Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
First let me preface this by saying I'm a borderline obsessed batnerd. Batman is by far my favorite comic character of all time. I've got a Batman comic collection that dates back now to the late 50s. There's a small bat-sticker somewhere on every car I've ever owned. I'm able to appreciate every bat incarnation on the big and small screen to a degree. Adam West, Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale and now Affleck all brought something different to the table with varying degrees of success. At this point I think Keaton probably made the best Bruce Wayne and Bale (minus the stupid voice) probably makes the best Batman. But I'm not even sure about that.
What I am sure about is that Affleck was not the best Batman, nor was he the best Bruce Wayne. But he wasn't always the worst either. I was so unnerved by his casting that I expected him to bomb in a big way. That he didn't is about the best I can say.
And now the movie. I'm sure many of you will like it. I've now seen it and it wasn't horrible, but I have no interest in seeing it again. It missed so many marks and cracked under it's own weight in innumerable places.
What a plodding, ponderous, mangled mish mash of a handful of stories. The director was so ham-handed, so mechanically driven that the heart of the story simply didn't exist.
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Here there be spoilers......
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Among the myriad problems:
1) The run time. The movie (with the 15 previews that came before it) started at 9:30 and let out at 12:18. There just wasn't enough meat to carry the story for that length of time so it bogged down terribly in a number of places. There were too many pointless threads that meandered nowhere. The director really is a hack. By the time it got to the Batmanning and Supermanning, many in our crowd had mentally checked out.
2) Amy Adams was mind-numbingly horrible. Every second she was on the screen was an absolute waste.
3) As bad as Amy Adams was, Holly Hunter was exponentially worse. Dreadful. Her motives were never clear, her stances were left unexplained and her death was welcome.
4) Eisenberg. Maybe he'll grow into it in the future, but his frenetic bopping simply is NOT Lex Luthor. And you'd think that a movie that ran close to three hours would have been able to rationally explain his Superman loathing. But it didn't. Complete fail. Oh, it hinted at it here and there, but the root of his animus was never successfully explored.
5) Batman. Yes, I know the current trend is to portray him as a morose and brooding bitch, but that's not all he is (or should be). There was the obligatory training scene where Affleck got to show off his muscles, but his Batman was unconvincing in the fight sequences. Not nimble or agile enough. And guns, bullets, brands, murder... That's not Batman either. The Bat is not a murderous brute, bulling through the city with tanks, rockets and machine guns.
6) Did I mention the director sucked? Two (no, actually three) dream sequences that muddied the plot. Fucking dream sequences. Grrrr.
7) Location, location, location. I've always envisioned Gotham as being New York and Metropolis as being Boston or Chicago or LA or something. Or even vice versa. This fucked up movie is trying to tell me that the two are fucking ACROSS A BAY FROM EACH OTHER? And that the fucking Bat Signal can be SEEN FROM METROPOLIS? No fucking way. Bullshit. Idiotic. That Batman and Superman exist on two peninsulas separated by a sliver of water? And that Batman rarely strays into Metropolis to fuck up Luthor or any of Superman's problems and Superman never drifts across to help with Joker, Clayface, Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Twoface, etc. etc. etc? That's lunacy. If any one thing ruined this movie, that was it.
8) Not enough exposition or explanation. Again, three hours, but so much was left in a muddy mess. Way too much was left just hanging out there for no reason. Why? Why? Why? If Superman can hear Lois fart from half a world away, how come he couldn't hear his mother screaming when she was kidnapped? Was his Super bathtub boner getting in the way?
9) Stupidity. Example: So Batman and Superman fight and Batman's got this spear that he hides somewhere so he can use it in the end. And they crash through block after block of buildings, rooftops, walls, and who knows fuck all. But when he gets Superman down? Why there's that fucking spear, right where he must have left it, within easy reach. The fuck? How could he possibly have planned to have the damn thing just sitting right there? That was one. I could list 50 more but won't.
