on the relationships between Rogers, Bucky, and Stark while introducing some new blood into this already large roster. Black Panther, played by Chadwick Bossman or Boseman, effortlessly jumps into the cast and he's given just enough backstory. He's essentially the Wonder Woman of the picture, which is a little odd seeing as he even has more screen time than she does in her film. She's a major player in the DC universe and we got almost nothing about her character or motivations in BVS. Gal Gadot did a commendable job with what she had to work with, but if you compare her to the female cast in Civil War, she comes off pretty pale. Not because she can't fight, she certainly can, she proved that. It's just there's nothing more to her yet. We've seen Black Widow and Scarlet Witch a couple times now and have a good idea of their history. I know people are sick of hearing about Batman's parents being murdered, but I think showing them again was absolutely crucial to his character. It's what defines him. I'm not sure he understood anything else though, but he also knew that Batman's one of the most popular characters out there and most people know his backstory, even if they haven't seen one of his damn films. So he keeps it short and sweet. It's shot beautifully and it's quick to the point. Boom, boom. Rise. A lot of people judged Henry Cavill Superman harshly. Is it Henry Cavill, Henry Cavill? I butch your names a lot on this show. Just kind of bear with it. Okay. And just as solid here, a good list of supporting cast both returning and new lend a hand. Lawrence Fishburne, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Jeremy Irons and Holly Hunter. Jesse Eisenberg gives a very polarizing performance as Lex Luthor. I found him very out of place, more out of place than a proud parent at an orphanage. I mentioned the large team Captain Three contains, so let's do a roll call quick. There's Captain America, of course, Iron Man, Bucky, Falcon, Hawkeye, Vision, My Brides, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow, Black Panther, War Machine, the list keeps going. The big standout for everyone I talked to, which was basically just my mom, was Spider-Man. Tom Holland nailed the performance. He looks like a young Toby McGuire with better quips than Andrew Garfield. He's a great best of both worlds actor and every single moment he was on screen, I was smiling. So many great lines from the Empire Strikes Back reference to just the quick observations he throws out. I can definitely argue that Marvel movies are all pretty much the same, but those Spider-Man moments, looks like I'm jerking off a fly, really make this movie stand out. Flies have penises? Let's move out. These movies are both fairly long, running at two and a half hours each. The Batman v Superman, I know there's a director cut that's like six and a half hours long, maybe 12. It contains Batman fighting Catwoman with swords on the roof. He goes down a roller coaster ride with a penguin. At the end there's some TNT blows up. He loses half of his face, thereby becoming, of course, two-faced. As we know, Batman becoming two-faced is canon. Zack Snyder respects that. These are both very meaty movies too, meaning there's a lot going on and it's a sausage fest with plenty of muscle flexing, especially when Captain pulls down that helicopter. You work out, bro? Civil War plays the plot straightforward with a couple twists to keep things interesting. I actually remember the name of the bad guy in Captain America 3, but he was just kind of a means to an end to get our heroes to clash for the first time, and clash they do. It's not really the first time, I mean they clash in pretty much all the other movies they're in together. Civil War promised us some awesome fights between the Marvel good guys and that's exactly what we got. I think the airport sequence is a good 20 minutes. Felt like it went on for a very long time in the best way possible. So much creativity on display. I love how the cast interacts with each other's abilities. You got Hawkeye busting out an arrow, shooting it, it splits off, Ant-Man's riding on one, he flips off inside of Iron Man's suit, starts breaking shit, then the warning thing comes on, the fucking freezing water comes out or whatever it is, Ant-Man's got a runaway, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow get naked together, they kiss, there's a lot of touching, there's a lot of magic going on, thrusting, pivoting. This was in my dream and I'm sharing it now. Once the smoke clears, the movie barrels on for another final fight that's smaller in scale but far more intense and personal. In comparison, which we sometimes do on this show, the fight with Batman and Superman is pretty damn awesome, albeit a bit short. We see a series of traps