So, the critical world decided that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was an affront to cinema days before its wider release. It was dour, they said, a slog, a downer, a never-ending parade of bad action sequences done in a palette so muted that it was hard to see what was going on. With that in mind, I attempted to fortify myself against deep disappointment. Which means that I refused to take the film as seriously as Zack Snyder and Co. clearly wanted me to, and that I walked in feeling pretty cynical.
And I somehow walked out feeling really bad for this film. It’s not a paragon of cinema by any means… but this perpetuated train wreck narrative is throwing me for a loop.
(Spoilers for all of Batman v Superman.)
For the record, my refusal to take the whole rodeo too seriously led to a lot of laughter at moments when it wasn’t called for, and I was not the only one in my theater to try that move; the couple behind me were also laughing throughout the majority of the movie. And I think we all enjoyed it more as a result. But to really address where I get the criticisms and where I don’t, I’m just gonna go through it and parse out my reactions to this strange never-ending movie:
We begin with the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, which we should all know by now is a terrible idea because how many versions of this scene do we really need on film? The one pointed difference is that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is playing Thomas Wayne (almost as though Snyder wanted to apologize for casting him as the Comedian in Watchmen), and when the random robber pulls a gun on him, this Thomas Wayne clenches his hand into a fist and looks like he might deck the guy. So, a pretty significant alteration, particularly since it suggests that Thomas Wayne was partly responsible for his and his wife’s deaths by lashing out at the guy.
Later on in the film, Bruce is waxing to Alfred about Wayne family history, about how the Waynes made their fortune, and he goes all the way back to their roots in America, talking about trading pelts with the French and stuff. “We were hunters,” he says ironically, and suddenly my brain goes Saving people, hunting things, the family business because his dad is John freaking Winchester, and there’s no other possible way this can be taken.
We see what happened to Bruce on the day that Superman fought Zod, and we find out that he’s a solid dude and a good boss who is very sad about the people dying in his Wayne Enterprises skyscraper. We know Bruce is a solid dude and a good boss because he calls everyone in his company by their first names, and helps one guy out from under some debris who can’t feel his legs any longer. Then he comforts a child whose mommy was in the building. We never find out what happened to that kid’s mom because the important part is that Bruce Wayne is cuddling a child who is now sad the way he was sad when he parents were shot. Parallels FTW.
There are so many things you have to infer in Batman v Superman. For instance, every character’s motivation, because they’re really bad about spelling anything out, or moving things in a linear fashion to help the audience piece it together. The important plot point that you can sort of figure out between all the overwritten villain monologues is this: Lex Luthor saw Superman and it totally freaked him out because power and things. He decided that Superman had to die. In order to make that happen, he helped to stoke public fear, but figured that his real ace in the hole would be to spend roughly two years making Bruce Wayne super paranoid about the guy so he’d eventually try to kill him. That is the general plot of the movie and it’s weird.
You also have to infer how everyone figures out who everyone else is because secret identities are not a thing in this film between the main characters. They all know each other and call each other by their first names, and it’s like Friends, but with armor and explosions and various cast members throwing each other through walls.
Jesse Eisenberg spends the whole movie playing Luthor like a coked out Silicon Valley CEO who likes to creep on people to prove he’s powerful. (He literally feeds a U.S. government official a Jolly Rancher after the guy has offered him access to everything he could possibly want i.e. Kryptonian tech and material because… he needed to make sure that the guy got harassed by him before leaving, or something. Hard to tell.) It makes sense insofar as this is clearly Luthor’s formation sequence. He’s not a complete super villain yet, just the punk kid version that Smallville probably should have come up with in the first place. He has an adoring, attractive, and utterly silent assistant who follows him everywhere in five inch stilettos and smiles at everything he does, and I have no idea why she’s in the movie apart from the one time she scolds Bruce Wayne for getting lost at a party.
In the meantime, Clark Kent is busy being the worst possible journalist The Daily Planet has ever employed. (How he got employed in the first place is still a mystery unless he studied journalism in college and did some kind of internship before he took up that “find myself” quest in Man of Steel.) Poor Perry White spends the entire film asking Clark to complete assignments that he never so much as fakes copy for because he’s developed a sudden obsession with Batman. (This obsession seems to be due to Batman becoming more brutal and branding his victims because Luthor has made him so angry and paranoid? Lex anonymously sends Clark Polaroids of one of those victims because we keep forgetting that Polaroids kind of don’t exist anymore.) In fact, at one point, Clark gets upset in the middle of a meeting because Perry won’t let him write a story on Batman, and tells him that when the paper ignores what’s happening in Gotham—primarily to poor and underprivileged citizens—they are letting the world know whose stories are important, and you can’t help but be like CLARK ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TALK TO LAURENCE FISHBURNE ABOUT WHOSE STORIES MATTER WHEN YOU ARE THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THIS MOVIE? IT’S A LITTLE OFF BASE, I’M JUST SAYING.
I mean, Superman = People’s Hero, but also oh nooooooooooo.
There’s also a section that I have mentally titled “Superheroes F*ck” because I’m pretty sure that’s what Snyder or David S. Goyer or someone shouted in their script meeting when they conceptualized it. It’s two scenes that occur kind of next to each other, the first involving Superman getting into Lois’s bath with all his clothes on to cheer her up. (It’s actually a pretty sweet scene that features Lois and Clark behaving like adults in a relationship where talking occurs and people cook dinner for each other, and then you think aw, Clark Kent is such a great boyfriend and a terrible upstairs neighbor, how cute.) The second is when Bruce gets up out of bed to brood, and we see a nameless hot lady still slumbering away while he stands at the window of his lake house, which is basically a house made of giant glass panels connected via a metal frame. This is relevant because while we have to assume that Lois and Clark do sleep together (being in a longterm relationship), we rarely get such a clear indication of it either in comics or on screen. It’s an even bigger deal where Bruce is concerned because so many versions of Batman usually show him playing the part of a playboy, while effectively being celibate because he’s far too serious to do things that mere men do in their spare time. Apparently, it was important to have it on record this time, a la one of those People Magazine columns: Superheroes—They’re Just Like Us!
The first SuperBat face off occurs sans capes at a strange party where Lex is getting honored for donating money to a library? Go with it. Clark proceeds to corner Bruce about his opinion on the Batman and how he’s terrorizing Gotham residents. He says lots of true things and lots of pushy things, and then he says something to the tune of “Batman acts completely outside the law” and you’re like CLARK, OH MY GOD, PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES SHOULD NOT THROW STONES AT OTHER PEOPLE WHO ALSO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES IT’S CHAOS. Unshockingly, Bruce Wayne says pretty much the same thing about Superman, before he steals some information from Lex Luthor’s mega computer system. Or he tries to. Wonder Woman is also at the party, and she grabs it first.
Gal Gadot is a spectacular Diana at first blush, and she’s happily in much more of the movie than I anticipated. Bruce is clearly intrigued by her, but in a concerned you-remind-me-of-some-other-women-I’ve-been-inadvisably-attracted-to sort of way, to which Diana’s response is basically, “You don’t know me, step off.” To his credit, Bruce does, mostly because Diana returns the stolen files to him after trying to find a picture in them that she claims belongs to her. Bruce hacks the files with ease (don’t ever forget HE’S A DETECTIVE), and finds files on all his soon-to-be metahuman Justice League pals, including a totally badass picture of Diana and her crew of mens during World War I. And then he sends her an email—he somehow knows her email—being all “Whaaaaaat the hell is this. Can we be friends Y/N?”
This incarnation of Batman is surprisingly chill, when it comes right down to it. Sure, Luthor gets him all riled up to go punch Superman in the butt, but Ben Affleck’s version of the Bat is older, and resultantly more done with everything. He’s got his own act down pat at this point, but he’s also jaded and caught in a routine that’s not doing it for him anymore. (It’s rumored that we lost a flashback scene with Jenna Malone as Batgirl and Jared Leto’s Joker, and the Bat Cave also displays what appears to be Jason Todd’s ravaged Robin uniform—though they could retcon that into any version of Robin, of course.) Jeremy Irons’ Alfred is glorious, as he plays the part with equal parts sarcasm and mother hennish-ness, and also has a lot to do with the whole Bat operation. Most of his conversations with Batman go as follows:
Bruce: You know, I’ve realized that we kinda suck.
Alfred: Mm. Yes. Now please give me some grandchildren.
This might be my favorite aspect of the film, full stop.
