Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

So, Warner Brothers announced their latest superhero movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and the internet exploded. Certainly, this was a match that DC comics fans have been anticipating for years. I, however, like many others, objected to it as more information was released about it. I truly could not see this movie being any good. It seemed that Warner Brothers was making a foolhardy attempt to catch up with Disney Marvel Cinematic Universe in a short amount of time by throwing a bunch of DC heroes into one movie all at once. After seeing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I still hold that opinion. However, I didn't think the movie was nearly as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

Following his titanic struggle against General Zod, Metropolis has been razed to the ground and Superman (Henry Cavill) is the most controversial figure in the world. While for many he is still an emblem of hope, a growing number of people consider him a threat to humanity, seeking justice for the chaos he has brought to Earth. As far as Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) is concerned, Superman is clearly a danger to society. He fears for the future of the world with such reckless power left ungoverned, and so he dons his mask and cape to right Superman's wrongs. The rivalry between them is furious, fueled by bitterness and vengeance, and nothing can dissuade them from waging this war. The tension between them is further fueled by the conniving Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who is launching his own crusade against the Man of Steel. However, a new dark threat arises in the form of a third man: one who has a power greater than either of them to endanger the world and cause total destruction!

There was just too much revealed about this movie in the trailer. It left virtually no surprises for the movie to show us. It showcased what was surely supposed to be a major reveal toward the end of the movie by having Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) show up in the trailer and have the three face off against something that looks remarkably like Doomsday. That ruined so many of the surprises that Batman v Superman had to offer. Really, if you know anything about the DC comic universe, you know that if Doomsday shows up anywhere, you can pretty accurately guess how the story is going to end. The trailer showed us too much and it weakened what the movie had to offer that was good. I want to meet the marketing team behind this movie and give each one of them a firm slap across the face.

Batman v Superman evens out to be a decent movie; it has a lot of bad in it, but it does deliver some great material as well. Let's start off with Batman. Affleck was publicly announced to play the part of Batman in this movie, and the internet exploded. So many people were enraged by this, and reasonably so, especially after that really, REALLY terrible Daredevil movie he starred in back in 2003. I understand that so many people were outraged by Affleck playing Batman that his agent advised him to stay off of Twitter for a few weeks. But, Affleck ended up being amazing! I thought it would be a good number of years before anyone would be brave enough to don the role after Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. This was a new take on Batman, one that was damaged, and had changed his moral code just enough to be new without changing what we all love about the character. This made him very hardcore and fascinating. If Warner Brothers plays their cards right, this would make for a strong center for a new solo film with Affleck as Batman.

The action and cinematography in general was fantastic. The story here may not be so good, but let no one say that director Zach Snyder doesn't know how to move a camera. The camera work was beautiful, the scenery and visual effects were stunning, and nearly everything looked pretty darn fantastic. Only once or twice did I ever get drawn out of the movie experience to go "eh, that could have been polished up a bit better" or have the cameras angels in post-editing change so fast as to leave me behind and wonder what just happened. The action scenes were intense, and looked incredible.

One of the concerns I had about The Avengers movie was that they were going to mash together a bunch of major characters, give one or two of them a bulk of the screen time, and leave everyone else as half-baked characters. This was my concern with Batman v Superman as well, more so because only Superman had one movie prior to this, Man of Steel. Any other characters being introduced for the first time could not possibly get the amount screen time to be fleshed out enough for their big screen debut. This was kind of what happened with Wonder Woman. By the end of the movie we still don't get a real sense of who she is or what she's about. However, this movie revolved mostly around Superman and Batman, so that's somewhat forgivable. She still played a significant part in the end, but she wound up as a token female superhero, which is really too bad. Given the small role she had, Wonder Woman was pretty good for what she was. I think that a more brief appearance of her would have been better. Don't misunderstand, I want to see Wonder Woman in a movie; I just think it would have been better to leave her as a hinted at cameo, as was done with other Justice League characters who make very brief appearances.

I didn't like this portrayal of Superman. Superman is supposed to be a symbol of hope, but I was never convinced of that here. There was a montage that seemed to be trying to tell me that he is a symbol of hope, but I just couldn't buy it. The tone of this story is too dark, this depiction of Superman is controversial within his own storyline, and the brightness of hope didn't seem to have a place in this movie. It was more of a Batman movie that happened to have Superman in it. The two characters are thematically opposite and the two clashing themes don't fit together well in the same movie. It could have worked in the right hands, but it just didn't work out well here. Then the whole motivation for Superman to be fighting Batman was hard to swallow; Batman's motive was very clear and understandable, Superman's motive was that the poorly developed script said it would be neat to see them fight. The two were basically one short conversation away from understanding one another, but they duked it out instead.

