Epic Movie...Epic Fail. "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Rated PG-13

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot,

Directed by Zack Snyder

The Story:

Taking place at the climactic battle in Metropolis, Bruce Wayne (Affleck) watches as Superman (Cavill) pretty much destroys the place in an epic showdown with General Zod. Fast forward 18 months, the world isn't sure whether or not to trust Superman, and reports of the return of the vigilante Batman, more ruthless than ever are circulating out of Gotham. These two are on a collision course, and it's not going to be pretty.

Okay, so let me repeat something I've said before:

The first cinematic team-up of Batman and Superman, ever, should have been a license for DC to print money. It should have been so amazing when it was released, that it would still be playing in theaters today.

It should be the highest grossing movie of all time, even after adjusting for inflation!

Why?

EVERYONE knows who Superman and Batman are.

Even if you've never read a comic book, you've seen them, somewhere. Shirt. Lunchbox. Underwear. Hat. Action Figure. Previous movies. Cartoons.

But yet, that didn't happen.

Why not?

Take your pick, this movie offers up 2 and a half hours (!!!!!) of reasons about what went wrong.

Here's my observations:

1) We don't want to be like Marvel!

Good call, so put out dour movies with no humor or really likable characters.

Really, that seems to be DC/Warner Brothers rallying cry.

We want to be the "adult" superhero movie.

They want the critical acclaim and adulation that came with the Nolan Bat-trilogy, but the box office success of Marvel.

I hate to say that you can't have it both ways, because clearly you can.

Except your rallying cry says "we don't want to be Marvel!" and they've consistently put out movies that have been critical and commercial hits.

I can sit here and compare Marvel to DC all day long.

No seriously, I'm at work, and it's kind of fun taking a break you know. :)

But at the end of the day, I try and judge a movie simply by what it brings to the table...

But yes, comparisons are hard to avoid.

Here's some other areas I feel the movie went wrong:

A) Hey, let's make a cohesive DC Universe!

Great idea. Wrong tactic.

Again, Marvel introduced us, slow burn, to each character who would eventually make up the Avengers.

DC has started with The Avengers, more or less, and said, see, one big universe.

Except they are starting with a sequel to a movie (Man of Steel) that...sucked...is that the good critical term?

I have little problem with Cavill in the suit, of course, they rarely let him say or do much except punch and be angry while wearing it.

I have a bigger problem with the suit.

That's not Superman.

He should be bright and shiny (not literally...ugh...) but those reds and blues should pop out, and not be subdued and shadowy, nearly black on viewing.

That's Batman's job.

B) Nobody cared that Superman died (whoops, Spoiler!) .

Let's be honest, when Doomsday killed Superman in the comics (whoops, spoiler again!) it was a BIG deal! Sure, nobody thought he would stay dead dead, but for a bit, he was dead. And the world mourned.

Why?

He'd been doing it for-ev-er. He was the gold standard that all the heroes looked up to, and when he gave his life in battle, the entire world mourned. All the heroes gathered to bury their comrade, and the entire world was saddened.

Hello... not 5 minute earlier, the world was trying to decide if they should worship Superman or deport him because he was too dangerous and an unknown entity.

So when Superman dies at the end of the movie...meh.

Aside from Martha (Lane) and Lois (Adams) who really cared? Batman, a bit, because he realized he had misjudged Clark. But the show by America was just that, a show. "Whoops, our bad, thanks Supes!"

C) The Dark Knight Returned Too Soon

Speaking of scrambling storylines, how about the proverbial DC omelette where they took the battle from The Dark Knight Returns and mixed it into this film. Except again, they take the older, wiser (eh...) Batman against a rookie Superman. Too soon, too unnecessary.

D) Someone thought Jesse Eisenberg would be a great Lex Luthor.

He didn't. Shame on you, and I hope you're now looking for work somewhere. Not sure what movie he thought he was in, but he seemed to be channeling more of the Joker than Luthor when he was onscreen.

E) The "Ultimate Edition" DVD has another 30 minutes of footage that makes the story better

Bzzzt.

Wrong answer.

While it may be true, no DVD release containing footage should make a movie "make more sense and be easier to follow" than what was released in theaters. If that's the case, your editors are failing at their job.

An enhanced version should enhance the story, not tell it better.


Okay, I need to stop kicking this dead horse while it's down, so what, if anything did they get right:

I) Ben Affleck makes a great Bruce Wayne & Batman

II) Gal Gadot is great as Wonder Woman

III) Jeremy Irons was terrific as Alfred


The fact that this movie was so savaged by critics and rejected by audiences caused DC/Warner to stop, reshoot Suicide Squad to inject "more humor" and move some studio bosses around to get a better handle on their universe.

So basically they decided:

1) We don't want to be like Marvel!

Good call.

However, I need to grade on a curve with superhero films, and much like The Fantastic Four suffered because of what they "Should Have" done compared to what they did, so to will this film.

There was just too much unrealized and wasted potential, and too much grim atmosphere.

Not my particular flavor of superheroics.

If I'm going to spend 2 1/2 hours of my life watching superheroes...

well...

Make Mine Marvel.


Final Grade: D+

It's A Super Weekend...Part One... "Man of Steel"

Man of  Steel  (2013)
PG-13 Violence

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shanon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane

Directed by Zack Snyder


Man, I really miss John Williams' score.

The Story:

On the doomed planet Krypton, Jor-El (Crowe) sends his son on a rocket towards Earth hoping that his son will grow to become a great man.  On Earth, the infant is found and raised by Johnathan and Martha Kent (Costner & Lane) on a farm in Smallville, Kansas.  Johnathan warns their son Clark ( Cavill) that the world isn't ready for a man with his powers, yet Clark is compelled to do good things to help his fellow man.  When plucky reporter Lois Lane (Adams) stumbles upon the story of a lifetime, will she reveal to the world what she knows about this super man ?  When General Zod (Shannon) comes from the Phantom Zone to find young Kal-El, will the Earth survive a Kryptonian invasion?