There’s a whole subplot in this film that the trailers alluded to about the world trying to decide how it feels about Superman and his near-god status, and it’s so important that it’s dropped about an hour into the movie. Holly Hunter plays a senator from Kentucky who is trying to make people think harder about how Superman should behave and who he should answer to, but then she pisses off Lex Luthor by not letting him import Kryptonite (it’s in the Indian Ocean amongst the World Engine wreckage), so he blows her up. And then imports the kryptonite so Bruce can steal it and make weapons out of the stuff. This all… sort of changes public opinion on Superman? It certainly makes Superman sad, so much so that he has a dream about his dead dad. Most of the things that happen in this film make Superman sad aside from taking a bath with Lois and saving Lois and talking to Lois and generally being around Lois. So the answer to all his problems is pretty clear.
Speaking of dreams, Batman’s paranoia is so acute that he has a dream sequence too, but this time it’s simply atrocious—I’d almost prefer another boring dream conversation between Supes and the world’s worst Robin Hood. (Zak Snyder has a penchant for these scenes. I think he needs to start admitting that he has no idea how dream sequences should work and bleed them from his repertoire, the way medieval medicine would have it.) There’s a lot of terrible fight choreography and screaming and dream-within-a-dream nonsense, and it contributes nothing to the current plot whatsoever. Batman is wearing a brown trench coat over the batsuit because someone probably thought that would convey its dream-sequence-dystopia-ness better, but it only makes the audience very confused. In fact, this whole sequence is meant to set up the forthcoming Justice League arc, with a clear reference to Darksied, and an appearance from the Flash, but… it’s so goofy to do it now when you’re just puzzling a good portion of your audience. (If you would like an excellent breakdown of what the dream sequence might be pointing to, head on over to Vulture.) It also contains that very erotic scene where Batman is all tied up and Superman rips off his cowl. Which is very different when you realize that this is in Bruce’s head and not actually happening–or maybe happening in the future? Just saying.
On the other hand, the soundtrack is phenomenal. I cannot stress this enough. It sounds like an opera, and that hyper-dramatic choice often makes the film’s most overwrought moments work when they wouldn’t have otherwise. And then Diana shows up and it’s all drum circles and electric guitar OBVIOUSLY.
There are entire action sequences in Batman v Superman that are jokes. And I don’t mean they suck, I mean that the action sequence itself is a series of set ups with a punchline. For example, when we first see the Batmobile in action, we watch it complete a series of laughably impossible tasks. This slim hybrid of Burton’s cruiser and Nolan’s tumbler actually drives through a brick wall and then has a giant sea vessel dropped on top of it, and makes it through without a scratch. Then Superman appears and the Batmobile bounces off of him. GET IT. DID YOU GET IT? I GOT IT. HIGH FIVE, EVERYBODY.
You know what, though, I’m totally fine with action sequences having punchlines.
There’s also a scene that I have dubbed “Bruce Wayne does Crossfit” where we watch Bruce get into even better shape to go fight Superman, and it’s this Navy Seal-type workout where he’s doing pull-ups with weights attached to his waist via a thick chain, and he’s dragging giant tires across the floor, and generally grunting and shouting. It’s simultaneously great for showing the ridiculous training required for a person to reach Batman levels of fitness, and hilarious for it’s awkward placement in the narrative.
Eventually, Lex Luthor captures both Martha Kent and Lois to get Superman’s attention. Lois is thankfully not captured for long as she’s more of an attention grab; Lex chucks her off a building to prove that she’s basically the hinge that Superman swings on. Lois gets rescued by Clark a lot in this film, but I kind of love it? Because aside from that moment with Lex, most of the rescuing is due to Lois rushing into dangerous situations because she has to do something; those “damsel” (I don’t even really like using the word here, it doesn’t fit) moments are about Lois being an active participant in her job and in the film’s narrative. She refuses to shy away from peril—much like Clark—but she needs a hand, on account of not being Kryptonian or Amazonian or possessing Bruce Wayne’s armored arsenal. Plus, every time Clark rescues her, he has this adorable well, here we are again look on his face, making it so clear that her refusal to sit around is part of what he loves about Lois.
To be perfectly honest, opinions about Synder and Goyer’s version of Superman aside, they are easily my favorite portrayal of Lois and Clark as a couple on screen, ever. When Lois realizes the SuperBat fight that’s about to go down, she asks Perry for a helicopter to take her across the bay to Gotham, and he’s like absolutely not, and she’s like it’s for personal reasons, and he’s like okay fine but only because you’re my favorite child and your love life is very important to me. Even Perry ships it.
It kind of sucks that Martha has to get captured for all of this to work. I mean, I get it, but she was threatened in the last film, and two times is honestly too many. The point is supposed to be that Lex knows he can only get a real fight out of Clark if he holds something precious over his head, but it’s disappointing that we have to watch Martha Kent be all tied up and scared. It’s one place where the film gets gratuitous.
A lot of people have been grumping about how Batman versus Superman as a concept is horrible to begin with because they are good guys and have to be on the same team and watching them fight forever is a terrible idea. So, imagine my shock when I realize that they have ONE FIGHT in this ENTIRE MOVIE. One. There is one. They snark at each other at the party, then Superman warns Batman to retire, and then they have a single fight. (Clark tries to stop it by explaining that they’re being messed with, but Bruce is pretty far gone at this point.) It’s not even a particularly long fight, pretty average for an action film these days. They throw each other around, and Batman uses kryptonite grenades and stuff because he’s a smart guy, and this allows something of an equal playing field. The fight itself is kind of silly, and then Bruce gets his rage on, and is about to stab Superman with a kryptonite spear when Clark suddenly tells him that he’s “killing Martha.”
Remember how Bruce’s mom’s name was also Martha? Yeah, it freaks him out.
And then you realize that this is the entire crux of the fight (and the reason why Mrs. Kent had to be the one to get captured script-wise). Bruce demands to know why Clark would bring up his mom, and Lois rushes in to explain that he’s talking about his own mother, who Luthor has captive, and sudden Batman’s entire demeanor shifts, and he goes from a giant gray rage monster to OH WOW MY BAD IT’S YOUR MOM? I AM SO. SO. SORRY. WOW. SO SORRY. WE SHOULD BE FRIENDS. IF YOU WANNA BE FRIENDS. DUDE, SERIOUSLY, I FEEL TERRIBLE RIGHT NOW LET ME GO RESCUE YOUR MOM TO MAKE UP FOR BEING SUCH A JERK TODAY (AND EVERY DAY).
And he does: He goes and rescues Martha Kent after knocking out a lot of bad guys. This Batman’s code on guns seems to be “I won’t carry one, but if you happen to be toting a semi, I will totally grab your hand and fire it for you to kill all your friends.” This was another point where I laughed a lot because that makes no sense as a code whatsoever. On the other hand, it’s got some very pretty fight choreography. Honestly, this whole section gives you whiplash because with the guns you’re all Batman NO, and then he rescues Martha Kent and introduces himself by saying “I’m a friend of your son’s” and you’re all Batman YES.
Luthor creates Doomsday out of Zod’s body and some of his blood (kid’s got problems) using the Kryptonian ship that Superman wrecked in the last film. It’s not remotely plausible, but it’s a blockbuster and sometimes these things happen. Really, it’s terrible because Doomsday is kind of like a giant slimy Uruk-hai (his birthing scene is exactly the same as the one Jackson’s LOTR trilogy only bigger and grosser), and is therefore an incredibly boring super bad. The upshot is, Superman and Batman don’t know how they’re gonna beat it until Wonder Woman shows up, and the entire theater inevitably bursts into applause. We’re all clearly ready for our Wonder Woman movie.
The thing I really love about the final fight sequence is that it manages to highlight each one of the trio’s strengths. Superman and Wonder Woman are bruisers, and Diana is clearly much more coordinated than Clark due to real training—Batman knows he can’t compete in terms of muscle, so he uses himself as a distraction and picks his moments. Of course, Lois realizes that they’re going to need that Kryptonite spear that she threw away earlier (when it was only posing a danger to Clark), so she goes after it, and she and Clark eventually retrieve it. And then Clark says “I love you,” and talks about how he finally feels like he’s a part of humanity and thanks Lois for giving him that, and you’re like this seems like a goodbye, but Superman can’t die, so….
Spoiler alert: Superman totally dies. Um.
It’s awkward for a number of reasons, Number One being another Jesus parallel that this team is heaping on the Superman mythos, which it really doesn’t need. Because we all know that he’s coming back to life. He’s Superman. So now it’s going to be a resurrection. (OH WAIT, IS THAT WHY YOU DECIDED TO RELEASE IT OVER EASTER WEEKEND? UUGGGHHHH.) Of course, knowing that he’s bound to come back robs the death of it’s impact. The only reason it has resonance at all is because Lois is heartbroken, and Diana is looking at her like she knows exactly how that feels, and you’re suddenly super invested in all these characters mourning together.