The story in Batman v Superman was as messy as I feared it would be. During the opening credits we get a rehash of the all too familiar origin of Batman which was really well done and featured minimal dialogue. Then we go to the first scene, which tells us a little bit of story, then it switches to another scene to start another storyline, and it keeps switching back and forth every five minutes or so, making it frustrating to keep track, and not giving us enough information before switching back. On top of this, the overall story moves very quickly and it's easy to get lost if you aren't paying very close attention. Batman had some visions or dreams of what I assume were the future and took them as hard evidence. While some were kind of cool, they didn't make any kind of sense. Perhaps it's hinting at a bigger story arc that spans multiple movies? If so, they were made to appear much more significant to current events than what they were. It's too soon for that since we're just now introducing a bunch of characters. There are so many plot holes in this movie I'd like to discuss, but I want to avoid further spoilers that the trailer didn't already spoil for you. Suffice it to say, the story needed work.

Lex Luthor was a major disappointment. Jesse Eisenberg may be a good actor, but he's not a good Lex Luthor. Luthor is supposed to be an ordinary human, albeit one with a strong, commanding presence. This Lex Luthor was an energetic squirrelly little twerp that more closely resembled the socially inept Mark Zuckerberg (that Eisenberg played in The Social Network) who had finally snapped and went crazy. He just looked too young and silly to play a decent Luthor. Doomsday truly felt shoehorned in at the last minute; I could see studio executives insisting on including him to excite fans into wanting to see the movie. The origins of Doomsday in this movie were not canonical and in fact, made no sense at all. It could have been a great story arc, but as was the case with the inclusion of Wonder Woman, there was no real story around him and he mostly shows up to excite fans and destroy some property.

There are many hints dropped thoroughout the movie to tease at and suggest the upcoming superhero alliance of The Justice League. Yeah, those were exciting to see. But they're doing it all backwards. Marvel had the wherewithal to introduce characters individually in their own movies before putting them all together. That allowed us to know who each of The Avengers were right from the start and proceed with character and plot development for the story in which they were gathered together. For the DC movies here, many characters are thrown together, few are given enough screen time for us to care about, others are mere cameos, and we as movie goers are not given context for why we should be excited about them. We should see a Wonder Woman movie, an Aquaman movie, a Flash movie, and maybe some others before throwing them all together, or else the resulting story about their union will have to spend too much time explaining who they are and what they're about and not have enough time for a fleshed out, compelling narrative. I'm curious to see if these DC movies can prove me wrong and deliver something well done and interesting, or if I'm right and the series will fall apart from weak story and characters before it can get going. Batman v Superman has it's good points, but it's not a very good start to a series of movies.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was much better than I feared it would be. Ben Affleck as Batman was positively amazing! The visual effects were stunning, the action was riveting, and the cinematography was gorgeous. The villains were a considerable disappointment. The story and pacing was a bit of a mess, even if it was a fun mess. And the movie felt bloated with all the hints at things to come in future movies, about half of which could have been left out to avoid unnecessary confusion. Overall, I think the movie was good, just not great. It could have been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse and I am grateful that it wasn't. I urge you not to veto this movie because Ben Affleck played Batman, nor because Warner Brothers isn't going about their Superhero team up movies as well as Marvel did. Give it a shot; you may like it. I think this is worth seeing on the big screen if you're a DC comics fan; it's not a bad way to spend a couple hours. If you're not such a big fan of DC, maybe wait for this on home video.

What do you expect to see from future DC/Justice League movies? Do you have high hopes? Do you think they'll deliver a decent set of movies based on Man of Steel and Batman v Superman? Avoid spoilers, but tell me what you think!

Fantastic Four Review (2015)

In order to remind us that Fox owns the film rights to a couple of Marvel series, a reboot of the Fantastic Four (2015) was made. Fox still has movie rights to X-Men, as well. If not for the last two amazing X-Men movies, I'd say Disney is the only one that does Marvel movies right anymore. This is the fourth attempt at a Fantastic Four movie, including 1994 movie that never got released. Sooner or later Fox will have to accept they can't do a Fantastic Four movie that's worth seeing, and  it would probably be better in the hands of another studio. Perhaps this cinema atrocity will put them on the right path.

Transported to another dimension, four young outsiders gain superhuman powers which alter their physical form in shocking ways. Reed Richards (Miles Teller) becomes able to stretch and twist his body, while Reed's friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) gains immense strength and a rock-like body. Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) is able to control and project fire, while his sister Sue (Kate Mara) can become the invisible and generate force-fields. Together, the team must harness their new abilities to battle former colleague, Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) who poses a threat to Earth.

