However, this year, there have been two movies that have come up against each other with similar premises that have had vastly different critical and commercial receptions; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. If my hyphen key doesn't give up the ghost by the end of this year, it's getting a two-week paid vacation to the Florida Keys. (Key puns, they open doors).

Warning: Some spoilers ahead. So stop if you haven't seen one or both of these movies.

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice: If the name doesn't say it all, then you mustn't have a full grasp of what the letter 'v' implies in the English vernacular. This movie pits DC's (and arguably all of comic's) two biggest and most recognisable heroes against each other over while Wonder Woman looks on, operating the camera, without even getting title billing. The heroes are fighting over two seemingly distinct idealogical ideas, with Superman believing that Batman is rogue, and unable to make good judgements, while Batman believes that madness is like gravity, all Superman would need is a little push to end humanity. Eventually the trio must unite to fight off Doomsday.

Captain America: Civil War: Marvel's most bankable Character, Iron Man, and Captain Puerto Rico  assemble the world's mightiest heroes into two camps to have a punch up over lockout laws a UN Proposition insisting that the Avengers must have oversight. Iron Man thinks that Ban-Ki Moon would be a great addition to the team, while Cap prefers I-don't-play-by-anyone's-rules image that comes with riding an electric Harley-Davidson and aviator sunglasses. The teams must (but sort of don't) come together at the end to fight off the big bad Helmut Zemo who has been plotting to force the two iconic heroes to fight all along.

There are also a number of other similarities between the two movies, including a very strange Oedipal thing with mothers, introductions of new superheroes into the respective worlds (be they thoroughly underwhelming or pants-wettingly overwhelming), and a real fetish for people who can stop cars. 

Having been released in March, BvS was the pioneer in this category of superhero slugfests, and while the initial box office takings were looking very nice for the Caped Crusaders, there was a sharp decline in the second week takings, as people started paying attention to what critics were saying. Civil War, on the other hand, has shown little signs of slowing after its release towards the end of April, taking huge box office numbers with ease, and having mostly universal critical acclaim. 

But if these two movies are so similar, why is one panned while the other hailed? Well, I'm not the voice in your head that forms your opinions, but I'll give you mine, so that you can thoroughly disregard it in fanboy arguments in Youtube comments sections. 

Batman v Superman is what happens when you spend too much time trying to set up a universe, and forget that you actually have to make a movie for now, not for the next 10 years. When Marvel constructed its universe, it established the Iron Movies as being stand alone stories that also happened to drop hints at something bigger. Or in the case of Iron Man 2, terrible Whiplash storylines that are propped up by Nick Fury's visit. BvS, on the other hand, wants to be so sure that you know what its doing, that it not only literally clicks in front of you, with a series of hardly believable videos but also flashes forward to what may or may not eventuate. And more than that, BvS tries to cram four or five other storylines into one movie that make it so full to the point of bursting, at times, you're not entirely sure where characters are, or how they got to their positions. 

Storylines such as the "does earth need Superman?" question are cool, but could have largely been left until a Man of Steel sequel. It doesn't involve the other titular hero at all. Even the Lex Luthor plot lines could have been quite good if they had had some more explanation, rather than just plonking him into places that he needs to be to progress the story. If one or two plot points had been removed, giving us more time with the main 'Batman and Superman are going to duke it out for the heavyweight title' story, the film would have felt far more fluid.

Captain America, on the other hand is almost too light on with dense plot points. At the start of the film we go from Tony Stark isn't in the Avengers and things are chaotic, through 'You won't get away with that on my watch, criminal scum', to Captain America isn't in the Avengers with no real character development. No one changes their mind, no one comes to a more clear understanding. Hell, even the guy (machine?) who makes the biggest fuck up of the movie doesn't even get reprimanded. However, this lighter approach to the plotline means that characters get more chance to shine, and there is more chance to see the interactions between the characters, which is what leads to the climactic battle, without too much forced exposition. 

When it comes to contrived reasons to make your favourite characters beat the shit out of each other, a moral question tackled by the freedom-lover boy scout and the morally questionable billionaire is one that gets it on faster than a failed maths test in a porno. And don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed both of these movies for what they were at face value: movies about people with big muscles, and even bigger codpieces, getting to it Lucha Libre style. So get out there and enjoy, and leave stupid fan boy discussions to people like me who write at weird times in dark rooms.