We end with two funerals, one for Superman and one for Clark Kent. Bruce and Diana attend Clark’s funeral, and he tells her that they should form a team with all those other sweet metahumans because he was wrong about Clark, and someone needs to pick up where he left off. Lois finds out that Clark had planned to propose to her. Everyone is deeply sad, but the Justice League is totally happening, and Lex Luthor is bald and in jail (I cannot figure out what he thought was going to happen after he unleashed Doomsday, it makes no sense at all), and Clark is clearly going to rise from the dead any second.
No, I mean that the film ends like Inception, with some dirt rising from Clark’s grave, and then a cut to black.
I laughed again.
But you know what? Outside of the resurrection iffiness, I’m on board. Batman and Wonder Woman were excellent. The Justice League seems like an exciting prospect. And I’m still a bit… baffled. This film was no more messy and overloaded than Avengers: Age of Ultron, but it’s being talked about like some great trespass, as though the critical world suddenly came upon a mashup of Sesame Street and A Clockwork Orange and couldn’t unsee it. I understand that the lack of humor is something DC needs to rethink on film, but the atmosphere surrounding BvS still strikes me as odd. Perhaps it’s because Batman and Superman have been with many of us all our lives, and we simply cannot accept a version of these characters that goes against what we love about them.
But I’m a fan of alternate universes. So I plan to stick around.
Emmet Asher-Perrin is now simultaneously psyched and scared about the Wonder Woman movie. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
I pretty much agree with your analysis. I think the main differences between this and Age of Ultron are:
1. Age of Ultron has several comedic moments and doesn’t give the appearance of trying to take itself so seriously, as BvS does.
2. While both films require the brilliant billionaire to pick up the Idiot Ball, Age of Ultron does a better job of giving a reason for it – Scarlet Witch manipulating Tony’s mind. “It’s Magic, don’t think too much about it!” Batman v Superman tries to give us a valid reason (Lex was manipulating Bruce) but for me it just seemed more hollow and unbelievable. Also the fact that Marvel’s MCU Tony Stark had been shown already as a deeply flawed character across 4 prior movies. It is almost certainly bias toward other depictions of Batman, but to have him be manipulated in such a manner rang really hollow for me – if Batman has any ability that is truly superhuman, it is his mind – his ability to anticipate a trap, be prepared, know what the villain is up to before anyone else.
As someone who never got into comics or superhero stories when he was younger, and has always thought the “honorable vigilante” character type of Batman was ridiculous, I really liked this movie.
It was the Batman I’ve always wanted to see – one that has no problem killing the bad guys if they’re being bad and one that actually seems to be affected by his past and his choices as well as having kickass gadgets and vehicles. Not to mention this version of Alfred was awesome.
My only gripe about the movie was I wished they would’ve made Lex’s madness less obvious and instead played up his confident, manipulative personality more. Once Eisenburg’s head is shaved, he definitely pulls off the Luthor look, though. I just wish he just wasn’t so obviously a madman.
The difference between the two is that people were laughing WITH Age of Ultron and AT Murderman vs Othermurderman. They were both mediocre, but the former’s goal was to be fun, and the latter’s goal was to be GRIMDARK SERIOUS BSNIZZ ABOUT HOW SUPERHEROES ARE GROWED UP NOW DOING THE SEX AND THE MURDERTIMES.
All of Snyder’s previous films are a kind of aversive conditioning to watching anything he ever makes. Sure it may be okay, but I can’t take the chance, having suffered before. He tends not to understand characters or stories. You’d think Batman and Superman would be two of the most easily understandable characters in all of fiction, but I hear he doesn’t really get them. I did enjoy hearing from a reviewer I trust that there are redeeming qualities, but the only version of this I’d watch would be the Wonder Woman scenes in isolation.
@1
I think Luthor succeeded in manipulating Bruce to some extend because it was something Bruce actually wanted. His Batman’s rage seems to be much more on the surface and after the events of Man of Steel he needed an outlet and excuse to really let lose, which Luthor promptly provided.
The one one thing I’m really not clear on is Luthor’s motivation here. I get the feeling he knows Darkseid is coming and close the end I got the idea he wanted to kill of Earth’s one “god” to placate Darkseid, but I’m not sure that’s a correct reading, also as it goes against usual Luthor characterization as someone who would bow before no power in the universe.
No, Luthor is not looking to kill Superman at first. He wants Superman to kill Batman and everybody to know it, to completely taint Superman. And he might not bow to Darkseid, but he’s not averse to faking it to achieve greater power for himself.
@4/rm: I feel similarly. Man of Steel had some really good aspects, but the excess and callousness of the third act basically ruined the whole movie for me and turned me off of Snyder decisively. I probably wouldn’t see this movie at all if not for Wonder Woman’s presence. As it is, I don’t feel I can see it in the theater. The noise and sensory overload and endless, tedious disaster porn of MoS’s climax — along with its crass, offensive attempt to invoke 9/11 imagery as superficial spectacle while completely ignoring the issue of human casualties — was so unpleasant it almost drove me out of the theater. I gather this movie is even louder and approaches its action in much the same way — paying lip service to the battle sites being vacant, but still prioritizing hollow destruction over the rescue work that’s the centerpiece of the best superhero action sequences. So I’m going to wait until it comes out on DVD and I can have the option to turn down the volume and to fast-play through the CGI destruction orgies.
I’m afraid I have to agree with QD @3 above, I never really taken to the DC movies, in major part because they take themselves so seriously and come off as pretentious when they are just as silly and full of plot holes as the rest of superherodom. They’re just too stuck up to admit it.
Ok, I haven’t seen it yet, and despite your valiant effort Emily, I still have no desire to give this a chance.
However, this peaked my interest and now I have a burning need to know.
the world’s worst Robin Hood
WHICH ONE? Because both of Superman’s dads have played Robin Hood.
Apparently, you all also missed Jimmy Olsen getting gunned down by terrorists in his only scene, because “We don’t have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right?”
@9: can’t speak for Emily, but I’d have to give the edge (discredit?) in badness to Costner, just on the basis of his accent…
I went to see this with such low expectations that, added to the utter sheer ridiculousness of the “plot” and the few cool touches here and there, resulted in my actually having a blast. I’m one of the few Man of Steel apologists out there, but this one is pretty much beyond playing devil’s advocate, though it might, depending on your views, be one of those “so bad it’s good” flicks, though those don’t tend to be uber-expensive blockbusters with the resources not to suck in the first place had the people involved deigned to do their job.
#9 I think Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” is the worst. Like Snyder’s Superman, it makes the mistake of turning its formerly cheerful hero into a dopey, grimdark mess. At least Costner’s version, despite the bad accent, remembers, oh yeah, this is supposed to be fun!
So, I completely hated this movie. If we put it in percentages, I have 99% terrible things to say about this movie, and the other 1% I’ll leave for recognition of how good the cast was despite all of the other awful elements.
That being said, Emily, I love your affable optimism.
There’s a good film somewhere in there. It happens to be buried under a lot of nonsense and a very incoherent script, incapable of following through with motivations and dramatic moments (except for the very end).
There are good scenes, but they lack context and proper followthrough. There are definitely enjoyable moments, but the movie definitely feels like a product of committee writing rather than an organic follow-up to Man of Steel. It’s actually hard to blame Snyder. I feel he honestly tries to make a good film out of this, with his distinct visual style. But there’s only so much room to maneuver within the studio and DC’s directives.
To me, the problems began back when Nolan set the tone for the Batman films while people failed to respond to Singer’s take on Superman. Someone then decided to make a moody Superman and this is the result we got.
@11: I don’t remember what Costner’s accent was (I saw that movie ages ago and didn’t even pay attention at the time since English is not my first language), but whatever it was, it’s not like there is an “authentic” accent any Robin Hood can have, is it? Was he faking a British accent? That would be stupid, since there is absolutely no reason to do so and Robin Hood, had he existed, certainly would not have had an accent that didn’t exist yet for many centuries, speaking a modern, also-not-going-to-exist-for-many centuries version of the language that someone of his station in that period would probably not be speaking in the first place. If he was just speaking in his own accent, there was nothing wrong about that.
