Haven't seen it yet but got bored and spoiled myself silly in here...kind of wish I hadn't, as the movie has a couple of unexpected twists after all...but the cat's out of the bag now.
Spoilers Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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I agree, that trailer was very ill advised. And if I recall correctly, up to that point the marketing had been doing a pretty great job of getting people hyped for the movie. Once that trailer hit a lot of hype died, people started focusing more on the goofy looking Doomsday than anything else.
O.K. I've just got back from the cinema. In the interests of full disclosure, I've only really liked one previous Batman movie (The Dark Knight), I liked Superman Returns and would have liked the Reeve/Routh series to continue but quite enjoyed Man of Steel. And I'm not that keen on DC. Anyway -
Pretty much all of the criticism's are valid - it is something of a mess - the visions are unnescessary and derail the narrative. Some of the 'interludes' confuse. The character motivations appear suspect and it's something of a grind.
However, I enjoyed it - it surprised me ! Yes, the characterisations of Batman and Superman are 'off'. These aren't the comicbook characters brought to life - they're different versions of them inspired by the originals. Superman's world isn't the bright optimistic place you know, and Superman is correspondingly different. Batman's brutal and he kills. He's been around the block and lost hope, and he has been manipulated.
Despite it being slow and undeniably dour it did keep my attention and some emotional depth came through. Jesse Eisenberg was annoying, but not as bad as I'd feared and Wonder Woman's entrance really did work for me.
Most surprising though, to me at least, was Affleck who was really very good. Better than Bale and the others. Much better.
Overall, it was flawed and a somewhat joyless experience, but well worth a trip to the cinema ! It certainly won't sink the DC Cinematic Universe...
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 get the impression that Snyder is basically a '90s comics fanboy -- the kind who thinks ultraviolent, testosterone-drenched antiheroes like the Punisher and Spawn and the like are cool and that nonlethal, upbeat heroes are wussies. I bet he could've made an interesting Punisher or Spawn movie, but it seems an incredibly ill-conceived mismatch to give him control of Superman.
Wow ! Didn't catch that.
I don't approve of how some very established supporting characters are being lost early on in some series. Ben Urich springs to mind.
Who'd be a journalist ?
I got the impression from some of Alfred's comments early in the movie that Batman wasn't always this violent.
Yeah that trailer definitely spoiled way too much from the second half of the movie (which I guess isn't surprising given that it's the only part with any real action and fighting in it).
So, that undercover CIA guy at the beginning was supposed to be Jimmy?! Seriously, Snyder? I didn't notice during my viewing of the movie, and neither did most people (since it's such an online revelation), it was certainly not necessary for the plot for this guy to be Jimmy instead of nameless undercover CIA guy. I can live with Jimmy not being in the movies. Jimmy being briefly in a movie just for the sake of being immediately killed without causing grief with Superman, Lois or Perry, that's just wrong and feels like Snyder was actually trying to troll fans. Something he really can't afford to be doing at this point.
Since it's really just Snyder talking about it that made us aware of it, not the movie itself, I can pretend that this is really not Jimmy in further viewings. But I also don't feel like needing to watch the extended cut on BluRay when it comes out, even though there's other stuff I'd like to have fleshed out.
Since it's really just Snyder talking about it that made us aware of it, not the movie itself, I can pretend that this is really not Jimmy in further viewings. But I also don't feel like needing to watch the extended cut on BluRay when it comes out, even though there's other stuff I'd like to have fleshed out.
Well I'll still defend his approach in MOS, since that still felt like a fundamentally hopeful and kind and optimistic version of Superman who was at least trying to do something good (despite how inexperienced he was, and how dark the circumstances of the story might have been). But the Superman in this movie is so conflicted and dour and closed off from the world (apparently not even bothering to give interviews or state his case or reassure the people who might be suspicious of him) that it really did feel off and wrong to me.
I'm trying to think if there's precedent for a case where a work of fiction or a classic character was adapted by someone who seemed to have nothing but contempt for the essential principles and ideas of the work. And I'm forced to admit that the prime example that springs to mind is the Adam West Batman. Although it was a strikingly literal and faithful adaptation of the style and approach of the Batman comics of the '50s and early '60s, it was made with the deliberate attempt to mock them and invite people to make fun of them. And yet it's one of my favorite Batman adaptations ever, and one of the most beloved today, though it went through a period of being widely scorned (and Miller's The Dark Knight Returns -- and therefore this movie -- only exists as a reaction against the campy comedy of Batman '66).
