Clappy’s New Crap Cinema

[Joker]

batman v. superman is underrated.  fight me.

[WhoBibbles]

1 hour ago, Leedles said:

batman v. superman is underrated.  fight me.

MARTHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Joker]

6 hours ago, Dr. Thanos said:

MARTHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

W H Y D I D Y O U S A Y T H A T N A M E

[President Squidward]

the dc universe is bad but teen titans go to the movies is going to make it better

[Clappy]

Guys.  This is going to go down as one of my favorite projects I've ever written for this thread.  It really helped rejuvenate my interest in keeping this thread alive.  But I'm not afraid to admit that this project is going to be so long that I've broken it into two parts.  Because as of this writing, I've written up to nine pages on Microsoft Word and I'm only halfway finished with my Suicide Squad review.  But I've teased this project for two weeks now and I don't want to hold you all in too much suspense anymore.  So you can get a better idea as to how this is going to turn out, I'll post part one now and then wrap up the second part in the next week or so and post it then.  Trust me, you all are going to need the break in between.  

 

Welcome back to one of the original review threads on this forum.  And believe me when I say that this return has been a long time coming.  The same can be said as to what we will be discussing today.

 

THE DC CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

 

 

Yeah this has been something I’ve been meaning to tackle for years now.  Because the trajectory of this cinematic universe has been such a hot topic in the movie blogosphere.   So why not discuss this even further on a SpongeBob forum?

I will start off by saying this.  It’s definitely never boring discussing whatever the hell DC has been doing with their cinematic universe.  Even with the amount of bad entries in this first phase, they at least provide interesting discussions.  Whether it be where it all went wrong or what the future is going to hold if they recast key characters or make Wonder Woman the focal point of the new Justice League from this point forward because the public agreed that was the only good movie so far.  Whatever Warner Brothers decides to do from this point forward, I know I, as well as others, will be watching very curiously.

So where does this all start?  Most will say 2012 when The Avengers made a shit ton of money, but I’d like to go a few years earlier in 2008.  Warner Brothers knew what they had going with their current Dark Knight trilogy and felt that all the money this series was making them was about to run its course with both Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan wanting to do more than just this franchise.  But Warner Brothers wasn’t ready to lose Nolan in their superhero-verse just yet.  So they had him reboot Superman in the same fashion as he rebooted Batman.  The cogs were in place.  It became the start of something bigger though in 2012 when Marvel’s long term planning paid off in huge dividends with The Avengers.  Warner Brothers practically shat themselves thinking “THIS IS WHAT WE WANT”. 

And to be honest, I’m not surprised they did it sooner.  Warner Brothers and DC tried for MANY years to interconnect all these comic book pieces by making a Justice League movie without any sort of build or pay off.  They just wanted all these characters on screen played by relatively cheap actors and a lower budget.  It would have still made them money, but from what I’ve read, the project never took off due to many creative differences.  Which to me, means that they couldn’t get all their pieces in place to have a reason for the Justice League to be together.  But as soon as Marvel made this long term planning strategy work, you bet your asses Warner Brothers knew exactly what they were going to do from this point forward.

Enter Christopher Nolan.  Since Warner Brothers knew that their Batman trilogy wasn’t going to kick start their plans for an extended universe due to both Bale not wanting to be back and Nolan not wanting to direct anymore superhero movies, they did the best thing they possibly could.  Have Nolan produce and help write their first official entry into an extended universe with that Superman movie they’ve been working on up until this point.  Of course, since Nolan wasn’t going to direct, he and the studio handpicked who they thought could handle this project with the same amount of effort, care, compassion….and enter Zack Snyder.

Believe it or not, there was a point in time where Zack Snyder was a hot commodity and not the whipping boy he is now to many movie buffs.  I remember everyone being wowed by 300 like it was 2007 and that was a star making directorial effort.  But suddenly, just like that, Snyder’s goodwill from that quickly evaporated.  Watchmen disappointed many people, not me personally, but it was a financial miss.  His animated owl movie Guardians of Ga’hoole was also received poorly.  Then came the huge trainwreck that was Sucker Punch, where Snyder tried to replicate his 300 formula with women backfired badly both commercially and critically.  Snyder was in need of a major project badly and luckily Nolan hooked him up with Man of Steel.  It was a good idea at the time because part of the problem with Snyder’s previous efforts was that he was too involved with the creative process in both writing and producing.  So with Nolan and his team taking care of all that, you would think Snyder didn’t have to worry as much, right?