10) All of a sudden everybody knows who everybody is. Well hey, Clark. What's up Bruce. Everybody in the world has it figured out. Like literally 20 people in this movie. So why even fuck with the masks and fake jobs? Jeez.
11) Wonder Woman setup. Oh, hey, look! That's Chris Pine in the old photo of Wonder Woman! I bet that would make a good origin movie! Could they be ANY more clunk-fuckingly obvious?
12) Doomsday. Eh. Kid behind me wanted to know why King Kong was fighting Batman. Just not well rendered. The story could have been told so much better without that big explosion-laden distraction tacked on to the end.
13) Oh hey! There's Aquaman. And Flash! Ohhh! Cyborg! All clumsily revealed. And where's Green Lantern? Oh, that's right. He's Deadpool now and mocking himself.
14) Superman period. It's hard to get the character right. This guy does as good as anybody I guess, but I just don't care for him or his story at all. He's the Captain America (which Marvel does better) to Batman's Tony Stark-Ironman (which Marvel also does exponentially better).
15) No self awareness. What I like about the Marvel movies is that they are almost completely self aware. They inject just enough humor to remind us that we are supposed to be having fun watching the most improbable bunch of freaks save the world in the most violent and explosive way. Hell, even the first Transformers got that right. Batman v Superman is a relentlessly dark movie. No fun allowed. That makes it much harder to connect with the characters. Why should you care what happens to either of them, really? And what's to fear from lightweight Jesse E? The movie needed a better director.
16) The Dark Knight Returns. Great comic series by Frank Miller that told the story of an older Batman coming out of a forced/negotiated retirement because the city was near out of control. The government (a thinly veiled Ronald Reagan, actually) sends Superman to take him out. Cue epic fight, some masterful bat trickery and a satisfying ending. This movie borrowed pieces of that. The bat suit for the showdown is almost a carbon copy of the one Miller drew up for the comic. So, too is the bulkier batman frame, the fatter bat logo and the much shorter bat ears (believe it or not, ear length is a significant touchstone in bat history. This alteration is a major change from the ears that had gotten longer and longer through Clooney). But whoever did this story didn't take all of Miller's story. Yeah, there was a kryponite weapon, but in the book Green Arrow had it. And Batman did have his foot on Superman's throat. But there wasn't the absolutely ASININE moment of ... "Wait, did you say Martha? Oh hell, my mom's name is Martha too! Dang bitch, I guess I should stop trying to kill your ass and we can just partner up and be all cool together. Man, if you'd just told me her name was Martha, all this seething rage I've been building up for years would have gone away. Martha. Be damned. Her name, too, huh?" My daughter actually blurted out "What the Faaahhhh" when he turned that fast for no good reason.
17) Fishburne. I'm still mad at that racist bastard from his work in Boyz in the Hood. He can kiss my ass.
18) The score. Teeth achingly bad, beat you over the head music. Relentless, pointless pounding. Absolutely worthless.
19) Terrible director. Have I mentioned that? As he has the Justice League contract, I have no hope for that at all. It’s going to suck beyond all imagination and probably kill the super hero genre for the remainder of my natural life.
20) No cohesive focus. Why were Batman and Superman really pissed at each other? Do we know? Do we care? Why jam in the electro monster? And Wonder Woman? The movie would have been so much if it had just taken two hours to compare and contrast the ways Batman and Superman effect their own brands of justice and then set up some legitimate beef between the two that demanded a violent resolution. If it had told the story of each of their relationships with the public maybe. Instead, we got this.
So after all that, would I suggest that you go see the movie? Sure. I actually didn't hate it, but I want so much from a Batman movie that this just left me meh. It wasn't great, it wasn't awful. I will never watch it again. But now I'm definitely not enthused about any Justice League movie and I probably won't do Aquaman, Wonder Woman or Flash. I probably won't even do CA: Civil War. I'm sick of the trailers for that.
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