‘Captain America: Civil War’ Critic Bias? DC Fans Already Hurling Accusations
Captain America: Civil War is already garnering more positive reviews than rival DC’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it hasn’t even hit its first full weekend.
The critic aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes has the film trending “Fresh” with an impressive 100 percent, albeit on only 15 professional reviews.
However, that is much higher than BvS, which eventually settled on just 28 percent from critics, even lower than the maligned Daredevil film starring Ben Affleck, which scored a 44 percent from critics, and The Green Hornet, which claimed a 43 percent.
After the Rotten Tomatoes critic community essentially gave BvS a low “F,” the fan community, which is generally more forgiving, gave it a “D+” at just 69 percent.
Still, there are DC conspiracy theorists out there, and the praise for Captain America: Civil War, is just further proof that there is a shadowy effort underway to undermine the DC Universe.
(Never mind the fact that Christopher Nolan’s three Batman films are highly praised among fans and critics.)
RT user Jun Woo Pak — prior to the Captain America: Civil War early scores — lamented in a thread entitled, “I’m not even joking anymore, are critics seriously biased toward DC?” that “if the movie [BvS] was as bad as they say it was, there would be at least one consistent issue for the movie, but each of them had different views.”
Pak argued, without citing any specific evidence, that one critic had said there was too much story while another said not enough, another critic said there was too much action, and that one “had the galls to say not enough action.”
“The difference is so obvious I was actually wondering if they were talking about the same movie. But whatever,” he continued. “Critic rating has only stopped me from watching a movie ONCE, and that was for Fantastic Four. This rating won’t stop me from watching BvS. It’s still my most anticipated movie of 2016.”
Reviewer John Campea, who praised both films, was so sick of hearing comments like this after seeing an advanced screening of Captain America: Civil War that he took to Twitter with a bold statement that immediately drew backlash.
ANYONE who say a critic who likes CA:CW more than BVS is somehow biased or has an anti DC agenda is an idiot with zero credibility.
— John Campea (@johncampea) April 14, 2016
I call Man Of Steel a masterpiece, and I gave BVS a 7.5. Yet I like CA:CW more. Do I hate DC? Do I have an anti-DC agenda?
— John Campea (@johncampea) April 14, 2016
Nothing wrong with preferring 1 film over another, or comparing similar films, but to suggest bias due to differing opinions is asinine.
— John Campea (@johncampea) April 14, 2016
Chief among Campea’s critics on the comparison to Captain America: Civil War was film journalist and Internet personality Grace Randolph, who runs Beyond the Trailer. She is also a comic book writer, who has worked for DC Comics, Marvel, Boom! Studios, and Tokyopop.
Grace argued that critics like Campea want to “have their cake and eat it too — destroy BvS in some kind of perverted glee but still claim [they are] impartial.”
All the bickering aside, one thing is certain.
Audiences have not taken to the Batman V Superman film, which was expected to earn around $1.5 billion and needed to gross $1 billion to be considered a success.
While it’s expected to top out between $800 and $900 million worldwide — well above its $400 million break-even ($250 million for budget and $150 million for marketing) — it is not the performance DC and Warner were hoping for heading into a planned extended movie universe.
Considering the majority of those earnings came in the first weekend, the drop-off has been tremendous as negative word-of-mouth has spread.
With Captain America: Civil War, the positive critical buzz is likely to give the film a longer life span at the box office. And considering that it’s lesser-known character Deadpool grossed three quarters of a billion dollars earlier this year, this superhero extravaganza is likely to hit the $1 billion mark with little effort.
But what do you think, readers?
Is the praise for Captain America: Civil War further proof of a conspiracy against DC’s films? Sound off in the comments section.
[Image via Captain America: Civil War screen grab]