Enough preamble, let’s start this review project off with:

 

MAN OF STEEL

 

 

 

Now I know what you are thinking.  This is the part where I post scene by scene synopsizes of all the movies, right?  Let’s be honest now.  If I did that for all five of these movies, it would practically be overkill on my part.  Instead I’ll just straight up review each of these.  Starting with the one that started it all.

My thoughts on this movie have always been quite messy and to be honest, they still are.  When I first saw this movie, I instantly thought it was a great popcorn flick and the first time Superman has been done right in my lifetime.  I’ve been longing for a good Superman movie and when I ended up being entertained as I was the night I saw this, my judgment got clouted by the action packed fight sequences, the fresh new take on such an incredibly dated story, and Hans Zimmer’s awesome score.  It’s hard to top John Williams iconic soundtrack for Superman, but Zimmer does pretty damn good as always.  But yeah, I really thought I wasn’t going to like them trying to rework such an old property who’s tale has been done to death.  It’s been nearly forty years and you can only tell the same story so many times before you get straight up bored by it.  I actually did appreciate Nolan-fying one of pop culture’s oldest heroes and trying to do such a dark modernized take on Superman.

Also, can I mention how spot on the main cast is?  The casting is so good and while the character depth is another story entirely, these actors do pretty good with what they have.  This is the best performance of Henry Cavill’s career to date.  Whenever you have Amy Adams in a movie, you know she is going to give it her all and she really does with what material she has been given.  And look I can sit here all day and praise everyone like Russel Crowe as Jor-El, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.  This is a talented cast who put in at minimum good performances, even when their characters needed more work.  But arguably, my favorite portrayal in this whole movie, for better or for worse, is Michael Shannon as General Zod.  There are only two traits to Zod.  Either restrained or over the top and by god, I know it’s limited but I can’t help but love it.  It’s just so freaking funny and at the same time entertaining.  Every time I think of this movie, I think of one of Zod’s many ridiculous quotes, most notably “I WILL FIND HIM!”  Shannon hams it up big time in this and I love his portrayal the most.

Okay now that I got all of this out of the way, let’s talk about what I find wrong with it.  Most notably, the characters themselves.  Yeah they got good people to portray them, but their identities are bland as all hell.  I can’t connect to any of these characters, not even my favorite portrayal.  Because these characters are so flat and uninteresting to watch.  For example, look no further than the penultimate character of the first phase of the DC Cinematic Universe: Superman.  Throughout all five of these movies, people treat Superman like he’s a messiah and that he’s a symbolism of shining hope.  It’s very easy to say he is that, but how are we supposed to emotionally connect to him?  His backstory is shown and explained so flatly that I wouldn’t be able to connect to this character even if his name wasn’t Clark Kent.  Want another?  Take a look at Lois Lane.  She starts off as a wise cracking, no nonsense reporter that I was able to find entertaining for her first scene, but afterwards, she shows no real character at all.  She is just a walking, talking plot device.  She does whatever the movie wants her to do and does it blandly.  Got room for one more?  How about Jonathan Kent.  You know, the guy Superman is supposed to be learning life lessons from and one that constantly reappears in future movies as some form of help from the great beyond?  He’s a walking talking clichéd contradiction.  I mean look no further than one of the most controversial scenes of the movie, where he’s scolding young Clark for going to save that school bus and all those drowning kids.  He wanted Clark’s secret to be kept private and he implies that he would have rather let all those children drown than people knowing of his existence.  Only for the movie to skip ahead scenes later and have Jonathan sacrificially go and save the dog from dying via tornado, when Kal-El could have easily saved him….only for the tornado to kill Papa Kent instead.  Guys, how am I supposed to relate to any of these characters if the movie doesn’t have an exact tone set in place for us to make any sort of emotional connection?

That’s my main problem with Man of Steel, but I have others too.  For one, the product placement in one of the main action sequences is ridiculously shameless.  Product placement in movies doesn’t really bother me too much.  It’s been there, it will always be there.  It’s pretty much to be expected in your mainstream big budget blockbusters.  But Jesus, having them fly through every single store that blatantly is just way too blatant for me to ignore.  Also, for as much as I enjoyed these action sequences, the direction style can be an eye sore.  This is pretty much the only problem I have with Zack Snyder’s direction in this.  Way too many close zoomed in shots that make me feel like a grade school child was filming this and not one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster directors.