When they make a Robin Hood movie where the main character speaks Anglo-Norman and struggles to speak to Will Scarlett and Little John in a language halfway between the Anglo-Saxon of Beowulf and the Middle English of Chaucer (or, OK, he can talk modern French and they can talk Chauncer’s Middle English, I’m not that nitpicky), then we can talk authenticity. ;) /jk
I had, no problem getting the characters’ motivations, and a big part of it for Batman is that he’s in crisis, and Lex Luthor has next to nothing to do with it. He was already struggling with job burnout — fairly late in the movie, he tells Alfred, “Criminals are like weeds. You pull one up and a new one grows up to take its place” — when the battle between Superman and Zod killed and maimed hundreds of his employees, many of them his friends, all his responsibility, and he is utterly impotent to prevent it. That sense of futility is driving him to greater and greater violence in an effort to make a difference. Through his experience with Superman and Wonder Woman, he sees that he can make a difference, and begins trying to be a better man — hence not branding Luthor in their jail-cell confrontation.
Superman’s crisis is much like what he experiences in Paul Dini and Alex Ross’ “Superman: Peace on Earth.” For all his power, he is sane and decent, so his mind can’t go where the likes of Luthor can go, into labyrinths of cruelty and evil, and so he can be caught flat-footed by appalling acts of evil. It makes him doubt the worth of humanity, but seeing Batman realize he was wrong, and strive to make it right, helps restore his faith.
The accent was the least of my problems with Costner’s Robin Hood. The problem is that I’ve always found Costner a total void of charisma, an anti-presence that my attention inexorably retreats from as if he were emitting a low-level Somebody Else’s Problem field. In Prince of Thieves, it was like there was a Robin Hood-shaped hole in the center of the movie.
Actually, that’s one of the more positive things I can say about Man of Steel. While its version of Jonathan Kent was a reprehensible character who was the diametric opposite of everything Jonathan Kent is supposed to be, I actually found Costner to be an actual presence for once, at least marginally.
I agree with your views completely! But I felt Batman falling for Lex’s manipulation seemed somewhat justified because of the situation he is in. Robin is dead, something else has happened to Bat Girl. He is tired of everything and is clearly into branding criminals.
I feel like they could have shown the reasons behind his jadedness a bit more than just giving non-understandable references. Actually, many of my friends who came to the movie did not even catch the robin suit.
On the other hand, I liked the scene where Batman and Alfred talk and he says killing Superman should be my legacy and he goes to his death voluntarily. Maybe he thinks the stuff that happened to Robin are his fault and he is giving up his life in trying to protect the world from an alien threat.
By the end of the movie, after the fight with doomsday where he is very clearly outmatched, he realises there are threats from outside the world now, stuff that he cant face alone. That’s the reason he wants to form the Justice League.
I think the difference between AoU and this was that, AoU felt like it knew what it was doing. It had one purpose of setting up the subsequent marvel movies and did it perfectly. In this case, this movie felt like a combination of plots which had the potential to be made into individual movies.
Emily’s byline piqued my interest; she is the best there is at what she does.
But this post did not make it more likely I would go see this movie.
@19 – leviathan0999: Yes, I agree with everything you say. I had no trouble following all that in the film. Also, I wish I had noticed the not branding Lex bit; I recorded a review of the film for my podcast last night, and I mentioned that Superman inspires Batman to be a better hero; but did not notice the not branding was part of that too.
Man, I want to go see this movie again! (And I will.)
> On the other hand, the soundtrack is phenomenal.
Co-credited to Junkie XL, or Tom Holkenborg, who also did the soundtrack to Mad Max: Fury Road. The dude’s good.
@17 Eduardo-
“To me, the problems began back when Nolan set the tone for the Batman films while people failed to respond to Singer’s take on Superman. Someone then decided to make a moody Superman and this is the result we got.”
I can’t agree with this at all. Nolan’s movies were serious but they were never dark in the way Man of Steel was. There are very humorous bits, there’s his loving relationship with Alfred, lots of moments of genuine heroism and him saving children and hostages, etc, and most of all the movies revolved around the central plot point of his refusal to take a life. WB took entirely the wrong lessons from the Nolan movies, but that doesn’t make it Christopher Nolan’s fault. His take on Batman was extremely optimistic, by the end of the trilogy he has won, crime in Gotham is basically defeated, people believe in the city again, and Bruce even gets a happy ending.
I also can’t agree that Singer’s take on Superman was real optimistic. He spends most of the movie creepily spying on his ex-girlfriend and trying to steal her away from a good man that spent five years raising Superman’s kid without knowing it. It was less cynical than Man of Steel but it was hardly a real optimistic take on the character either.
@25/SKO: I don’t think Eduardo’s saying these films are the same as Nolan’s. I think he means that they’re trying to imitate the surface darkness of Nolan’s films without understanding the underlying substance, and without understanding how wrong it is for Superman.
And I don’t think he’s saying Singer’s take was optimistic — just that it didn’t succeed financially. Remember, the executives making these decisions are businesspeople, not creative people. They don’t understand creative concerns but only care about what makes money or doesn’t. And they saw that the only DC superhero movies that were consistently successful were Nolan’s Batman movies, and so, by the simplistic logic of the network executive, that meant all other DC superheroes should be done like Nolan’s Batman.
@26, Fair enough, I still don’t know what he meant by “while people failed to respond to Singer’s take on Superman. Someone then decided to make a moody Superman and this is the result we got.”
I’d advise him to really rewatch Superman Returns, there was a lot of moody superman, plenty of nauseating, heavy-handed dialogue about him being Space Jesus, etc. I hate Moody Superman as much as the next guy but he was already there in Superman Returns, Man of Steel just ramped it up to 11.
@27/SKO: Yeah, unfortunately the whole “Superman = Jesus” thing has been there since the first Richard Donner movie (Brando-Jor-El actually says “I have given unto them you, my only son” or words to that effect). Which is really misguided, because Superman was created by a couple of Jewish kids, and he doesn’t save us by dying for our sins, he saves us by punching bad guys. (And really, his origin story owes more to Moses than Jesus.)
@28, yeah and the problem with Superman Returns was that it didn’t even try to make a Superman movie, it tried to make an homage to Richard Donner’s Superman, which was flawed from the get go, but when you set out trying to make a pale imitation of a flawed movie, you lose all of the original’s charm and you’re just stuck with the flaws.
@28 – Chris: Well, Jesus was also created by Jewish people, albeit with less punching.
@29 – SKO: Exactly that, I said as much in the review of BvS I recorded last night for my podcast.
@29/SKO: Yeah, Superman Returns disappointed me because I wanted to see Bryan Singer do a fresh reinterpretation of Superman like he did for the X-Men, but instead we got a really expensive Donner-Superman fan film. Although it didn’t help that the directing was just so damn subdued. Every actor was underplaying it — even Spacey’s Luthor was subdued compared to the Hackman Luthor he was imitating. Which, in retrospect, served Brandon Routh particularly poorly. I found him totally unconvincing as Superman in SR, but his performance as Ray Palmer/the Atom in the Arrowverse has changed my mind and convinced me that he could have been a great Superman, if he’d been allowed to play the role with the same sense of fun and eagerness he brings to Ray.
@30/lordm: Well, Jesus was a Jewish person, but the idea of him as a dying/resurrecting savior figure — which is what Superman movies since Donner have been playing on — is Christian by definition.
I think if you get to the core of the character as created by Siegel and Shuster, the thing he has in common with Jesus is not being a godlike Messiah, but rather being a champion of the lower classes against their oppressors. Although his methods were less “turning the other cheek” and more “Cleansing of the Temple.”
>@28 – Chris: Well, Jesus was also created by Jewish people, albeit with less punching.
@30 – Thank you, lordmagnusen, for the best thing I’ve read in several days.
@31 – Chris: Yes, I agree with what you say; Superman, at is inception, is a hero of the downtrodden.
@32 – lumineaux: My pleasure. :)
In RE all the comments about Costner’s Robin Hood accent, someone had to say it:
When the reaction of critics to a movie, show, or book is this rabid, I usually wonder if there’s something wrong beyond what they are actually saying. It may be the work didn’t meet their high expectations, or they had prior prejudices that soured their experience. (Side example: one critic at AV Club, now at Vox was so overwrought about the TV show The Killing that he wrote about it as if it was a crime against humanity. It wasn’t even the worst thing on television. Wasn’t great, wasn’t terrible. Yet the bile was so out of proportion (among the commenters, as well) that I had to wonder about their emotional states.)
I hardly ever read a critic for objectivity, and certainly almost never rely on them to make a decision to see, read, or to avoid something. Once in awhile a recommendation sparks an interest or brings to my attention something new.
