DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

[Commander Troi]

I was wondering why no one was talking about Blue Beetle or even made a separate thread - after watching half the movie i know why.

Wow, it is generic superhero movie making that we have come to expect from DC ( especially when they do origin movies) but this went downhill so fast after after about half the movie when

Spoiler

Jamie's dad dies due to a heart attack and BB is captured, the rest of the family after breaking down and mere minutes screen and movie time later they are laughing and having fun discovering the former Blue Beetle's cave and his gadgets, which they want to use to rescue Jamie including a supercringe scene with Grandma going into Rambo mode wielding a big fucking gun ( BFG).

Fast forwarded to a couple of scenes and yup - obligatory climactic re-fight against a guy he lost to earlier and he gets the girl. Btw.. he meets her for barely seconds in total and the first time they can have an actual talk and be personal they almost kiss? Is that how it works and why i've been single most of my 20s because i didn't know how it's done?

Skip this and maybe only watch it if you have nothing else to do or want to for completeness sake but you are not missing out.

I sincerely hope the Gunn DC is way better than this.

That's a damn shame.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

That's a damn shame.

For those who enjoyed the core, strong DCEU movies, you will find the franchise's last few entries lacking and not really necessary--including the upside down changed from The Flash. We can only hope the Aquaman sequel serves as one last trip back to the strongest DCEU movies.

 

[Mage]

For those who enjoyed the core, strong DCEU movies, you will find the franchise's last few entries lacking and not really necessary--including the upside down changed from The Flash. We can only hope the Aquaman sequel serves as one last trip back to the strongest DCEU movies.

As someone who feels that the first Aquaman movie was a complete letdown and terrible movie, I don't hold much hope for that. Which is a shame, because I Jason Momoa as Aquaman was one of the highlights of the DCEU, and the only aspect of the Aquaman movie I enjoyed. And even he failed to deliver at times.

 

[Set Harth]

Someone I follow on social media ( for political reasons having nothing to do with movies ) said it was one of the worst films they had ever seen.

 

[theenglish]

The problem I had with Aquaman was the dialogue, and I had a similar issue with Blue Beetle, Black Adam, The Flash and probably a couple of other DC movies.

There are few "surprises", and the dialogue lacks wit or cleverness. It seems as it it is just written to get the characters from point A to point B. Contrast this with a number of the MCU movies where the dialogue is more punchy and engaging. As a result the actors just appear to be standing around reciting their lines--they never seem to be embodying their characters. Say what you want about movies like BvS, but at least Affleck and Cavill really sold there world to me. The Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey did this as well.

 

[kirk55555]

The problem I had with Aquaman was the dialogue, and I had a similar issue with Blue Beetle, Black Adam, The Flash and probably a couple of other DC movies.

There are few "surprises", and the dialogue lacks wit or cleverness. It seems as it it is just written to get the characters from point A to point B. Contrast this with a number of the MCU movies where the dialogue is more punchy and engaging. As a result the actors just appear to be standing around reciting their lines--they never seem to be embodying their characters. Say what you want about movies like BvS, but at least Affleck and Cavill really sold there world to me. The Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey did this as well.

Oh yeah, when Cavill said "Martha" and Affleck bellowed "Why did you say that name?", that really sold their world to me The main actors in BvS, while not bad actors in general, reminded me of what happened with the actors in the Star Wars prequel trilogy: A bunch of people reading horrible lines, while mostly coming off as either half asleep or (as in the Martha scene, or any scene with Lex Luthor) stupidly over the top because of a combination of the bad lines and bad directing.

 

[theenglish]

That was a line that was so poorly written, I don't think Patrick Stewart could have made it work.

 

[Sci]

That was a line that was so poorly written, I don't think Patrick Stewart could have made it work.

It's too bad, because in theory the idea that Bruce comes to finally see Clark as a person instead of a threat when he realizes that Clark, too, has a mother whom he loves, embodied by the fact that their mothers happen to share a name, isn't bad per se. In another context, I think the idea could have worked.

 

[Supervisor 194]

The “Martha” line doesn’t work as well as it could because just prior to it, Batfleck says to Clark, “Did your parents teach you that you were special? Mine taught me something else dying in an alley.” Or something to that effect. I think the idea of Batman considering Superman as an utterly inhuman alien totally removed from human experience could be compelling but is undercut by Batman taunting him about his parents. The line, of course, comes from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and worked great in the context of that story but like so much from that story, was shoehorned into BvS with little regard to coherence.

 

[Christopher]

I think the idea of Batman considering Superman as an utterly inhuman alien totally removed from human experience could be compelling but is undercut by Batman taunting him about his parents.

