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Spoilers Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Grading & Discussion

Grade the movie...


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People clapped 3x in my theater. 1st during the Batmobile chase, 2nd for WW debut, 3rd at the end when the soil began to float. Also there were several laugh out loud moments in my theater.

Different strokes, I guess.
 
Yeah, I loved Snyder's Watchmen.

People in my audience really got into the movie. Maybe having all that 3d IMAX money invested in the evening makes a difference.

So, the Wayne building is nothing but windows, standing right in the path of fiery KryptonIan death and the staff waits around for a phone call from Bruce before abandoning ship? Everyone employed by Wayne other than Alfred is stump stupid?
 
I'm thinking more than just being bald, if no one has any clue what I mean about a more traditional Luthor I guess I'll just drop it right here. I guess Hackman/Spacey/Eisenberg have nailed it.

Smallville, for all its flaws, actually did a great Luthor.
 
And Snyder has said that he though it would be a way to "have fun" with the character. This is his idea of fun.
I don't approve of how some very established supporting characters are being lost early on in some series.
Snyder could have just made him a background character like Jenny.

We got that with Lyle Talbot in 1950. And the Hackman/Spacey Luthor was briefly seen bald a few times, when he wasn't wearing one toupee or another.
You will see a bald Eisenberg at the end.

I heard leaving the theater that they thought the title of the movie was misleading

"Batman VS Superman.............for five minutes.
The whole movie was one big conflict. What did people expect?

I guess Hackman/Spacey/Eisenberg have nailed it.
Rosenbaum certainly did. [Edit] Beaten by seconds by theenglish.
 
I'm thinking more than just being bald, if no one has any clue what I mean about a more traditional Luthor I guess I'll just drop it right here.

Well, you said "with all the talk of aesthetics," so I figured you were talking about his visual portrayal. If you meant something more about his personality, you should've said so. We're not psychic.

I suppose at this point there are at least two "traditional" versions of Luthor -- the evil scientific mastermind and the ruthless, Machiavellian billionaire. Which one did you have in mind?



I feel it's an urban legend, at best, that Miller's Dark Knight Returns was conceived of or executed as a reaction to Adam West's Batman. Batman, in the comics, had already become serious fare; if anything was a reaction to Adam West's Batman, it was the Denny O'Neill/Neal Adams era that produced Ra's al-Ghul. Dark Knight went through a long gestation process, including the single day that our mutual friend Bob Greenberger was the project's editor, and its starting point was Dirty Harry and Clint Eastwood rather than Adam West.

Well, okay, I don't know enough about it to disagree. For what it's worth, though, TDKR was my first exposure to a serious take on Batman, after growing up with Adam West's and Olan Soule's versions. It was quite an eye-opener. (I'd never been into comics much as a kid, but I had a friend in high school who was a big fan and introduced me to that world, and I discovered TDKR through him.) Even if it wasn't intended that way, it was as extreme a counterpoint to the Adam West Batman as you could get.


Years ago, I described Snyder's Watchmen adaptation as "soulless." It's a word I still use. He absolutely captured the aesthetic of the graphic novel, but he never left his own stamp on the material.

I'd both agree and disagree. I think he did leave his own stamp, in that he imposed his excessively slick and hyperstylized and artificial style on everything when a more grounded, verite style would've fit the material better. He did adapt scenes and images from the GN extremely faithfully, but too slickly and, yes, soullessly. (Similarly to how I feel about Chris Columbus's Harry Potter movies. They were more slavish to the text than the succeeding films from other directors, but they lacked the vitality and sense of wonder of the books, feeling prosaic by contrast -- like changing the ever-shifting hallways of Hogwarts from an inexplicable topological mystery to mere rotating stairways.)


Smallville, for all its flaws, actually did a great Luthor.

Oh, yes. Arguably both in Lex and Lionel, since Lionel was created to fill the more traditional villainous Luthor role while Lex was still a more ambiguous and potentially redeemable figure. And the casting of both was top-notch.
 
People clapped today at the Wonder Woman reveal.

I noticed that 'Future Flash' mentions Lois, and says something about her being the key to it all. He also says 'you were right about him' and 'find us' or something like that.

I thought it was funny about all the MoS destruction and the VO dialogue in this movie to kind of get away from the real or imagined collateral damage the first thing Superman does in the fight with Doomsday once they get out of the Kryptonian ship is throw Doomsday into what looks like some sort of gas or oil plant that blows sky high. :lol:

Knightmare Superman's motivations seemed very "Injustice" to me.

Lex's prisoner number was something like 16-TK-421. I guess he was at his post.
 
