According to everyone, Captain America: Civil War is pretty much the best movie ever made. Only one problem: You didn’t actually like it.
It’s the biggest movie of the year. Marvel’s masterpiece. Directed by golden boys The Russo Brothers, who brought us the universally loved and critically acclaimed The Winter Soldier.
It’s Captain America: Civil War. Lauded by critics and fans alike. “Astounding,” “a masterpiece,” critics call it, and critics are never wrong.
But you didn’t love it. Maybe you didn’t even like it.
And if you did love it, what are you doing here? Go read a positive review and revel with the other 90% of the world who thought this movie was the shit.
Perhaps you sat in the theater, thinking that this actually was a pretty decent Avengers 2.5 film… but wait, wasn’t this supposed to be the final chapter in Captain America’s story?
You may have wondered, like I did, why Iron Man got to have an actual character arc, with flashbacks and awkward elevator-mom motivation, whereas supposed main character Steve Rogers had little to no character development over the movie’s bloated runtime.
In retrospect, couldn’t they have spent a little less time with Zemo — a forgettable villain with an underwhelming agenda — and a little more time setting up this big Avengers fight that looked cool but, ultimately, didn’t make any sense? (Any of them could have easily killed someone at any time — and most of them didn’t even dislike each other!)
Maybe you even asked yourself why everyone around you seemed so maniacally excited about Spider-Man, a clunkily introduced comedy prop whose only purpose in the movie was to act inappropriately excited about meeting people he was, ostensibly, trying to kill and/or seriously injure.
Or perhaps you didn’t wonder any of those things, and simply suffer from Marvel fatigue, feeling no genuine emotional connection to this movie or its main characters, and tiring quickly of the standard MCU moneygrab formula.
In other words: You’ve got an unpopular opinion that’s gonna get you run off the internet. So what the hell do you do now?
Step 1: Write down your feelings, THEN KILL THE EVIDENCE WITH FIRE
Make like Bucky Barnes and write all your thoughts and feelings in a notebook that only exists in the actor’s mind because the audience isn’t actually made privy to any of it.
DO NOT tweet your disappointment. Do not write a long, heartfelt Facebook post. Negativity is only gonna get you hate, and people are invariably gonna try to convince you how wrong you are (you’re not ready for that yet, see step four).
Instead, open a Word document and let out all your anger, disappointment and frustration, and then delete it (or save it on your harddrive under a codename like TeamWhereTheHellIsMyFalconMovie). Don’t get into arguments with people who probably care more about all this than you anyway, because why rain on their parade?
If people who’d looked forward to this movie actually left the theater feeling like their lives had been enriched, fantastic. That’s how I felt after The Force Awakens, and I sure didn’t appreciate people confronting me about its supposed ‘flaws.’ So just breathe, go outside, watch Star Wars again, do whatever you need to do and remind yourself that people like different things, and that’s okay.
Step 2: Hide in the woods until the hype dies down
I’d tell you to make like Bucky Barnes and go into a voluntary cryo sleep for a couple of weeks/months because of a pain we don’t get to see you feel, but because cryo sleep isn’t actually a real thing, here’s what you do instead:
Get a tent. Get an axe. Get a shitload of protein bars and a bottle with a built-in water purifier, and head the f*** up into the mountains where the fandom can’t find you.
Not only will this severely limit your ability to tweet snarky comments about all the things you hated even though you know you shouldn’t, but you’ll also get some much-needed perspective.
At the end of the day, Captain America: Civil War is just a movie, a huge collaborative effort overseen by very rich, very smug executives and acted out by very pretty people whose collective pay-checks could fix the homelessness problem in America (but we don’t like to talk about that). You’re not obligated to love everything which has a ‘Marvel’ moniker plastered on it, but you’re also not obligated to tweet your anger and disappointment and ruin it for everyone else. (Nobody wants to be like the Ghostbusters haters, after all.)
And, after a couple of weeks in the wilderness, your fellow dissenters will begin to come out of the woodwork, too; they’d probably been hiding out on adjacent mountains.
Step 3: Go in cahoots with the fans of an underserved character
So once you get back from your mountain hide-out — dirty and smelly and desperate to check your Facebook updates — DO NOT rush to dump all your complaints on someone who actually liked the movie. Not only will they probably be super disappointed and angry that you don’t like what is clearly the best thing ever (and they’ll probably secretly think you just don’t get it), but friendships may very well be ruined by a damn movie. Don’t put fandoms over friendships.
Instead, find yourself some like-minded fandom folk with whom to share your frustration/disappointment. Once you’ve talked through your issues with the movie in a judgement-free zone, you’ll feel a little bit less like a freak of nature knowing that you’re not alone in your opinions.
Whether it’s Bucky, Sharon, Tony, Clint — or dare I say it, Steve — I guarantee you one group of fans is going to be pissed by how Captain America: Civil War treated their fave.
This is a good place to start making some new friends, who won’t bite your head off for being a Marvel critic.
And then go take a shower, Katniss, because you stink of raw meat from that squirrel you shot with your homemade bow and arrow.
Step 4: Read in-depth metas to gain some perspective
You clean? Got yourself a cup of coffee and a scone? I bet you feel a lot better right now — sorry about those toes you lost to frostbite, sometimes the wilderness can be almost as merciless as Twitter.
By now, your initial feelings of anger have dulled to a dim throbbing of disappointment. Maybe you’re willing to consider that the movie wasn’t actually as bad as you first thought? But hell if you’re gonna pay Marvel more money to see it again.
Chances are, if you didn’t love Civil War, it’s probably because you felt the movie was bloated, impersonal, and pointless. I can almost guarantee there’s a meta that’ll soothe all your worries, because true fans can make sense of anything.
Why exactly was Bucky Barnes built up so much in the first two movies and in the trailers, only to spend most of Civil War hovering in the background, only stepping up to the camera for some awkward anecdotes about Steve’s mom and some girl named Dot? Deep, psychological trauma of course.
Why did all those Avengers actually use lethal force to fight each other, knowing that any near-miss could have very easily killed each other — and then Tony totally flipped out when someone actually did get seriously injured? You guessed it: Deep, psychological trauma.
Why did the Russos plaster those big awkward place markers on the screen when the movie changed location — but not every time the movie changed location — so it was actually just super confusing? Deep, psychological tr– actually that was probably just an editing choice.
If you really want to force yourself to like this movie, there are people out there who will help you do that.
Step 5: Find new fandoms to get excited about
With all that time you spent in the wilderness and lost in Tumblr metas, it’s probably like, August by now. It’s summer, it’s hot, people are telling you that Cursed Child was amazing, all your fave TV shows are returning soon, Ghostbusters and X-Men: Apocalypse have come and gone, and there’s only a few months left until Fantastic Beasts and Rogue One!
Listen, life is good if you’re a fan of cool stuff. So what if you thought Captain America: Civil War sucked? Even when a huge franchise lets you down, there are a hundred more to take its place.
Maybe, like me, you’re beginning to realize that you’re just kinda done with Marvel and its homogenous, safe and decidedly non-groundbreaking storytelling. There’s always Star Wars, right? You don’t need Marvel, and Marvel sure doesn’t need you — just ask its legions of die-hard fans.
Here’s to Wonder Woman in 2017.
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