I don't know, I think that kind of works, precisely because of the contrast. Batman sees Superman as alien and unidentifiable, but then is shocked to see him as a man fearing for the safety of his mother. The shared name is what gets through his defenses and lets him start to identify with Clark. I agree it's blunt and unsubtle in execution, but it's not bad in principle.

 

[Set Harth]

Their mothers having the same name has no ultimate relevance to Bruce's change of heart. What stops Bruce is realizing that Clark is fighting to save his own mother, regardless of her name. Or in other words, his realization that he has potentially become the very thing he's supposed to be fighting against. That moment doesn't happen until Lois comes running up. Before that Bruce has no idea why Clark said the name, as the line of dialogue endlessly mocked by the Vaprak-worshipping crowd clearly indicates. He doesn't hear the name and immediately think it's a reference to Clark's mother. On the contrary, he thinks Clark is fucking with him.

 

[Tosk]

I was really hoping that one of the subsequent (fun) movies would have Arthur Curry mentioning his father Thomas to Batman just to mess with him.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Affleck and Cavill really sold there world to me.

Far more effectively than the majority of superhero films. For a change, characters with understandable ideological differences couched in actual resentment (justifiable from their established worldviews) was played out in a crossover film, rather than too many superhero films, where actors were written to behave like cartoon characters firing idiotic jokes at each other during situations where its no laughing matter, only watering down already weak "threats" for the heroes to face.

Their mothers having the same name has no ultimate relevance to Bruce's change of heart.

True.

What stops Bruce is realizing that Clark is fighting to save his own mother, regardless of her name. Or in other words, his realization that he has potentially become the very thing he's supposed to be fighting against. That moment doesn't happen until Lois comes running up. Before that Bruce has no idea why Clark said the name, as the line of dialogue endlessly mocked by the Vaprak-worshipping crowd clearly indicates. He doesn't hear the name and immediately think it's a reference to Clark's mother. On the contrary, he thinks Clark is fucking with him.

At last, someone who actually watched the film. Your assessment of the scene is correct, of course; throughout the film, Bruce railed against Superman for being an unchecked being who held all human life in his hands--with the capacity to play judge and jury, or seemingly get off scott free after participating in mass destruction, even if it was in the service / protection of all humankind. Batman was Hell-bent on seeing this alien of immeasurable power as the worst threat humankind could not stop if he moved in the direction of Zod, so he believed the threat needed to be neutralized--permanently. Obviously, Bruce was shaken out of his fear-driven attempt to kill Superman by conscience (and Lois), not merely their mothers sharing the same name.

 

[JD]

Despite some of my issues with the storytelling choices made in the Zack Snyder DC movies, one thing I have never had issues with was the performances, I thought they were all good.

 

[Sci]

Their mothers having the same name has no ultimate relevance to Bruce's change of heart. What stops Bruce is realizing that Clark is fighting to save his own mother, regardless of her name. Or in other words, his realization that he has potentially become the very thing he's supposed to be fighting against. That moment doesn't happen until Lois comes running up. Before that Bruce has no idea why Clark said the name, as the line of dialogue endlessly mocked by the Vaprak-worshipping crowd clearly indicates. He doesn't hear the name and immediately think it's a reference to Clark's mother. On the contrary, he thinks Clark is fucking with him.

At last, someone who actually watched the film. Your assessment of the scene is correct, of course; throughout the film, Bruce railed against Superman for being an unchecked being who held all human life in his hands--with the capacity to play judge and jury, or seemingly get off scott free after participating in mass destruction, even if it was in the service / protection of all humankind. Batman was Hell-bent on seeing this alien of immeasurable power as the worst threat humankind could not stop if he moved in the direction of Zod, so he believed the threat needed to be neutralized--permanently. Obviously, Bruce was shaken out of his fear-driven attempt to kill Superman by conscience (and Lois), not merely their mothers sharing the same name.

Nobody said that learning Clark's mother has the same name as his is what makes Bruce start seeing Clark as a person.

I said, "when he realizes that Clark, too, has a mother whom he loves, embodied by the fact that their mothers happen to share a name." Christopher said "[Bruce] is shocked to see him as a man fearing for the safety of his mother. The shared name is what gets through his defenses and lets him start to identify with Clark."

In other words: Lois saying it's his mother shocks him out of his alienation. Realizing their mothers share a name drives it home.

But hey, don't let that stop you from finding a new reason to falsely imply that other posters don't understand the material they don't like as much as you.

 

[kirk55555]

So, I finally gave The Batman a complete watch through, keeping an open mind...and I liked it a good deal. Its far from perfect, it is definitely too long and having literally 90% of the dialog, in every situation, be whispered is legitimately frustrating. "Riddler", aka Rip Off Jigsaw, is also not great, and there are probably too many kind of pointless subplots that lead to the bloated runtime and pacing issues.

