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Post by artteach on Apr 5, 2016 20:58:11 GMT -5
Was just wondering what the DC2 members thought of the big movie?
I spent alot of the time mentally noting which parts came from what comic. It was mostly just a mash up of Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman peppered with a little Red Son, Death in the Family, Batman: Year One, and probably others I didn't catch.
It suffered from Goyer's need to monologue and not have actual dialogues. You could pick out which scenes he had written by the level of gratuitous monologues. I really dislike pretty much everything Goyer has ever written.
Synder can really choose camera angles and is great with action. He really lacks when directing any scene with emotion or humor.
On casting Affleck, Iron, Fishburn, and Caville are great. Lex Luthor did okay for who they wanted him to be. They don't seem to be able to cast female roles. Lois, Wonder Woman, the Senator, and Mercy all are just not the right person for the role.
Johnathan and Martha and great actors, but the writers miss totally the core of each character. I don't understand why you bring back Papa Kent just to have him explain to not try again. The message of Superman is not,"Don't try you will just make it worse."
It is not a bad movie, it is not what they say in reviews, it is just predictable and misses the whole point of Superman and Superheroes.
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Post by UltimateDC on Apr 5, 2016 21:06:19 GMT -5
My review is in my signature. Spoiler alert: I didn't like it.
-UDC
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Post by artteach on Apr 5, 2016 22:03:18 GMT -5
UDC very good review you hit the nail on the head with the basic fact that this movie is made by people who don't like or understand Superheroes.
Marvel did not try to make Captain America more edgy, hipper, gritty, or all of the crap they have done to Superman. They presented the real Captain America and generally people have loved it. They make Iron Man the true character. Thor is the Thor from the comics. Compare the first Hulk and the Wolverine Origins Deadpool to the current Hulk and Deadpool. Marvel learned from mistakes to use the source material and core personality of the character. Superman is not a set of powers, he is a special personality.
DC movies are also way to serious and try to much to be deep and grand while being very shallow in thought.
Hopefully Suicide Squad can have a little joy.
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Post by HoM on Apr 6, 2016 14:44:39 GMT -5
I really enjoyed it. Structurally, the first act (up until the scene in Congress) felt like a series of short vignettes, choppy scenes that were built more like small music videos than film that flowed, and I think that’s a massive part of Snyder’s aesthetic. It was disjointed, but I followed along, and I really like the characterisation of our main characters. When the Congress scene happened everything seemed to come together, and I appreciated they didn't string this thing along. Talk about compressed storytelling.
I wish Cavill was a bit more cheerful, a bit more inspiring, but I like his take and I think he’s got the look down. Affleck was a brilliant Batman, and Irons was spot on as Alfred. Amy Adams wasn’t serviced well by the plot but she’s a great actress and there’s a spark there as Lois. Gal Gadot was so alluring, and her Wonder Woman was very much the Wonder Woman of the nu52—that smile during the final battle such a Geoff-Johns-writing-Justice-League bit—but she was great.
A big problem people have had is Batman ‘killing people’, but he was inadvertently killing folks across the previous films and it never bothered me. Maybe because it was so blasé in looking at it, and maybe I was Snyder’s ‘manslaughter’ comments, but again, I didn’t care. The final Batman fight was unlike ANY we'd seen on film-- like a fight from the Arkham Asylum franchise! Great!
I get that this isn’t MY Batman or Superman. I have an idea of who the characters are and that’s how I write them. Superman’s questionable upbringing, with Jonathan Kent telling him not to reveal himself… I get it. I get that. Clark doesn’t owe the world anything and shouldn’t feel like he does—
(A quick aside, I was really happy with the dichotomy between Clark and Superman. Clark is Superman. Always. Do I wish he put a bit more a façade on when he was in his journalist guise? I guess, maybe, but he’s a true believer and doesn’t care who knows it. I watched a great review that said that unless you knew Clark was Superman in this film, you’re given nothing. There’s no real connectivity between the two characters, Clark’s in one scene and Superman’s in the next, and I thought that was funny. The writers weren’t forgiving of newcomers, but isn’t Superman our modern fable? A mythical being we dreamed up?)
--and I like that. Even though his parents were terrified of the world taking him away or him giving everything for the world, he still gave everything up until the end, because that’s his true character. They didn’t want him getting hurt. That’s good parenting, that. Do what you think is best and do what’s best for you and if the two interact then great.
What else? Batman’s characterisation was EXCELLENT and the reasons he wanted to take down Superman did make perfect sense. Lex Luthor, of course, that giddy, coke-addicted millennial, had a massive hand in it, and his sneaky sneaky playing of both sides was so insidious. I’m not a big Eisenberg fan so I found him grating, but he’s playing such a dickhead, it was brilliant.
Two scenes made me giddy. Firstly, the opening for Bruce. What a REAL Batman sequence. Rushing head first into the unknown because people need him. How true to the character is that? And the reconfiguring of the Battle of Metropolis from the ‘ground’ was so awe-inspiring. Great scope. And the second was our first REAL Batman scene, where he’s on the side of angels fully, on the same side as Superman, and he takes on KGBeast (amazing). That whole sequence was brilliant, made my heart race, and I’m disheartened they released it before the film came out. If I’d seen it fresh, I’d have cheered.
Doomsday was okay. Didn’t care for the rehash of the Death (and eventual Return), because where does it leave Clark but that finally battle with the Trinity was what it needed to be. The actual Batman vs Superman fight was GREAT. The internal logic spot on. It wasn’t one sided, it showed Bruce to be a thinker, and Superman got his licks in. The whole “THEY’RE GONNA KILL MARTHA” was SO eye-rolling, but how great was that opening origin scene (with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, aka John Winchester, the Comedian, and now Negan, playing Thomas Wayne!), with Ma Wayne actually bum-rushing Joe Chill? She didn’t keel over, she wasn’t passive, and it was all the more tragic.
I enjoyed it. I acknowledge the flaws but it didn’t take away. I hope it breaks a billion dollars ASAP, because it needs to make back its overall budget ($800 million including promotion) so I can get a solo Batman film. It wasn’t perfect. It made sense in the universe we have to accept, and I’m looking forward to what comes next! Suicide Squad should be great. I’m really accepting of new and interesting stuff and I like what I see so far. I ALSO withhold judgement of EVERYTHING until I actually see it, so that’s why I saw the film the Friday it came out, so I didn’t get it ruined and I got my fill immediately.
Finally, we’ve got a series coming out (today) called Most Wanted that thematically bridges the Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad films. It’s my take on that conflict, and it’s coming out as soon as I finish typing up this scrawl. I’m psyched for it, it’s building on DC2 continuity and using the context of a battle in the Zeitgeist, the public consciousness, to play around with all the pieces we have in play. COMING IN AN HOUR OR SO!
I’d probably give it 3 ¼ stars out of 5. I want another Man of Steel though, because I think Cavill and his cast is great, and I wanted to see a new Batman film with Affleck as the Dark Knight. It got me excited, and that’s all that matters.
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