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

Grade the movie...

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I could maybe see some of the lesser known critics getting away with that, but I doubt critics from major publications like Rolling Stone, EW, or New York Post could.
 
There's also this conspiracy theory according to which MARVEL has paid for most of the negative reviews.

I suppose DC lost the bidding war.
 
Just came from watching the movie. It certainly is a sequel to the Man of Steel. Everyone who loved that one will love this one and those who didnt love it will hate this.

I do have to admit that I was little bit confused about the plot. And locations. They seemed to be hopping around the Metropolis and Gotham all the time in the matter of minutes. Even regular people who cant go at the speed of light.

And I dont like this Lex. I think that Joker should be the craziest villain, not Lex.
 
.:: TSN ::. said:
I do have to admit that I was little bit confused about the plot. And locations. They seemed to be hopping around the Metropolis and Gotham all the time in the matter of minutes. Even regular people who cant go at the speed of light.
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In this movie universe, Metropolis and Gotham are like Minneapolis and St. Paul -- cities basically on top of each other. Another comparison might be Manhattan and Brooklyn.
 
It's usually speed of plot, but at least in this version Metropolis and Gotham are right next door to each:

URxCn4G.png
 
Mach5 said:
There's also this conspiracy theory according to which MARVEL has paid for most of the negative reviews.

I suppose DC lost the bidding war.
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:rolleyes: I love how there has to some big conspiracy to explain the bad reviews. Is it really that hard to believe that some people just might not like the movie?
 
Christopher said:
Okay, well, maybe there are some reviews like that (though I don't recall reading any of them myself). But it wouldn't be a fair characterization of all of them.
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It was more that I didn't expect someone who worked in the film industry to actually come out and say something like that. If people don't like Snyder's style then they won't like his films; that's a valid criticism, and people getting bent out of shape about it really shouldn't as in the end it's just their opinions. Those people shouldn't need the validation of others and decide for themselves if it's any good or not.
 
JD said:
:rolleyes: I love how there has to some big conspiracy to explain the bad reviews. Is it really that hard to believe that some people just might not like the movie?
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Are the MCU films really sitting on the streetcorner with their hands out hurting for ticket revenue such that they need to be reduced to this? I don't think so.
 
Christopher said:
ComicsAlliance gives the movie a 4/10 rating, and the specifics it gives are very disheartening to me:

http://comicsalliance.com/batman-v-superman-review/


So... not rubber bullets? Ugh.

And it sounds like Snyder took the wrong lessons from the critiques of MoS's climax. Instead of having heroes actually learn to care about protecting civilians, he still leaves civilians completely out of the equation and just throws in a bit more lip service to excuse it.

The one encouraging thing is that, while the general reviewers are lukewarm on Gal Gadot, the comics-oriented reviewers seem to be very positive about Wonder Woman in this film, and what it portends for her own solo film.
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Christopher said:
He could not be by being a grownup, and by being a crimefighter focused above all else on the goal of saving lives.

Again referring to ComicsAlliance:

http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-66-superman-batman-and-the-worlds-finest-friendshi/


So portraying Batman as someone who resents Superman for being powerful, rather than recognizing him as an invaluable ally in the endless war on crime, is totally misrepresenting who Batman is. It's reducing him to an egotistical child in order to manufacture a gratuitous conflict.

Then again, the latter part of Chris Sims's argument above is predicated on Superman being the character he usually is, the one who's undeniably good and that a trained observer like Batman could easily recognize as such. So maybe it doesn't quite apply to a Superman who made his debut as destructively as MoS's Kal-El did and who, judging from the reviews I've seen, is still getting people killed as collateral damage in his "heroic" acts. Although that just means it comes down to a choice between Batman being out of character and/or incompetent on the one hand, and Superman being out of character and/or incompetent on the other.




I thought Cavill was great as Superman; I just regretted that he didn't get to play a script that served the Superman character well. I suppose that when/if I do see this movie, I'll have to try to focus on the performances and not dwell too much on the story.



That's good to hear. That movie sounds a lot more promising.
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Christopher said:
What I'm hearing a lot is that it's slow-paced and meandering and takes too long to get to the action, and that its attempts to address points of substance are sabotaged by lack of nuance. So it's not just that it's serious, it's that its attempts at seriousness don't succeed.

I'm also hearing near-universal scorn for Eisenberg's Luthor. One review called him a "Schumacheresque" villain, although another acknowledged that at least his presence brought some trace of comic relief to the otherwise bleak proceedings.

Reviewers seem split on Gal Gadot, though. A number are dismissing her as "blank" or mediocre, but others find her presence to be the bright spot of the film, despite the fact that she's essentially tacked on to the story.
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Christopher said:
That's not what the critics are saying at all, as far as I can discern. Yes, many are saying they find it dull, but not because it lacks humor -- rather, they're saying it's dull because it lacks weight, because its attempts to tackle serious philosophical questions are too superficial and ungrounded to be interesting. They're saying it's dull because the plot meanders and jumps incoherently from scene to scene without much narrative flow, and because the characters and their motivations are underdeveloped. They're saying it's dull because the action sequences not only take too long to arrive, but are clumsily choreographed and rely mainly on sensory overload to the point of numbing the viewer. And they're saying that the parts that do attempt to be funny -- mainly Eisenberg's Luthor -- are not successful. If the critics just favored lightness over dark, they'd be praising Luthor as one of the best things about the movie. Instead, there seems to be a broad (though not universal) consensus that he's one of the very worst things about it.