So many questions...

Let's get to the answers!

When it comes to expectations for this movie, it helps to set the bar low.

No, lower than that.

:)

Forget what you've seen on the screen from Marvel, this is DC.

"There is No Fun Allowed In This, Or Any DC Universe Movie!!"

They are not going for the sheer fun and popcorn atmosphere.

No, DC wants to be grim and moody.

They want atmosphere for their universe.  If you loved the Dark Knight trilogy of films from Christopher Nolan, has DC got the film for you.

Because basically, Nolan and David S. Goyer have taken the big blue boyscout and sprinkled a great heaping of bat-grit to the world of Superman.

Hey, it worked for Gotham, why not Metropolis, right?

And it does work, don't get me wrong.

I'm just saying, if you're thinking that this movie is going to resemble any Marvel franchise, whether Disney, Sony or Fox, you couldn't be further from the truth.

The same was always said about the comics.  Marvel was fun, and it felt like it could happen in your own backyard.  DC always had that feeling of fake-ness to it.  Whether it was the writers or the settings, things are more real in New York or Chicago than they are in Metropolis or Gotham.

The movies are going to do much the same.

You're not getting the movie franchises you want from DC.

You're getting the franchises you deserve!

;)

"New York?  Compared to Metropolis, New  York Got Off Easy"

For the most part, this movie gets way more right than it gets wrong, whether that wrong is personal opinion/choice or straying drastically from the source... it's a bit of both.

Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) is black, not a problem with that.  He does a great job with the limited screen time that he has.

Jimmy Olson is non-existent, apparently changed to Jenny (Rebecca Buller) for reasons I still don't fathom.  Apparently they needed a damsel in distress for that one pivotal scene.  However, in the comics, Jimmy Olson was that damsel. ;)


It's things like that that puzzle me the most with many comic adaptations.

I'm more critical of DC because I don't have the same passion for the characters and simply revel in the fact that they are onscreen anymore.  Remember, seeing Superman on the silver screen is old hat at this point.  Now I want to see it done correctly.

However it seems like everytime they do something right, or something not-so-stupid, then something odd pops up that just made me wonder..."why" ?

"I am so Tired of Diapers..."

For example, I think Jor-El was used effectively throughout the movie.  Wasn't a fan of the way Krypton was portrayed with flying dragons, but whatever.  His coming back to help Clark (and Lois) was interesting and amusing.  I say, yay, they did a great job with Father # 1.

But...

I think it was pointless what they did with Johnathan Kent.

"Stop, I Want To Die Needlessly..."

I'm not just talking about the scene pictured above.
Though in the grand scheme of things, that may just be the stupidest death in the history of cinema.
For those not familiar with the source of the stories behind the movie, when John Byrne took over Superman in the 80s and DC "started fresh", one of the many things he did right in this reader's eyes: He let Johnathan Kent LIVE!!

Why should Clark Kent come from two broken homes, wasn't one enough?

But no...

To layer extra angst on Superman, you kill his second father.  I didn't agree with that decision in the 70s when they did it, I still disagree with it now.

Perhaps it was for the best though, as the portrayal of Kent in this film is someone who keeps telling his son that the world isn't ready for the power you possess...they will hate and fear you...

Oh. My. Goodness.

This is not the X-Men!

All of these complaints aside for a moment, this was leaps and bounds ahead of Superman Returns... ugh... that movie makes me throw up a bit inside my mouth just thinking of it.

: )

Henry Cavill made a great Superman for me.  Having not seen a majority of his film/television work, he is a "new face" to these eyes, and find him to be a worthy successor to the long line of caped Supermen that have come before him.

He's a little angrier than he probably should be, but again, I'll lay that at the feet of Nolan and David Goyer who wrote the script.

It was becoming a bit of a running joke at the end though, that the angrier Superman got, the stronger he got.  What, he's the Hulk now?

"Superman...Smash!"

Considering that the "S" supposedly stands for "Hope" on Krypton, much of the hope that Superman should inspire to the general populace is muted in this new screen version.

A darker suit.  Less humor.

We'll see where it goes from here.

I've heard much criticism about the climactic fight scene and how destructive it is.

It is definitely all of that, and then some. 

Oooh, look at what we can do to Smallville and Metropolis!!

Yes, after about 10-15 minutes into the fight it starts to feel like severe overkill.  I don't even want to think about what the real death count would be if Superman and Zod really went toe to toe like that.

I get it, and really, I shrugged my shoulders and can live with it.

But there is a buzz among some criticisms that I've read/heard that the destruction is Superman's fault and he's not a hero...

What the heck?

Apparently at that point, I watched a different movie than others.

The fighting was due to Superman trying to save the Earth, and the blame falls squarely at the feet of the bad guy.

Or the military for opening fire over a civilian population.

: /

Heck, the big fight scenes were the best part of Superman II, so it was inevitable that the nearly 40 years later, the stakes are going to increase.

Granted, Superman should have whisked the fight out to the desert, but I get it. 

This is the Nolan Superman, we have to have grim and gritty.


Finally, I have zero problems with how the fight ended.

Faithful to the source material, as written by Byrne decades ago.

That's Superman's greatest strength, he has that power but chooses not to use it.

This was a lose/lose situation, and I thought it was handled correctly.  This sets up the fact that he knows what he is capable of, and must ensure he never does it again.

Final Grade: C+