So is it possible that this movie will end up being better regarded in the future, or that I might actually like it? I dunno. Even if the intent of '66 was to make fun of Batman comics, it still did so by portraying them fairly faithfully, rather than tearing them down. And the comics it was lampooning were largely meant to be fun and silly and bizarre anyway, so one could say that the attempt to mock them fell short. So I doubt the comparison really holds up. Still, I guess it shows that an adaptation made without respect for the source isn't necessarily doomed.
I'll grant that. MoS's Superman was trying to be heroic -- he just wasn't all that good at it, and he basically needed Jor-El's guidance to do it (I still say Jor-El is the real hero of that movie, and Superman is just one of his assistants, along with Lois, Dr. Hamilton, and the Army). Indeed, I felt Cavill was fantastic as Superman; I just didn't feel the script did a very good job of letting him be Superman. I was hoping that the sequel would show a more mature, confident Superman who'd grown into the hero he was trying to become in MoS. From what I've heard, though, it doesn't sound like I'll get my wish. But maybe there's hope for Justice League, if the negative reactions to BvS do provoke Warner Bros. to make some changes to Snyder's plans.
So is it possible that this movie will end up being better regarded in the future, or that I might actually like it? I dunno. Even if the intent of '66 was to make fun of Batman comics, it still did so by portraying them fairly faithfully, rather than tearing them down. And the comics it was lampooning were largely meant to be fun and silly and bizarre anyway, so one could say that the attempt to mock them fell short. So I doubt the comparison really holds up. Still, I guess it shows that an adaptation made without respect for the source isn't necessarily doomed.
I'll grant that. MoS's Superman was trying to be heroic -- he just wasn't all that good at it, and he basically needed Jor-El's guidance to do it (I still say Jor-El is the real hero of that movie, and Superman is just one of his assistants, along with Lois, Dr. Hamilton, and the Army). Indeed, I felt Cavill was fantastic as Superman; I just didn't feel the script did a very good job of letting him be Superman. I was hoping that the sequel would show a more mature, confident Superman who'd grown into the hero he was trying to become in MoS. From what I've heard, though, it doesn't sound like I'll get my wish. But maybe there's hope for Justice League, if the negative reactions to BvS do provoke Warner Bros. to make some changes to Snyder's plans.
The thing that gets me about Snyder's grasp on it - and I actually enjoyed the film - is that when he was defending the film (this was in the same series of UK interviews that produced the 'sad Affleck' meme), he said something like 'Well, if you look at the original comics, I've totally captured their aesthetic.'
When I read that, before I saw the film I couldn't help but marvel that, apparently, the most important thing to him was capturing the aesthetic. Not the spirit, not the heart, not the essence of the characters but the aesthetic. Yes, it's a visual medium and he undoubtedly makes great-looking films, but if he thinks people are satisfied solely because films look like the source material, he's missing the point.
When I read that, before I saw the film I couldn't help but marvel that, apparently, the most important thing to him was capturing the aesthetic. Not the spirit, not the heart, not the essence of the characters but the aesthetic. Yes, it's a visual medium and he undoubtedly makes great-looking films, but if he thinks people are satisfied solely because films look like the source material, he's missing the point.
Paul Verhoeven pretty much hated Starship Troopers, the novel, from what I understand (and gleamed from watching his adaptation of it).
I was just about to say Starship Troopers.
It's a great movie though. If you get onboard the satire train.
That's definitely a problem I have with Snyder's work, but I think it's symptomatic of the entire generation of directors he belongs to. I gather that the film schools that produced today's filmmakers stress visual storytelling and editing and style and technique and effects... and everything except writing. They just don't place any emphasis on plot and script as the foundation of the whole process. Scripts are seen as disposable, interchangeable things, little more than a set of stage directions for how to create the desired visuals and action sequences and so forth. And that's why we have so many movies these days that are masterfully shot and designed and acted and edited and, err, visual-effected, but that fall apart on the writing level. The concept of "If it's not on the page, it's not on the stage" has been forgotten.
Oh, good example. And it's a case where I definitely agree with Verhoeven. The novel was basically an endorsement of fascism, or at least a thought experiment to explore if a fascist system could actually work, and I felt its premise fell apart, because its endless preaching about why fascism was good was predicated on the unproven assertion that it did, in fact, work as advertised. Verhoeven's movie, by contrast, was a biting satire of the fascist military state presented in the novel, and that worked much better for me. (Although other aspects were iffy. I've heard it argued that even the bad parts of the movie, like the all-white casting of characters with mostly Latin-American names and origins, were deliberate satire of bad moviemaking, but I'm not fully convinced of that.)
(And the word you want is "gleaned," i.e. gathered or collected gradually.)