sprung on soups, we get a misdirection kryptonite peek-a-boo from the Dark Knight, there's some very brutal hand-to-hand combat and it all lasts for maybe 10 minutes which is a shame since that's what the film was billed as. Even though Marvel's been taking some pretty big liberties with its titles too, Age of Ultron should have been called Weekend with Ultron, Civil War should have been called Civil Dispute or Captain America, Small Misunderstanding. War implies something much larger than we got but that's where things are in the MCU, we're not gonna get that dark and gritty violence the DC universe has and I think that's good. The MCU are films for all ages where the DC franchise is clearly skewing older, which is why it's such a shame the script is so stupid. There's no real theme or goal here, just a mishmash of different comics jammed into one flick. I want to go back to Civil War for just a second and point out how funny this thing is, probably the funniest of all the MCU movies. The Bucky Falcon road trip comedy really worked, Spider-Man and Ant-Man were, every line they said was hilarious, I don't even know if they were all intentionally supposed to be funny but they were. BVS is almost void of any happy moments, I've complained about this movie pretty hard in the past already and this is me actually trying to go easier on it because I do understand there's people that really enjoyed this film, in fact they loved it quite a bit. I obviously didn't, I do think that there are some really good things about it and most of them come from round three which we're doing now. This was my excitement for it. One thing I will absolutely give Batman v Superman credit for is the stunning visuals. It's not surprising considering Zack Snyder is all about them, from the opening act to the final moments the camera is always giving us a pretty shot. Almost every frame could be hung on a wall which is far more than I can say for the Marvel pictures that all have an extremely familiar look and feel. Which is also not a bad thing, the MCU is like a roller coaster, it's got its ups and downs, its highs and lows, I know that's redundant but so is the MCU really. They all kind of look the same, they all sound the same, they all play out the same way. So once you've been on that ride a few times there's just no surprises left. You know you have that excitement in smaller doses and that's kind of where we're at with Civil War. So watching a different type of superhero movie was refreshing and it's totally different, it's not even a slow paced and intelligent thriller like a Nolan film. It's not a hard R like a Blade movie, it's its own beast. The music also stands out and not always in a good way, sometimes in a very obnoxious way. The movie just hammers you over the head with these musical cues, to its credit at least it's noticeable. The MCU utterly fails almost every time in the sound department outside of Thor, I can't really think of a musical score that was any good. Civil War is no different, the music is just drowned out in the background. As for the action, both have some fantastic parts with chase scenes, group fights, Batman absolutely punishing baddies in a warehouse, Spider-Man kicking all sorts of ass and so on. Don of Justice wins on style, Captain America wins on substance. This is not even close for me, I tried to stay impartial and utterly failed at it, it's just a no-brainer. I think BBS is a complete rain wreck filled with nonsense dialogue, forced world-building, out of character choices and much more. You like the flick maybe? That's great, that's good for you, I'm glad you do. You found something that I didn't see and I do think there is a nice treasure buried underneath that shit somewhere. You just got to dig for it. Making the movie longer, however, I don't think is the answer. I think making this bit shorter is the answer. Put this down to an hour and a half. Remove Lex Luthor almost completely. Get rid of that third act of just nonsense. Get rid of Wonder Woman altogether. Get rid of those dumb tie-ins to the other future films with the world-building bull. And you know what? You might have something. You might have a Batman versus Superman movie like it was billed. I think Marvel can learn a couple things from DC though, especially in the music and visual department. Civil War is just a much better movie. And they get what makes a cinema trip enjoyable. I said my piece. Now it's your turn. Leave a comment. Vote for the winner. And remember, this is more than just reviews. This is Movie Feuds. Hey, Tamber, who wins in a fight between Superman and Hulk? I go soups all day long. What's that? Superman doesn't kill people? Tell that to Zod's snapped neck. I read that somewhere online. It was just so stupid. I had to repeat it.