Haven’t seen BvS yet, but there’s a good chance it’s better than the critical mass seems to suggest. I may be among the few who doesn’t reflexively hate Snyder. It seems to be the thing to do these days, kind of like the Shyamalan hate the past decade or so (which I got after seeing the self-indulgent Lady in the Water).
With Watchmen, critics hated on Snyder for too slavishly rendering the source material, but conversely didn’t commend him for improving the ending. Making Dr Manhattan the source of the world-wide fear that defuses nuclear tensions was a far more elegant solution that a giant fake-alien psychic squid that kills a million people. If he’d gone with the space calamari, then the same critics would have laughed so hard, it would have been heard from the moon (like the loudest band in the world; see Douglas Adams for ref).
So taking all the howling with many grains of salt till I see it for myself.
@37/Sunspear: I think the meme about how unfair the critics are being is itself rather unfair. Looking over the critical reviews vs. the audience reviews, I find they generally agree about what parts of the film work and what parts don’t; the only real difference is in how much weight they give to each category in their ranking. Critics are trained to analyze how films are constructed and executed, while audiences mainly just care about whether they enjoyed themselves. So if a movie is really badly constructed but still moderately entertaining, critics will give more weight to the former while audiences will give more weight to the latter. They aren’t really disagreeing all that much about its quality, its successes, and its flaws; they’re just coming at it with different priorities in mind.
Really, as Keith DeCandido often points out in his Tor.com TV rewatches, the numerical rating is the least important part of a review, a crude attempt to reduce a complex analysis to a single number. It should never really be taken all that seriously. But ratings aggregator sites elevate the numerical ranking to the sole arbiter of quality, which is very misleading. Especially for a movie like this, where most of the reviews are very ambivalent, finding plently of positives and negatives in the movie. How do you meaningfully reduce such a mixed review to a binary “Fresh/Rotten” assignment? That’s never going to be accurate. I’ve read some Rotten Tomatoes “Fresh” reviews for BvS that sounded every bit as critical as the “Rotten” reviews.
Part of the issue, I think, is that movies these days have become increasingly targeted toward a specific segment of the viewing public, and so to a large degree, the people who still go to see movies in the theater are the people who are predisposed to like the kind of movies that get made today. And those often tend to be movies that prioritize action and spectacle and excess over everything else. People don’t go to movies like this expecting intelligence or rich plotting; they go expecting a big, noisy, visually spectacular thrill ride. And that’s why movies by directors like Michael Bay and Zack Snyder keep succeeding despite their innate stupidity and terrible writing. Movies have increasingly become a niche market whose appeal is defined by things other than intelligent writing.
(For what it’s worth, though, even the audience ratings for BvS on Rotten Tomatoes have been inching consistently downward along with the critic ratings. When it opened, I think it was at around 38% with critics and 80% with audiences; but as of this writing, it’s down to 29% with critics and 71% with audiences. Granted that the numbers can’t be taken too seriously, but I wonder if it’s the kind of movie that holds up less well on repeat viewings. Although I’ve heard some people say they liked it better — or hated it less — the second time.)
Sunspear, I agree with you. Critics were far too hard on this film (as were many fans, even before it was actually released, creating an adverse environment for its reception); and some of them make it obvious that they weren’t even paying attention. One particular critic I saw quoted in another article here on Tor, Vulture’s David Edelstein, says “Most of Metropolis’s sheeple seem to like Superman, though one woman complains that “he answers to no one, not even to God.”
Now, I have to watch the movie again, but I’m pretty sure the woman that says that is not a Metropolis citizen, but someone brought from the desert area where Superman rescued Lois from, where a massacre ensued afterwards.
@35 – I’m really glad somebody finally posted that :) I don’t know who the worst Robin Hood is, but I think we can all agree Cary Elwes is the best ;)
@39/lordm: I think it’s unfair to generalize like that. Everyone reduces it to the meme that it’s only “the critics” who hate the movie, playing into the age-old cliche that critics are an elitist bunch who are just trying to be mean for its own sake. But I’ve read equally harsh reviews from people who are not professional critics — including a number of people who are professional comic-book writers and editors, people who had every reason to want this movie to succeed but were deeply disappointed in the results. And as I’ve said, if you actually read the reviews in detail instead of just looking at the aggregate numbers, you’ll find that the majority of laypeople and critics are actually largely in agreement about the specific positives and negatives of the film; the difference is mainly in how they weigh those against each other, and it’s a much narrower difference than the aggregate numbers imply.
And really, no single review is likely to get every detail right; I’m sure there are similar mistakes of fact in many of the positive reviews for the film as well. Humans are fallible by nature. So cherrypicking isolated errors like that doesn’t prove a thing. There’s no need to insult anyone’s perceptiveness just because they disagree with your opinion. Two people can be equally well-informed, yet sincerely arrive at opposing conclusions because their perspectives and standards are different.
Chris, I didn’t say it was just professional critics. I know a lot of regular audience members are also saying they didn’t like the movie. And yes, a lot of comic book pros didn’t like it, and a lot of us did. A lot of Superman fans liked Man Of Steel and this movie (me included), and a lot of people who I know are just as bona fide fans (not fanboys) hated them.
But I also know (because I’ve seen it over the past couple of years), that a lot of people started hating the movie from the moment they announced Affleck was Batman, or even before, from the moment they hated MoS and decided they would hate every movie from the same team
And I did not insult anyone, not for disagreeing with me, or for anything else. But I do believe that if a reviewer can’t even follow a simple plot point in the movie, they’re not paying enough attention and not caring about the movie they’re reviewing at all. That review I quoted is just one of a few I’ve seen where it’s evident the reviewer didn’t pay much attention to the film, and I’ve seen it happen before with other films.
I do agree that two very well-informed persons can arrive at different conclusions because of their standards and perspectives. In fact, I’m positively marveled (since MoS) at the fact that people with the same love and knowledge for the characters, or the same knowledge about filmmaking reach the opposite consclusion.
@@@@@37. Sunspear
I certainly recommend seeing the movie. Not that I would generally recommend it, but because it sounds like you have an interest in the subject matter, and I do think you need to see for yourself if you enjoy it. To anyone who was on the fence, I would tell them “You can skip this one.” As a superhero movie, it is … fine, I guess. It is certainly not great. It is certainly not the worst film ever. I didn’t go in with preconceived notions (I don’t hate on Snyder, I agree with your thoughts on Watchmen pretty much 100%, and enjoyed that movie quite a bit). My main issues with BvS really revolve around the story, not the actors/director/cinematography. Hope you enjoy it more than I did!
@@@@@39. lordmagnusen
You’re exactly right – I read that same review and was thinking “Wait, did the reviewer actually think that woman was from Metropolis?” Perhaps Edelstein simply worded that particular line poorly though.
Well, yes, maybe it was poor wording…
@42/lordm: I still think it’s cherrypicking to discredit the opposition. Yes, there are always going to be some reviews that get details wrong. Sturgeon’s Law applies to reviews as much as to anything else. But unless you can do a thorough statistical analysis showing that there’s a consistent correlation between how accurate the reviews are and how positively or negatively they rate the film, then pointing it out proves nothing. (Ditto with your non sequitur about the early reactions to Affleck. Unless you can prove that the people who reacted that way then are the same specific people who reacted negatively to the film now, it doesn’t mean a thing.) It’s just ad hominem argument, distracting from the merits of the thing itself by questioning the merits of the people discussing it. And that’s never a good tactic.
Yeah, I was enthusiastic about the Batman casting, but everything I’ve seen from the movie has turned me off.
Criticizing a review that shows the critic was not paying attention the film is criticizing the review for its own merits, or lack thereof. But no, I can’t statistically prove anything, so I don’t have anything more to say on that front.
Really, when it comes to comparing critic vs. audience reactions via something like Rotten Tomatoes, it doesn’t help that RT uses two conflicting standards to rate pro and amateur reviews, with pro reviews being reduced to a binary up/down rating while user reviews are on a 5-star scale. There’s just no meaningful way to compare the two. Most of the reviews for this film are highly ambivalent, so how do you really reduce that to a simple yes/no? I’ve seen “Fresh” reviews for BvS that were just as harsh as many of the “Rotten” reviews. I checked RT’s site, and it gives no information for how it assigns a “positive” or “negative” value to each individual review. So how can we really say they’re categorizing them fairly?
I mean, the “Tomatometer” says the film is at 29%, but if you look at the fine print below that, it says that the average critic rating for the film is 5/10. So doesn’t that mean the Tomatometer should be at 50%? The Tomatometer score is supposed to represent the percentage of critics who have given a positive review instead of a negative one, but doesn’t such a binary methodology simply break down when so many reviews are right in the middle? I don’t think the Tomatometer score shows that the critics are being unduly harsh, I think it shows that aggregate ratings systems are unreliable.