But the actual Batman stuff might be the best Batman in live action, from the action to him actually feeling like Batman and even doing detective stuff. I'm not as sold on Pattinson's Bruce Wayne, but his Batman was great and I loved the end of the movie, where he realizes what he needs to be and we see Batman basically be accepted by Gotham, which is not something I ever expected to get from this movie. I expected them to keep the more "Even normal people hate/fear him" thing like the Nolan trilogy preferred, but The Batman at least seems to set up a status quo of Batman being, while still a scary vigilante, also actively something of a hopeful presence, which I don't think we've really gotten outside of the more silly kind of "deputized crimefighter" thing from the 60s show and the Schumaker films (the Burton films frequently had people distrust Batman, more like the Nolan films but in a more weird Burton way).

This really made me think about the Snyderverse stuff and how, while I don't necessarily dislike him as Batman in theory, I almost never felt like Affleck was Batman. Maybe a bit in the theatrical cut of Justice League and in The Flash film, where he was a bit less of a bad knockoff of Frank Miller's angry old Batman, but overall much like most of the Snyderverse characters I just never felt like I was really watching Batman when he was around, he wasn't even that convincing as a Frank Miller Batman (not that a Frank Miller Batman is something I want to see in live action, but it was obviously what Snyder was going for).

Thinking about it, almost all the other Batman actors only really do Batman or Bruce Wayne well, rarely both. Bale was a good Bruce but a terrible Batman, Pattinson is a great Batman but not much of a Bruce (so far), and I guess I'd say that Kilmer and Clooney were tolerable but not great Bruces and bad Batmen. I honestly think that Michael Keaton probably is the best (serious) live action Batman actor to do both Batman and Bruce Wayne well, although even he is held back by the writing in his movies not really caring about either character, especially in Batman Returns.

Anyway I have ended up liking The Batman film despite its flaws, I probably like it better then the Nolan films (which seemed more ashamed of being Batman films, and had a lot less Batman in them then The Batman does). I do think that Batman (1989) is a better film, its definitely got better pacing and a better villain, but I think you could argue that The Batman is a better Batman film, although I expect the Batman that James Gunn is planning for his universe will be a version I like even more assuming it gets made.

 

[Christopher]

Nobody said that learning Clark's mother has the same name as his is what makes Bruce start seeing Clark as a person.

I said, "when he realizes that Clark, too, has a mother whom he loves, embodied by the fact that their mothers happen to share a name." Christopher said "[Bruce] is shocked to see him as a man fearing for the safety of his mother. The shared name is what gets through his defenses and lets him start to identify with Clark."

In other words: Lois saying it's his mother shocks him out of his alienation. Realizing their mothers share a name drives it home.

I appreciate what you're trying to say here, but you're off about the sequence of cause and effect here. As Supervisor 194 said, Batman had just asked Superman about what his parents taught him. So it wasn't a surprise to him that Superman had a mother; he probably just assumed it was an alien mother, something inhuman and cold like he believed Superman to be. Then Superman says "You're letting him kill Martha," and it's only after Batman demands "Why did you say that name?" that Lois tells him it's his mother. So the name comes first, and it was both things together that got through his defenses. In my statement that you quoted, I wasn't implying a chronological order with my choice of words; it just came out that way.

 

[The Realist]

It's too bad, because in theory the idea that Bruce comes to finally see Clark as a person instead of a threat when he realizes that Clark, too, has a mother whom he loves, embodied by the fact that their mothers happen to share a name, isn't bad per se. In another context, I think the idea could have worked.

Immediately after seeing BvS, I actually thought that moment was one of the better things about the film. I felt it was clever of the writers to recognize that both characters' mothers coincidentally have the same first name, and to have that trivial fact inform such an important turning point of the story. I also thought the scene worked emotionally. It seemed to me that the subsequent mockery and piling-on had more to do with a generalized dislike of the film than anything that was really wrong with the scene in question.

(Mind you, it was a dislike I shared, but my many problems with the movie didn't include the "Martha" bit. The line/moment that stuck in my craw the most after that initial viewing was, "No one stays good in this world" -- spoken by Superman. )

 

[Christopher]

Immediately after seeing BvS, I actually thought that moment was one of the better things about the film. I felt it was clever of the writers to recognize that both characters' mothers coincidentally have the same first name, and to have that trivial fact inform such an important turning point of the story. I also thought the scene worked emotionally. It seemed to me that the subsequent mockery and piling-on had more to do with a generalized dislike of the film than anything that was really wrong with the scene in question.

Hmm, no; I felt the moment could have worked in principle, but it was just so heavy-handed and overplayed that it became ludicrous. Like so many things, the problem was more with the execution than the concept.

 

[Anwar]

Also it makes Batman a flake. He's so deadset on killing Superman and has almost logical reasons for it, but then does a 180 because "he realizes Superman has a family he loves".