To stay on topic with all these action sequences and this is one of the more controversial aspects when it comes to covering this movie.  I’m not against a darker Superman, but this version has quite the killstreak.  From breaking Zod’s neck to all the innocent civilians that seemingly died due to the mass amounts of destruction caused by Superman fighting his Kryptonian enemies.  It’s implied that many people seemingly died due to the recklessness of these battle sequences.  Didn’t Superman arguing Pa Kent about the ramifications of saving lives and what have you mean ANYTHING if he is going to cause over hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage in the second half of the movie?  Like I said, it’s not all on him as Zod and his soldiers are responsible too, but he’s a freaking superhero.  Have that title mean something.  And speaking of Zod, that neck breaking scene.  This isn’t the first time he’s killed Zod in a cinematic adaptation and I actually think this one is done better.  The emotional ramifications of his actions for the minute or two afterwards shows how conflicted Superman was to have to do this to someone from his own planet.  It does piss me off right afterwards when the scene jumps to a light hearted sequence about Superman working with the army.  Really fucking stupid to go from him freaking out about what he did to being super lame.

Final Thoughts: 

Man of Steel is the best Superman movie since Superman 2.  Meaning it’s the best adaptation in over thirty years.  It’s that hard to make an interesting compelling movie over such an iconic character.  They tried though, they really did.  The effort is clearly there in the acting and memorable action sequences.  I still stand by these sentiments nearly five years after seeing it for the first time.  That being said though, being the best movie since then does not make it that good of a movie.  For the amount they get right with this adaptation, they get just as much wrong.  Most notably, these characters are not interesting or relatable at all.  Which I’m not asking for relatable characters in superhero movies because I know superheroes are practically gods in their own rights.  Especially in DC Comics.  But at least make them stand out and give us a reason to connect to them.  Otherwise, you’re just telling us this Clark Kent, when in reality, you’re not showing us anything.  I’ll give them credit for trying hard to give us a new take, which was much needed in this day and age of superhero movies.  But in the end, I am left feeling only partially satisfied with the results.

 

Grade: C+

 

 

And that was the groundwork for what’s next to build up the rest of the Cinematic Universe.  Christopher Nolan practically left in terms of producing and Zack Snyder gained more control in terms of the long term planning of DC’s extended film franchise.  And naturally, you already got one of the two most iconic characters into this, might as well make this more of a cinematic universe with the other.  Enter BATMAN!

 

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

 

 

 

When this project was announced, there was massive amounts of hype.  You have easily two of the biggest superheroes in ALL of comic booklore FINALLY sharing the big screen for the first time in live action.  This had all the potential in the world to be the biggest comic book movie of all time.  No matter how many heroes Marvel had team up with each other at the time, none of them can reach the pantheon of pop culture legacy Batman and Superman have combined.  But we all know what happened after that huge opening weekend.  The backlash was in full force as this movie made over half of it’s total domestic box office just off that opening weekend.  This movie collapsed due to the critical bashing and the meh audience scores.  If Warner Brothers wants to take a look at the movie that made the DCEU a punching bag, this is the go to option as to why.  I’ve made my comments clear years ago time and time again when discussing this film.  Rewatching it for the first time since 2016, what did I think?

More or less the same.  At the very least, I still see what this movie was trying to do.  By this point, Warner Brothers was trying to fast track to getting the Justice League together and they had three movies to get to that point.  Do I think it’s stupid that they were in such a rush to get to the major team up movie?  Yes.  I don’t necessarily blame Zack Snyder solely for this abomination.  This movie reeks of heavy amounts of studio meddling.  We had to get Wonder Woman involved, The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman all involved somehow.  While at the same time, we had to force some sort of conflict that could lead to these two egos clashing, have them team up to fight a common enemy, and for some reason, bring in Doomsday.  AND lead to future movies with bizarre dream sequences, out of nowhere plots that tease more movies that get abandoned halfway.  Need I say more?  You try having to make a movie with the studio trying to force feed you MOAR CONTENT.