I don’t pay much attention to RT; but I do know a lot of people (just my anecdotal evidence, no statistics) saw the Tomatometer was at a low score for BvS right after reviews started coming in and started posting and sharing memes about it, saying how its ratings were lower than Batman & Robin, etc. They were reinforcing their already negative opinion of a film they hadn’t seen yet, and propagating a negative image of a many movie others hadn’t seen yet.
We did criticize movies before they came out back when we had no internet (and we caught news in a magazine or saw a trailer for the first time at a theater); but now it’s so fast, and so overwhelming, that a lot of people end up forming their opinion without seeing the film, from stuff posted by people who haven’t seen it yet either.
Saw the movie tonight with my girlfriend. She’s not a comic geek, so was interested in her reaction. She’s also reaching a saturation point regarding comic derived movies. Says I get one more this year, which will probably be Civil War. After that, I’m on my own. She gives it a B-, mostly because the main story didn’t flow well enough, was interrupted so often by side concerns like Batman’s dreams/”future visions”, so that it became confusing.
I agree with her assessment in that BvS suffers from some of the same problems as Age of Ultron in needing to set up future movies in the franchise. Whedon talked about how frustrating it got to deal with the studio suits who wanted certain scenes in AoU, like the setup for Thor: Ragnarok that had little to do with the main plot. However, as a long time comic book reader, none of it, like the giant omega symbol and para-demons, was confusing in the least. In fact, much of it works on a thematic level. All the talk of gods and demons forecasts fairly well what’s coming, assuming the viewer knows the New Gods mythology.
There are also some intriguing hints of Batman lore, like his comment about what happened to allies in years past who didn’t stay heroic. This could be read as a reference to Jason Todd and the theories about the new Joker’s identity. The most disappointing comment Bruce makes is the verbatim quote of Dick Cheney’s 1% doctrine. “If there’s even a 1 percent chance Superman will become evil, we must kill him…” Wonder if Affleck knew where the line came from, since his political leanings are different.. Of course, Batman does admit he was wrong, but it’s till troubling. This can take us down a side road of vigilante heroes leaning toward fascism, which is further complicated by Snyder’s interest in Ayn Rand, but I’ll leave it there.
So, a flawed movie, neither a great work of art, nor a terrible travesty. It’s not even in the bottom half of all time terrible movies. Yes, I could make a list of the errors. An early one is the accusation against Superman of wiping out an African village when clearly bullets were used and he has never used a gun, or would need to. The fact that they are super secret black ops bullets is even dumber. Wouldn’t you want to cover your tracks in a frame-up? The gullibility of the Senator and some of the public is also questionable. Chalk it up to some bad writing.
The war drums on the soundtrack when Wonder Woman was on screen was… stirring. Disclosure: I’ve tried for years to get my girlfriend to dress up as Wonder Woman. Unsuccessfully. So I recuse myself from any objectivity I may render on this subject.
Moving on.
So the movie had my attention and I didn’t hate it. Would probably watch it again down the line, maybe in an extended cut. Perhaps once some of the initial overemotional reaction fades, and of course other DC films come out filling in more of the lore, a more meaningful assessment will prevail. Marvel had the breathing room to introduce individual heroes before they were assembled. DC is playing catchup. While it’s not always elegant and often workmanlike, I definitely did not think it was awful.
This movie was a collection of cool scenes mixed with incomprehensible scenes, edited poorly, with rather spotty dialogue, all in service to an imagining of the central heroes that I personally do not agree with. So it’s hard to form a coherent overall summation because the movie itself is all over the place.
Casting was basically very good but still uneven. Cavill was acceptable, Affleck and Gadot were excellent, and Eisenberg was atrocious. Seriously, that is not a version of Luthor that makes any sense. Affleck sold Batman but his willingness to kill really takes away from the character for me. Wonder Woman was very good and used well. Superman was the focus of the story but not a very interesting active participant. Honestly his scenes as Clark were more affecting.
In the end, I enjoyed parts of the movie but the overall experience was very disjointed. I honestly think a better director is needed to coordinate everything. That won’t fix all problems but it would greatly improve things.
I agree with 17. Eduardo Jencarelli. I recognize that, having read comics my whole life, there were parts of this that were just “Oh HELL NO!” for me (like Bats with guns and Martha telling Clark he doesn’t owe the world anything). But this wasn’t quite the piece of crap I was led to believe before I saw it. I don’t feel like I wasted my time, but I probably won’t buy the DVD. Thanks, Emily, for making me feel like I wasn’t the only person who didn’t hate this completely.
Saw this today and came away underwhelmed, though not outright hostile; I think #50/Sunspear and #51/J Town hit a good many points with which I’d agree. Most notably, the plot is badly mangled by the film’s back-door agenda of setting up DC’s equivalent of the MCU, and there are a number of points where the actors are clearly doing the best they can with extraordinarily thin or self-contradictory scripting and direction.
A couple of specific observations:
Emily, I think, does a disservice to Smallville in wishing Eisenberg’s version of Lex Luthor on the show. I’d argue that Michael Rosenbaum is one of the two best live-action Luthors to inhabit the role (John Shea of Lois & Clark being the other). Both actors did a superlative job of making Lex intriguingly complex, and were aided in good part by solid writing in their respective series’ early seasons. I haven’t seen much else of Eisenberg’s work, but I’d argue that the problem with Luthor in Batman v. Superman is that Lex was both very badly miscast and remarkably ill-written. I was considerably startled to discover on Googling just now that Eisenberg and Henry Cavill are the same age (32); judging by the present film, I’d have pegged Cavill as Ben Affleck’s contemporary and Eisenberg as much younger than both. And the thing is, there’s nothing really wrong with Eisenberg’s performance in this movie…except that the character he’s playing isn’t Lex Luthor — it’s Edward Nygma, better known as the Riddler, from Batman’s rogues’ gallery, or at least might as well be.
Christopher’s comments about Brandon Routh are also telling. I’d like Cavill better as Superman if only the script allowed him to be a bit more cheerful, a la Dean Cain or Christopher Reeve. And Affleck wears the Batsuit well enough; it’s just that this conception of Batman makes exactly the same mistake the Nolan trilogy did. Specifically, both the Nolan and Snyder Batmen are Tony Stark wannabes — all their hardware is basically weaponry, and darnitall, the Batmobile is not supposed to be a tank. Batman is more properly a ninja, who achieves his ends via stealth and subtlety. His superpower is that, with the occasional exception of a properly written Lex Luthor, he is the smartest and sneakiest person in the room — for a proper role model in this regard, see David Xanatos of Disney’s Gargoyles, justly immortalized by TV Tropes’ coinage of the Xanatos Gambit. Prior to the Nolan films, comparatively few of Batman’s gadgets were primarily weapons, though some could certainly be used as such — they were tools.
One other frustration, which I’d have to rewatch the film to confirm properly: as I thought back on the movie on the ride home, I was struck by what felt like a nearly total lack of character-driven interaction. We got long sequences — some genuine, some dreamt — in which our three leads (Supes, Bats, and Lex) were off on their own, whereas dialogue-driven scenes were shorter and mostly designed to push plot details forward, the Lois/Clark bathtub scene being a rare exception.
All in all, I’m not nearly as annoyed by this movie as I was by Man of Steel (which I thought started out very well and then went utterly off the rails in the final extended destruct-o-rama). But I find it utterly bizarre that the Warner/DC executive leadership keeps trying to reinvent a wheel that they’ve already perfected. There’s a perfectly good — indeed, excellent — creative writing, storytelling, and production team already in place that’s consistently put out quality feature-length material in the DC comics universe for a number of years now. It’s just that the features are all animated direct-to-video releases. If they’d only put the animated-DCU folks in charge of the live-action movies….
