The hate for SS was mind boggling to me because i watched it on opening night and everyone in the theater loved it. It followed the marvel formula to the tee... lots of quips and one liners that had the audience rolling, team bonding moments, charismatic leads, bad one dimensional villains, and an overall light tone that told everyone it doesnt take itself too seriously. Even the soundtrack tried to ape the Guardians of Galaxy ost which was basically comprised of popular 80s songs.
But apparently that's not good enough. People were bitching about the editing as if everyone has a masters in editing movies nowadays. All of a sudden the character development matters in comic book movies. It's perfectly fine for the Avengers to set aside their differences because some random shield agent died, but the moment SS tries to hand wave some things, it's the worst thing in the world! I remember watching Guardians and there is a scene where they literally bond over the fact that none of them have ever had friends. And they all go 'would you like to be my friend?' 'yay we are a team now!!!' That shit is just as bad as Martha.
Someone asked what was so bad about Civil War. It suffered from the same pacing issues, and disjointed narrative that BvS suffered from. It doesnt make it a bad movie, but it literally has the same problems as BvS. The overall conflict b/w the two sides wasn't fleshed out. Boring middle act. (but hey they added lots of quips!) it didnt make sense for Tony and Steve to fight each other. the main fight is literally fought over a misunderstanding. All Steve had to say was that the real villain is zemo, sit down and explain. Same problem as the BvS title fight. And yet no one cared.
I dont think Guardians, SS, BvS, or Civil War are bad movies. Ben Affleck was amazing as Batman. Just like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. in their roles. And yet he's nominated for a Razzie while RDJ is making a $100 million per movie.
I watched and liked SS when it first came out, but my first criticism of the film, both on GAF and in real life, was that the movie's editing was distractingly poor, that the soundtrack tried too hard to be on the nose, and that the movie's premise is circular; Waller creates the menace the team she advocates has to fight against. Suicide Squad's redemption over BvS is that several of the characters are actually likable in an offbeat Deadpool kind of way. Smith and Robbie have genuinely good chemistry on screen, and Deadshot/Harley are the best DCU characters outside of Batfleck. It's fun in an inoffensively incoherent kind of way, not unlike the first Transformers film. BvS is closer to Revenge of the Fallen.
Civil War's conflict isn't all that complicated, though Zemo's involvement in it is. Cap and Tony have several reasons to come to blows even before it's revealed that WS killed Tony's parents, not the least of which is Tony's support of superhero registration, which forces metahumans like Wanda to be put on involuntary lockdown "for their own safety", puts superheroes on the sideline at the UN's whims, and allows for trial-free military imprisonment of captured criminal metas. WS is a straight up fugitive and living weapon after the end of Cap 2 (because, lest we forget, he did murder dozens of people), and he's shown actively hurting innocent people both before and after he gets reprogrammed in the 3rd film; Cap's support of him is definitely a moral grey area. Tony is flabbergasted that Cap would go outside the law to protect an obvious criminal ("but Mind Control!" is only an excuse that works in actual comics, even the Hulk got in trouble for his rampage in Age of Ultron), and he's only ever trying to arrest Bucky
which is the right thing to do until the very end of the film. Then he wants to murder him in a heat of the moment revenge rampage after watching his father get his face caved in and his mother have her throat crushed. Cap revealing the truth about Zemo doesn't even matter at that point, because he lied about Bucky.
At the end of the film, there is no reconciliation. Cap gives up the shield. Half of the Avengers are criminals and fugitives and hate Tony's guts. Rhodes is permanently crippled. The letter teases a possible future team-up, but there are now essentially two Avengers teams, with no indication of where Hulk and Thor will land in this mess (I'm guessing Banner isn't going to side with Ross).
Contrast with BvS, where Superman is being beaten to death by Batman because Batman thinks he
might be dangerous. And Batman, despite being shown as a remorseless killer throughout the film, has a change of heart on a dime because of ONE word that's a complete coincidence. And then he and Clark instantly become buddies who crack jokes side by side, for the 10 minutes of the film before Superman is killed, and Batman is suddenly his biggest supporter at his funeral. They met for literally 1 minute before they became mortal foes, and were friends for literally 1 hour of real time, in universe, before Batman decided to spend his remaining days living in Superman's honor. Same with Diana. The character development is more rushed than Green Lantern or Thor 1.