Let’s talk about what I like first.  Once again, most of the acting is not that bad.  I still like Henry Cavill and Amy Adams, not as much as I did the first time, but these two still at least perform well.  They do get overshadowed by the two best actors in this extended universe: Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot.  After so much backlash over the Batffleck casting, I always knew Ben Affleck was going to give this his best and I think he does a great job.  Still think Bale and Keaton are the better Batman all time, but Affleck is a very solid third.  Jeremy Irons is a pretty good Alfred although my problem is that they dont really dive into his character nearly as much except that he’s Bruce’s eyes in the sky.

I know what I’m about to say is definitely love or leave it when it comes to this movie, but the action scenes are pretty awesome.  The storytelling that leads to it is another thing, but the fight scenes are legitimately cool.  Say what you want about Snyder’s directing, but he knows how to film and produce quality action scenes. But yeah, you all know what you’re here for.  Let’s complain about Batman v Superman’s problems because they haven’t been touched upon to death already.  I don’t want to throw salt into the open wound because I’ve already done it multiple times myself last year.  These problems are glaring.

Let’s start with the most glaring issue of all.  The one that lead to reshoots of practically every DC movie that was in the cannon at this point.  It’s the one that critics were pointing out the most.  The tone.  Look we’ve already discussed that I’m not necessarily against a darker, grimed down DC Comic Universe.  But it’s how this movie is executed to be so thematically careless that it hammers you into submission about it.  I defended Zack Snyder in the last paragraph for how he can execute action sequences, but I have to bash him for the rest of his directing in this.  It sucks.  His ideology on how to make his scenes dark does not compute.  Making your scenes grimmer does not mean making them LOUD AND VIOLENT.  His tone deaf directing is CONSTANTLY on display and it just becomes grating.  These characters just become walking caricatures of symbols to fight over.  There’s not even any humor to at least get some sort of entertainment out of me.  It makes it feel like grim lifeless garbage cinema.

The story is a flat out clusterfuck.  The reasoning behind Batman and Superman hating each other makes no fucking sense.  These two have different ideals and viewpoints on what it means to be a hero and what they stand for.  That alone should justify these two’s actions.  But instead, we have Batman hating Superman for causing hundreds of thousands of dollars and damage to Gotham.  Superman hates Batman for his form of justice.  Lex Luthor takes advantage of this by egging them on.  Seriously.  That’s the driving force of their rivalry in a nutshell. 

This is such a forced conflict that I have read tons of fan theory rewrites of the Batman v Superman plot that sound ten times better than what we got.  As I said earlier, this is a fanboy dream film for years and you can’t help but feel disappointed that this is the best some of the best screenwriters money can buy can give you.  I don’t blame them.  Add onto that with Warner Brothers shoehorning in other superheroes, foreshadowing to future film franchise points, and all these other teases, you can’t help but feel if they put that much attention to building the present instead of the future, then maybe this movie would have been more competent.

Finally watching these two go at it head to head would have felt a lot more satisfying in the long run if the reason behind it had a much clear focus.  Once again, it’s a matter of telling the story instead of showing us what we want.  Because what we want is a clear reason behind these two going at it instead of a half-baked concept that is not in character with their ideals and beliefs.

And yes, I was going to get to this point when I talked about the acting, but Jesse Eisenberg.  His portrayal of Lex Luthor is bad.  Really really bad.  Like Top 5 worst acting performances in a superhero movie bad.  How does this guy even compare to Lex Luthor from the comics?  Not at all.  I don’t care what kind of creative liberties they were trying to portray in regards to a younger crazier version of him.  His acting is beyond awkward and is outright obnoxious.  I can’t think of a single redeeming point to this performance.  His motives are illogical, his character is annoying, and how he pulls off everything he does makes no sense.  How does his DNA mixed with Zod equal Doomsday?  How did he figure out that Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are Superman and Batman?  Why does he have the hard drive for the Justice League?  I could go on and on about how this version of Lex Luthor and this performance are fucking terrible, but we got bigger fish to fry.

Yeah about that Doomsday point.  Did he really need to be in this?  Once again, it feels like they were trying so hard to make this movie an event with all the build up to the Justice League and so forth.  Bringing in Doomsday into this movie just feels supremely forced in.  Was it to have him kill Superman?  Because yes we are aware that Doomsday leads to the death of Supes in the stories, but this could have been saved for later.  Why the hell kill of Superman after only a movie and a half?  I, and maybe others because I can’t speak for everyone, don’t feel a connection to this version of Superman at all after Man of Steel.  Sure as hell don’t feel one after this sequel either.  Even if I did, his death should be earned after multiple movies.  This creative decision makes as much logical sense as the rest of this movie.