@53/John C. Bunnell: Actually I’ve found the DCU animated movie line to be pretty uneven, especially since James Tucker took over as producer. Their Justice League: War in particular was horrible, although that’s probably largely the fault of the comic-book story it was faithfully adapting. And the animated movies lately have fallen prey to the same mentality as the live-action movies, the belief that DC properties have to be dark and gritty and ultraviolent and PG-13 shading toward R. Some of them are reasonably good, but they’re still preposterously, self-indulgently gory and pandering to a sophomoric notion of sexual sophistication. They often handle female characters as badly as Snyder does, or worse. JL: War‘s Wonder Woman was an inane caricature of an aggressive warrior female, spoiling for a fight and swinging an unsheathed sword around with a casual recklessness that no remotely competent swordwielder would ever show. Son of Batman had Talia spend the whole movie with her catsuit unzipped to the navel and treated the fact that she’d drugged and raped Batman in order to conceive a son as basically a fun evening for Batman. Although their Batman: Year One adaptation deserves credit for improving on Frank Miller’s treatment of Jim Gordon’s wife Barbara, giving her more agency and personality. And judging from the just-released preview, it looks like their Killing Joke adaptation is trying to give Barbara/Batgirl a larger role and more of a presence in the story than Moore and Bolland did, so that she’s more than just a plot device whose assault and crippling exists only to motivate male characters. But it remains to be seen whether they can actually pull that off.
At this point, the only people I really trust to handle DC characters well are Berlanti Productions. And even they’re inconsistent about it.
First off, I have not seen this movie and probably won’t see it. I say probably because even though I have no interest in seeing it my daughter is on the fence about it and if she decides she does want to see it then we will go.
I want to talk about this here, not the first part because I like Ben Affleck and think he could be a really good Batman with a competent director, which I don’t think Zack Snyder is. And that brings me to what I really want to talk about, the whole hate every movie from the same team part. If I have disliked everything that Snyder has done with the exception of 300 (and let’s be honest, he tried his best to fuck that up too) and hated Man of Steel then why would I think I wouldn’t hate this movie? I have absolutely no faith that Snyder can pull this movie off.
The guy can direct some pretty amazing action sequences but he doesn’t know how to tell a story. It’s obvious that he doesn’t understand either Superman or Batman. I mean come on, Supes is not dark and Batman doesn’t kill (also a problem in Nolan’s films).
Just from seeing the trailer I saw way to many stupid decisions being made to want to see this movie. Eisenberg as Lex Luthor and turning Zod into Doomsday (not to mention using Doomsday at all) and then there’s the thing that bugged me the most. Wonder Woman shows up and saves our two super hero combatants, and while WW was definitely cool and all, I was left wondering how her little shield was able to protect anything from an explosion that takes out at least a city block. I mean, just, what? WTF!!!
One last thing, I had no idea that The New Gods were showing up (or is it just Darkseid as the villain?). Orion was always a favorite of mine and I would love to see Darkseid on screen. But I am scared to see what Zack Snyder will do with them. Also, why would Batman be the one to have the dream? I mean, is Bruce a precog now? Again, WTF!!!
@55/billiam: Unless your daughter is a teenager or older, it’s probably best not to take her. I’ve heard stories of parents having to take their young children out of the theater because the movie’s violence scared them to tears. Which is something that nobody should ever have had to say about a movie with Superman in it.
@50 – Sunspear: They don’t accuse Superman of carrying out the massacre, they’re accusing him of being indirectly responsible for it due to his interference in the area.
@56 – Chris: Each parent will know if their child can handle this movie or not. My son is 11, and he understands this is fiction, and I knew it was within his ability to handle (just as he’d watched MoS when he was younger). Daredevil is a bit too much for him, though, and I’m glad I haven’t let him watch it except for an occasional scene.
@57/lordm: Even so, it shouldn’t even be an issue. Making a Superman movie — or comic — that parents have to decide whether it’s safe to expose their children to is a mockery of Superman’s legacy as a character. And I don’t blame Snyder alone for that — it’s been DC and Warner Bros.’s tendency for a long time now to play up the violence and darkness to a degree that makes their material unsuitable for children. I once glanced through a free giveaway comic that was meant to entice new readers to check out DC’s material, and the level of depraved gore and cruelty and body horror in its first few pages was shocking even to me as an adult. I think it would repel more casual or new readers than it attracted, and wouldn’t do much to attract a new audience of young readers who would be needed to ensure that comics remained popular in future generations. And I mentioned how gratuitously violent and sophomorically “adult” their PG-13 DVD movie line is. And then there’s Gotham on TV, which is this bizarre blend of Adam West-level camp and Sam Peckinpah-level ultraviolence. Arrow‘s not quite so bad, but it still aspires to a Nolanesque grittiness. They do have a few things that are accessible to young audiences, like Teen Titans Go and the new DC Super Hero Girls line, but they’re alternate takes and sidelines rather than the main thrust of DC’s efforts. Supergirl and maybe The Flash are the most kid-friendly DC shows in live action.
Basically, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were so important and prestigious that DC has been trying to copy them ever since, imitating their surface darkness without consideration of the underlying message, and just becoming self-indulgently dark for its own sake. And it’s not that that can’t have a place in the franchise, but it shouldn’t be the default, and it shouldn’t be applied to characters it just doesn’t fit.
1: I haven’t read every comment above.
2: Lighting wise, Batman v Superman was entirely too dark and the watching it in 3D just made what little color there was muddy. This was a problem with Man of Steel as well.
3: I enjoyed Man of Steel; for the aspects of fatherhood subtext; for it’s version of Jonathan Kent, who’s only concern is for HIS child; for Lois being a really good investigative reporter; for the unavoidable collateral damage that super-fights always have but is always glossed over everywhere else; for the no-win scenario that forces Superman to kill Zod; for Lois welcoming Clark to “the planet”; for all of the little touches that focus on the man instead of the Super; for Snyder trying to make something more than just a popcorn superhero movie.
4: Batman v Superman was too ambitious. Snyder and Goyer were trying to tell too many stories, introduce too many concepts, appeal to fans and non-fans alike while also appeasing corporate dictates by setting-up the next 15 DCCU movies (a problem I also had with Avenger: Age of Ultron, but which Whedon handled better).
5: I haven’t seen anyone mention that the Waynes were leaving Excalibur (R – 1981) rather than Zorro (NR – 1940), and what that symbolism might mean.
6: I enjoyed Batman v Superman; for a Bruce Wayne who looks like he could be Batman; for Snyder trying to make something more than just a popcorn superhero movie; for a Bruce Wayne who admits to being a criminal; for Holly Hunter’s character being more than just the politician the trailers suggested she was; for all of the characters being smarter than previous incarnations; for a Superman troubled by his being viewed as a god/messiah and his understanding (most of the time) just how fallible and human he is; for a brilliant yet damaged and bat-shit crazy Lex Luthor; for a Wonder Woman who SMILES in the middle of a battle after getting knocked down.
7: This might be the fairest review of Batman v Superman I’ve read.
Chris, all of what you say is relevant, but the age at which each child can watch or not something is (within reasonable limits) for their parents to decide, not just because they’re their guardians, but because they know their kids. I watch stuff with my kid that I know I wouldn’t have been able to watch and enjoy properly at his age, or that I don’t think other kids his age I know are prepared for.
@59/JamesElkins: “for the unavoidable collateral damage that super-fights always have but is always glossed over everywhere else”
I have to disagree with this. First off, MoS totally glossed over the collateral damage, because it just showed buildings being destroyed and almost entirely ignored the people. Other superhero movies have done a much better job remembering that destruction is something that affects human lives rather than just being an excuse for CGI porn; for instance, both Avengers movies showed enormous property damage but also showed the heroes focusing their efforts on protecting civilian lives, something Snyder totally failed to have Superman attempt because Snyder was totally uninterested in the human element. For all that Snyder claims that he was concerned with showing consequences, that’s complete BS, because nowhere in MoS were any consequences shown. The denouement played out as if the destruction had never happened. Nobody even mentioned the destruction. You could read a dialogue-only transcript of the movie and not even be aware that it had happened. True, BvS makes a token attempt to address those consequences that MoS ignored, but it’s achingly clear that it’s an attempt by the filmmakers to patch over the enormous plot hole in MoS after the fact.
And a lot of other superhero films and shows have dealt with the real collateral damage, the human consequences of superhero battles. Jessica Jones and Agents of SHIELD have both dealt with characters suffering from the aftermath of such conflicts. Captain America: Civil War is all about the fallout from the previous MCU films’ events. The Powers TV series has an ongoing subplot about a character who hates Powers (superheroes/villains, though the distinction is rather vague in that show) because his father was killed by one.
Also, the level of damage shown in MoS’s climax was ridiculously exaggerated to a degree that insults the audience’s intelligence. Skyscrapers do not collapse like houses of cards the moment something hits them; they’re specifically designed not to do that. Sure, you can make excuses about Kryptonian superstrength, but we’re still talking bodies the size and mass of adult human males, and that would only do very localized structural damage. Snyder was trying to evoke 9/11 imagery (in a crass and exploitative way), but people forget that the World Trade Center towers burned for over an hour before they finally collapsed. So to say that level of collateral damage was “unavoidable,” or that it somehow made this movie more realistic than others, is ludicrous. It could’ve been easily avoided by having the filmmakers apply a modicum of common sense and credibility to the sequence, instead of the self-indulgent excess of a small child smashing up his Lego city.