Really, that simple synopsis is everything that happens in this one hour and forty-six minute movie. They spend a lot of time showing us montages of the group creating an interdimensional transport, broken up with token bits of poorly done, awkward character development. Then they go to another dimension for a little while and acquire some powers. Then Doctor Doom shows up when the group attempts a second expedition and then they have to fight him. That's literally everything that happens. The first fight scene in this action movie is at the climax at the end! This might be the most boring and uneventful super hero movie to date.

I appreciate the fact that they were trying to get this new version of the Fantastic Four to be more character driven and more realistic on some level, but the result was so sloppy and poorly written. Compounding that with the fact that it takes itself very seriously makes it hard to enjoy. I understand that in the world of comic book based movies you have to allow for a certain level of whimsy, but so many plot devices and character abilities were left unexplained. As an example of these infractions, just because you can fly, your body can be engulfed in flame, and you can throw fire balls, doesn't really mean you have the strength or physical structure to smash through colossal stone pillars like Superman might. Why is this weird radiation energy from another dimension able to alter people's physiology, and why does it grant someone powers who had never gone to that other dimension? Why do they need space suits to traverse the other dimension early in the movie, but not later? Most of that could be explained with one or two lines of dialogue, but that wasn't bothered with.

One of the fun things about superhero movies is seeing our protagonists discover their newfound abilities. I love watching Tobey Maguire learn about his new powers in the first Spider-Man movie, or Tony Stark try to perfect his Iron Man suit. It's even funny watching Thor having to acclimate to a lack of powers he's always had. That scene was completely lacking in Fantastic Four. Our heroes make it back to our dimension unconscious, but exhibiting signs of their powers. Then we get a slow fade to black and a caption that says "One year later" and we catch up with everyone who has basically mastered their abilities by this point. It felt like we were being cheated of crucial character development and potential for humor. We didn't even get to see much of their reactions to new powers, let alone them trying to figure them out. It's stunts like this that made the movie much worse than it should have been.

There were several annoying changes made to the characters, some of which are really going to upset Marvel fans. Reed Richards is the most intelligent person in the Marvel Universe, and a couple of times, Victor erases and corrects Reed's calculations during a montage. An often critical device when fighting Doctor Doom in the comic books is that Reed is one of the few people that can outsmart him, but we're just going to ignore that, apparently. Doctor Doom was really bad, though. Doctor Doom's powers include technological manipulation and some mystical abilities like energy projectiles and creating protective shields. In this movie, he's psychic, telekinetic, can open gateways to other dimensions, can convert matter into energy, and can control rocks and apparently some weather. He just walks down the hall, and people die without him lifting a finger or even looking in their direction. Not only does he look too far off from what he is in the comic books, his powers and personality are so off the mark that he's basically not Doctor Doom at all. They don't even call him Doctor Doom in this movie, just "Doom" maybe once or twice. Doctor Doom is as far from his source material in Fantastic Four as Deadpool was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and that disgraceful depiction of Deadpool made everyone furious!

I'd like to say that the graphics are at least good, and occasionally they were. There's a scene where Reed is trying to squeeze out of some constraints, and you see the muscles in his arm working even though his arm is stretched out. When you see him try to pull out of the constraints, still with his arm stretched, you can see his skin bunch up around the bands as he tries to free himself. Some things like that were pretty impressive. But there were other bits that were so lacking in refinement they may as well have come from a Sy-Fi Channel television movie, like Sharknado.

This latest Fantastic Four movie fails everything essential to make a good superhero movie. Good superhero movies need exciting action, colorful thrills, enticing visual effects, a few laughs, and characters we can relate to, root for, and watch grow and develop. Fantastic Four literally has none of that available. The story is extremely boring and slow. The first fight scene is at the end of the movie, for crying out loud! The characters aren't even likeable and are changed for the sake of the movie in all the wrong ways. The camera work was sloppy, transitions between scenes were often awkward and confusing, and the script is just terrible. The previous Fantastic Four movies were better than this, and that's saying something. This is the worst superhero movie I've seen since Daredevil or Elektra. I implore you not to see this in theaters; if this ends up as anything more than a box office bomb, Fox will just try to make a sequel. If for some reason you truly want to see this movie, wait for it on Redbox or something. It's certainly not worth the price of a movie ticket, and barely worth what you might spend to rent it.

Okay, what is the worst superhero movie you've ever seen? Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, any comic book series that has had a movie based on it. Comment below and let me know!