I'd both agree and disagree. I think he did leave his own stamp, in that he imposed his excessively slick and hyperstylized and artificial style on everything when a more grounded, verite style would've fit the material better. He did adapt scenes and images from the GN extremely faithfully, but too slickly and, yes, soullessly. (Similarly to how I feel about Chris Columbus's Harry Potter movies. They were more slavish to the text than the succeeding films from other directors, but they lacked the vitality and sense of wonder of the books, feeling prosaic by contrast -- like changing the ever-shifting hallways of Hogwarts from an inexplicable topological mystery to mere rotating stairways.)

Another film, from a different genre, that springs to mind for me is Coppola's The Great Gatsby. It was almost completely faithful to the period and the text of the novel, but lacked the spirit of the novel which was basically the whole point of the story.
 
Well, you said "with all the talk of aesthetics," so I figured you were talking about his visual portrayal. If you meant something more about his personality, you should've said so. We're not psychic.

I suppose at this point there are at least two "traditional" versions of Luthor -- the evil scientific mastermind and the ruthless, Machiavellian billionaire. Which one did you have in mind?
I guess more of the latter or a combination thereof but either way. The older guy who cuts an imposing figure and has a look like a mean hawk and carries himself like someone not to be messed with. I dunno, something like Daredevil's Wilson Fisk though probably more svelte.

It just seems like the movie versions always go for a quirky Lex instead. I don't usually think of Lex as quirky.

Maybe it's because they're trying to give an origin to Lex, connecting him to Superman, where we tend to be beyond that in the comics and animated shows.
 
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Smallville, for all its flaws, actually did a great Luthor.

Meh. He was a decent character I guess. But a good Lex? Nah.

Lex isn't some whiny, conflicted teen with daddy issues. He's the smartest man in the world who does what he does because he can.
 
Saw it tonight and while I am still digesting, my grade is an A-.
My only real ding is that the first third is a little too slow and that the movie itself is too long.

Loved Gal Gadot and thought Ben makes a great Batman/Bruce Wayne.
 
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Just got back and my non-spoiler review is that wasn't a movie. A movie has a coharent storyline with character development and character motivations that you can understand. A movie is supposed to allow you to take this journey with these characters from beginning to end. What this was was a collection of scenes masked to be Batman Vs. Superman. Heck, once we got to the actual scene, it made the first hour and a half feel meaningless.

I'm glad I saw it and ignored the reviews, but after seeing it, I can understand where the reviews were coming from.

D
 
Yeah, I loved Snyder's Watchmen.
I loved BITS of Snyder's Watchmen. I loved the entire Dr. Manhattan origin story chapter. I also liked Patrick Wilson as Nightowl. Won't get into details about what bits I didn't like, but overall, watching that movie was an uneven experience. From exhilaration to extreme boredom.

My favorite Snyder movie is 300. Dawn of the Dead was also ok. Never bothered with Sucker Punch.

So, the Wayne building is nothing but windows, standing right in the path of fiery KryptonIan death and the staff waits around for a phone call from Bruce before abandoning ship? Everyone employed by Wayne other than Alfred is stump stupid?
Bruce was also apparently too cheap to stock the building with these:

LKFqKKL.jpg


If this shit had been going down in Gotham, Lucius Fox would have handled the matter like a boss.
 
Just got back and my non-spoiler review is that wasn't a movie. A movie has a coharent storyline with character development and character motivations that you can understand. A movie is supposed to allow you to take this journey with these characters from beginning to end. What this was was a collection of scenes masked to be Batman Vs. Superman. Heck, once we got to the actual scene, it made the first hour and a half feel meaningless.

I'm glad I saw it and ignored the reviews, but after seeing it, I can understand where the reviews were coming from.

D
Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne more so, had good character development. Compare how Bruce starts (Kryptonian attack on Metropolis), to how he finishes (Smallville graveyard and feeling that he failed Superman). That's an arc and we got to seen Bruce's journey through the entire movie.
 
Haven't seen a movie this divisive in ages.

If ever.

Or at least not since Man of Steel.
I think it's only divisive between audiences and critics. Audiences love it, and critics hate it.

I'm of the opinion that critics don't just want BvS to fail, but they need it to fail. It's RT score is lower than Daredevil (2003), X-Men Origins Wolverine, Spider-Man 3 and a whole other host of movies. And while BvS isn't perfect, a 30% on RT seems unwarranted.
 
Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince had nice chemistry. Funny that he fancied her to be another glamorous thief. I started wondering what Selina Kyle might be doing in the time and universe of BvS.
 
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