There’s also the fact that there was absolutely no story reason for the World Engine to land in Metropolis at all. Superman had never even been there at the time. Lois was the only person Zod had met who had any connection to Metropolis, and he had no evident vendetta against her that would give him a reason to target it. So far from being unavoidable, there was absolutely no legitimate reason why the destruction had to happen at all, except that Snyder wanted to spend millions of dollars making computer-animated buildings fall down and was too incompetent a storyteller to understand that there needed to be a valid reason for it.
@ChristopherLBennett
I have to disagree. While Superman is focused on Zod all he’s thinking about is the people. If you’ve ever been in a fight in a room full of people and furniture, it’s very hard to avoid running into those things even if BOTH people are trying to avoid that and completely unavoidable if only one is. Now, take those to people and give them god like powers make one of them a genocidal maniac with nothing left to loose and you get Man of Steel. I think Snyder is very interested in the human element but Clark Kent’s humanity in particular.
While I agree with you on Jessica Jones and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (you fail to mention Daredevil and I can’t speak on Powers (outside of the comic but it sounds like that keeps close to the subject matter) my comment is on my experience with comics and superhero movies going back personally 40+ years and in General 70+ years. Even Damage Control was a comedic take on Superhero battles.
Captain America: Civil War is just an adaptation of Marvel’s Civil War for the MCU and while I agree it utilizes those elements it’s an attempt to capitalize on a story that already attempted to deal with the issue of unintended consequences then undermined it with an alien invasion. We’ll see how Captain America: Civil War handles all of these issues.
The World Engine landing in Metropolis was really just Zod giving Superman a little FU, he could have landed it on Smallville for the same reasons. Those skyscrapers didn’t collapse just because something hit them, in most cases it was because they were structurally damaged by Zod’s heat vision, in others by crap falling out of the sky. Never mind all of the structural stresses put on all of the buildings around the world engine that were already damaged (but still standing) by the the gravitational waves of the world engine.
@MaGnUs: Even accusing him indirectly makes little sense. The witness at the Senate hearing seems to imply he was seen taking out villagers. If anything, Superman could be, and perhaps should be, accused of focusing only on saving Lois and letting Luthor’s thugs run wild.
It’s left muddled and unclear, unless it’s meant as an echo of how messy real world Senate hearings with an agenda can get. So if you’re predisposed to like Superman, then he’s being persecuted. If not, then he deserves to be punished.
There’s a murkiness to the politics and worldviews in both MoS and BvS, which perhaps leads to the divisiveness they inspire, almost like a Rorschach test. One person can see Jonathan Kent as a paragon of fatherhood for fiercely protecting his son at all costs. Another can see him as deluded, telling his son that the lives of a busfull of kids is not worth exposing his secret.
Art should stand on it’s own, but I’m almost afraid to find out the political leanings of Goyer and Snyder (already a professed fan of Ayn Rand). What if Batman as a gun nut is a result of their right wing(nut) conservatism? Even though they are adapting/shoehorning/amalgamating Dark Night Returns with Death of Superman, they are nowhere near Frank Miller levels of nuttiness. But if they continue to lean in that direction, it’d be a huge turnoff.
Here’s an interesting breakdown of DKR’s influence over subsequent comics stories:
http://www.avclub.com/article/dark-knight-returns-casts-long-enduring-shadow-sup-234457
This is before 9/11 of course and before Miller went cracked from paranoia and hatred.
Exactly.
#59: But they aren’t. Others have already pointed out the lack of logic involved in blaming Superman for deaths demonstrably caused by gunfire. Bruce/Batman’s detective work on Clark was absurdly sloppy; he figured out that “Clark Kent” was Superman’s secret identity, but either failed to finish reading his own dossier or failed to note down important details about Clark’s family, such as his mother’s first name. Clark knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman, but also evidently didn’t bother to investigate Bruce’s family tragedy, which might have given him somewhat more understanding of the character. Both Bruce and Clark fail to recognize the degree of setup involved in Lex’s yellow-journalism attacks on Bruce. And this version of Lex Luthor is clearly one of the least clever ever presented, as he seems to have no army of lawyers or backup plan in place so as to avoid being hauled off to jail at the end of the movie. (Remember, a key aspect of modern Lex’s criminal genius is that he’s in the class of criminals that’s too smart to let himself get caught personally.)
@66/John – You make a solid point about Lex in BvS. Maybe that’s what bothered me about him. I know I don’t like the way Eisenberg plays the part, but at least he plays it as written (one assumes). But not making sure he’s “untouchable” (even though Mercy is around as an enforcer!) — yeah, it seems like a step backward to the Lex who was always getting locked up in the comics, even in the Christopher Reeve movies.
Interestingly, though, both my 14-year-old son and his friend, both high school freshmen, thought Lex was one of the best things in the movie. When I asked why, I didn’t get much response beyond “he was really creepy” (I don’t think he was). But I wonder if anyone else has noticed different receptions of Eisenberg’s Lex across age lines?
I am conflicted about both of Snyder’s Superman movies. I wish we were shown more, not just told, that this Superman is an inspiration to millions, a shining beacon of hope, etc… because almost all we’ve seen him do for our ourselves, as Superman, is act as the harbinger of catastrophe and choas, save for his self-sacrifice at the end of BvS. And that’s a BIG exception, but it seems to come out of nowhere. I just can’t believe that, 18 mos after Man of Steel, Superman can both still be conflicted about his role on Earth and a hero to much of the world’s populace. How does that work, exactly, when Clark’s top priority — and I’m not saying it’s wrong; a consistent character could be written around this choice — is establishing his own life with Lois?
Emily, I’m not down with all the parts of the film you are, but your review and writing absolutely rock. Thank you for a very entertaining and insightful article!
I’ve theorized (and others around the web too) that this Lex is a clone of the original, passing off as his son. Any failings might be related to the clone’s mind degenerating; and it’s all part of the real Lex’s plan. We’ll see.
Other than that, I agree, Eisenberg played the character well within what was written for him to play (as far as we can see).
@MaGnUs : The final Lex scene makes it clear he’s a creature of Darkseid, as does his talk of gods and demons throughout the movie. He acts as if he’s either possessed or in possession of knowledge that’s driving him insane. (A recent Justice League storyline actually has him replacing Darkseid, I think, while Batman replaces Metron. Crazy stuff.)
If you’re predisposed to dislike the movie, this can be perceived as another flaw caused by the need to set up future storylines.
I am not a particularly huge Superman in the first place (I never got into the Reeve movies, and I remember thinking Superman Returns was a bit too long, and was also kind of irritated by the whole ‘trying to steal Lois from her boyfriend’ plot) – and in fact, I haven’t even seen the Man of Steel movie (I’m inclined to think I’d have the same opinion on CLB about it). I admit, I do kind of like dark/gritty Batman (even though I know that not every incarnation of Batman has been like that) but it doesn’t mean EVERYTHING has to be like that. Of course, the trick is, how do you make a character that is still ultimately non-gritty and more or less unambiguously good, but still make them interesting and have conflicts and things they struggle with. (And maybe it turns out this movie isn’t portrayign Superman as the dark and gritty hero the common critical consensus seems to be saying he is). Maybe it’s just a statement that in this day of age, we don’t really trust authority or those in power to do the right thing and use their power responsibly (Look, I’ll be honest, if there were real mutants or real Kryptonians or real Avengers or what have you, I’d probably not be super filled with warm and hopeful feelings about that).
However, this article actually makes me want to rent this one at some point, just because I’m kind of curious about it. Actually, of all the things in the trailer, I thought this version Lex looked the most interesting to me (well, that and Wonder Woman). But I have zero comic experience so maybe that is blaspheme of the highest order ;)
It might be that I’m actually a better audience for this type of thing since I don’t have particularly strong feelings/investment in the characters or how they should be and can more objectively appreciate an alternate take on it. (Which is probably ironic/hypocritical because I actually kind of can’t stand it when people do that to MY franchises, ha. Gritty Superman will not raise nearly the ire in me as Ring-stealing Faramir or Mopey Luke).
@70 – Sunspear: I believe he got information about Darkseid’s imminent arrival from the Kryptonian ship’s computer. But he acts un-Lexy before being in contact with the computer.
Aw please. If Batman V superman was bad then Age of Ultron was complete trash