Of course, your mileage may vary, and you're free to decide for yourself. I just wanted to make it clear what the critics were actually saying. The negative reactions are not just about lack of humor.
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Christopher said:
But as I've said, I haven't noticed many critics, if any, actually saying that at all. On the contrary, many of them are praising Snyder's cinematic style even as they criticize the story for being poorly assembled. It's simply false to say that they're criticizing the film for being too dark. That's not what it's about at all, at least not in the reviews I've been reading. On the contrary, many of them are criticizing the film for failing to commit to its dark premise. They're saying that, instead of really confronting the moral issues and loss of life in these massive, destructive battles, it's just paying lip service to them and then tossing in a casual reference to the areas being evacuated so that the heroes can wage mass destruction without it raising any moral problems.
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Christopher said:
Okay, well, maybe there are some reviews like that (though I don't recall reading any of them myself). But it wouldn't be a fair characterization of all of them.
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So this is what you are now? A critic parrot? :lol:
 
.:: TSN ::. said:
Just came from watching the movie. It certainly is a sequel to the Man of Steel. Everyone who loved that one will love this one and those who didnt love it will hate this.
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The thing is, I loved a lot about the first two acts of MoS (except for The Worst Pa Kent Ever), but I hated the climax so profoundly that it ruined the whole movie for me. So the question is, which parts of MoS does this film have more in common with?
 
My favourite review so far:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/03/22/batman-v-superman-review-zack-snyders-doomsday

Spoiler heavy so be wary. However, the following really did tickle me:

"Henry Cavill is a wooden log throughout most of the film, giving a performance so lifeless and dull that it feels like a protest. His Superman alternates between being a mopey bore and a real asshole, two qualities for which the character is not usually known."

Now the same reviewer tore Zootopia/Zootropolis apart too, so, grain of salt and all, but those few sentences did make me giggle.

Thankfully I have a card that gets me unlimited films at the cinema for a set monthly fee, so I have tickets booked for the weekend. Given the wife did say "I'll go if it's supposed to be good" I'm not going to drag her to this and sit for 2.5 hours and endure a film for the sake of it. She severely disliked MoS anyway/

I find myself now going to figure out (if true) how Snyder/Goyer/Terrio can take such a big, fun idea, with such a remarkably talented cast and utterly crush it into navel-gazing boring mess that it appears to be.

Hugo - A bit of masochism? Sure, why not, I've done it with endless Trek and Star Wars films due to my blinkered hope in fandom, so why not this.
 
Hugo Rune said:
"Henry Cavill is a wooden log throughout most of the film, giving a performance so lifeless and dull that it feels like a protest. His Superman alternates between being a mopey bore and a real asshole, two qualities for which the character is not usually known."
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Henry Cavil was great in this movie. As was Superman.
That guy saw some different movie.
Or they accidentally gave him cynical asshole goggles instead of the 3D ones at the theater. Dunno which.
 
A surprisingly good review from Kenneth Turan.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-batman-superman-review-20160325-column.html

And I'm kinda liking his take on the different Marvel and DC styles as well, which I don't think I've heard argued before:

While the Marvel universe, now owned by Disney, is glib and sunny, it's a nice echo of Warner's past as a home to gangsters and gritty melodramas to find its DC world operating very much on the dark end of the street.
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davejames said:
And I'm kinda liking his take on the different Marvel and DC styles as well, which I don't think I've heard argued before:

While the Marvel universe, now owned by Disney, is glib and sunny, it's a nice echo of Warner's past as a home to gangsters and gritty melodramas to find its DC world operating very much on the dark end of the street.
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I think that's quite an oversimplification, particularly about Marvel. The Disney-owned MCU also includes Daredevil and Jessica Jones. And I'd hardly call The Winter Soldier a "glib and sunny" movie. So I think that critic is being facile and reductionistic. The MCU succeeds by being versatile, by offering a variety of different tones and approaches. For that matter, so does Disney, which is the whole reason it's acquired diverse content providers like Marvel and Lucasfilm, and why it branched out into PG- and R-rated films under the Touchstone label way back in the '80s. So if the DC Extended Universe is to succeed, it needs a similar versatility. Which is why I'm more encouraged by Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman than I am by anything I'm hearing about BvS.
 
Agreed about Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Winter Soldier, but to me those feel more like recent exceptions to the rule. I think most people would still characterize the main, overriding style as that shared by the vast majority of Marvel movies like Iron Man, Avengers, Guardians, Ant-Man, etc. Which I'd say are pretty heavy on the glibness and sunniness.
 
davejames said:
Agreed about Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Winter Soldier, but to me those feel more like recent exceptions to the rule. I think most people would still characterize the main, overriding style as that shared by the vast majority of Marvel movies like Iron Man, Avengers, Guardians, Ant-Man, etc. Which I'd say are pretty heavy on the glibness and sunniness.
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Just because "most people" believe something, that doesn't make it right. Majority belief has included such gems as the Sun orbiting the Earth, the superiority of one race over others, and the idea that we use only 10 percent of our brains. The majority has a consistently terrible track record when it comes to the accuracy of its beliefs. That's why the way to find the truth is to ignore belief and look for actual data.

It's a common myth that all Marvel movies try to be the same. On the contrary, they all try to be different. They embody a wide range of genres, from high-tech action to spy thriller to high fantasy to war movie to space opera, and the TV shows add even more variety. They've succeeded for so long because they stay fresh and vary their approach, not because they're all doing just one thing. This is how both Marvel and DC have succeeded in the comics for so long -- by offering a wide range of tones and choices. Marvel has everything from the Punisher and Jessica Jones to Deadpool and Howard the Duck. DC has everything from Batman and Constantine to Plastic Man and Ambush Bug. DC television covers a range of tones from the cheerfulness of Supergirl to the gonzo ultraviolence of Gotham. So why is it desirable to try to force the movie franchises into monolithic molds? That's not a realistic way of assessing their content. It's just a lazy way to avoid thinking about things by reducing them to single ideas.
 
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