 

Final Thoughts:

Honestly, rewatching this movie healed some of the wounds that time gave to me for the two years since I last watched it.  I can definitely understand what this movie was trying to be and had a clear identity of what it wanted to accomplish.  Once again, very good acting even if the material is not there.  Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot in particular were welcome additions and are definitely the two best performers in this franchise.  And yeah, I still think these action sequences are awesome.

But this movie is such a turgid lifeless bore.  Its tone is confused and its story makes no damn sense.  You would think for a movie about Superman and Batman finally coming together, it would be a lot more fun. 

It badly wants to be one of the big Marvel team up movies that leads to the grand prize of hundreds of millions of dollars.  But to get that you need to focus on making a competent product in the first place.  Instead, if Creed turned one of their music videos into a movie, it would be this.

 

Grade: D+

 

 

So yeah, it may have had one of the biggest opening weekends of all-time, but the quick fall from the top and the critical bashing definitely was noticed by Warner Brothers.  Thus, leading to reshoots, rewrites, and redoing everything on the fly.  Little did they forget that there was another film scheduled to come out the same year.  And the public anticipation for this one was there.  The first couple trailers received heavy amounts of praise and views.  Would all this reworking affect this?  Tune in next time when I tackle the back half of the DCEU.

[WhoBibbles]

You know Zack Snyder is really bad at writing superheroes when he said If he was in Nolan's position, he'd make Batman get raped. And people wanna see his non-existent Justice League cut...

http://www.businessinsider.com/zack-snyder-old-interview-batman-prison-rape-2016-5

I don't have Superman comics and I have never seen his movies and TV shows. Except Man of Steel and even someone who has never read his stories know how to write him better than Zack. Superman is supposed to be the best versions of ourselves. He's not just some symbol of hope. He's not a God. He's a normal country dude with an average job and a wife and later a kid. He may not be so complex but in an age of everything being dark and realistically sad, Superman is one of the few things that makes the World worth living. He saves lives more than stopping criminals. I found Man of Steel to be a good popcorn fun but it's mostly a shitty portrayal of Superman, except for that him discovering flight. That's a shame because Henry Cavill is such a down to earth and a really nice fella. He's a great choice for Superman. But they make his character Batman with superpowers. I wouldn't mind narratives of "is Superman a God" or "is he dangerous" If they made Superman in character. Darkness doesn't work for every superheroes. Superman is lighthearted, optimistic and a better man than any of us. He may not be the most realistic character but fuck it, this is fiction. Man of Steel is a disgrace to Superman. I saw Superman portrayed much better in Supergirl and Supergirl is such an inconsistent show. At least Zod was a compelling villain, thank God for him.

Onto Batman v Superman, I remember kind of liking it (again just for action and Gal Gadot as WW) but it was a bloody mess. So many movies were crammed into one and it turned out to be a clusterfuck. Superman is hated, Batman is insane prob because of some Robin death, Superman and Batman are clashed, Wonder Woman is there to set up JL or shit, Lex has plans to destroy the city with Doomsday for some reason, oh hey there are 3 other JL members in footages. This much shit. I'm gonna have to compare this to a better superhero battle movie Civil War. That movie also had so many subplots hut they were all connected, these characters and the consequences of previous movies were set up before, the characters are likeable and their reasons to fight made sense, it had a good mix of humor and darkness. BvS had mostly none. I especially didn't like how Superman and Batman were mostly same character. How is that supposed to make me believe in these two can have different ideologies? They keep showing us Superman is a savior in montages but that's not enough because in first movie, he caused more damage than saving. They kept trying to adapt The Dark Knight Returns Batman but it didn't work (I never liked that story anyway but that's for another day). If they focused on making good movies and planted the seed later, DCEU would be in good position. Make a good Superman movie, then a good Batman movie, then Batman v Superman, then all of JL member movies before Justice League movie. And most importantly take your time to build up your universe. It took 4 years for Avengers to be made. Ok yeah 4 years for Justice League too but the time between first two movies were 3 years...

I can't wait for your part 2. Still need to watch Suicide Squad to get into convo more but I'll be ready.