Comic writer Mark Millar had some harsh words for one of this year’s biggest superhero films, Captain America: Civil War. His comments skewered the film’s bleak tone, despite the fact Millar wrote the original (pretty bleak) comic event the film was based on.
Millar posted a public blog post about some of his favorite movies of the year, but took the chance to call out some of the films that just didn’t do it for him. One of which was Marvel’s Civil War starring Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.
“Civil War had a good opening twenty mins,” Mill wrote, “but then I honestly can’t remember what the movie was about. It’s interesting the Russos have a background in comedy because it’s really missing in these otherwise well-made pictures and very, very missed. I really hope this bleakness doesn’t extend into their two Avengers pictures because what made that first Avengers work was the light as well as shade and I’ll be sad if that’s all lost like it was in this picture.”
It’s a little strange hearing this from Millar, whose own Civil War comic was permeated with death and suffering. As a serious book in its own right, it might even be argued that the film lightens up the original source material which tried to tackle lofty topics as civil liberties and personal freedom.
However, Millar is also known for his work on Kick-Ass and Kingsman, both of which are dark yet irreverent takes on the superhero and spy genre respectively, so perhaps Millar is comparing the film to his more recent works, though one could also make the case that Civil War shouldn’t be singled out when it shared a release year with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
In the end, it seems a bit silly to criticize Civil War for being bleak, when the airport fight scene is one of the most fun, and quip-filled battles in all of superhero cinema, even if it ends on a rather dour note.
As for one of Millar’s favorite superhero films of the year? Doctor Strange apparently, in what he described it as, “a nice, fun Marvel movie.”
