At the theater for Justice League and I remember why I don't movies on Friday nights these days. Busy as hell and even with digital tickets, there's a line for admittance.
Yeah, this movie isn't going to be worth the trouble. I typically only go through theater annoyance for Godzilla.
At the theater for Justice League and I remember why I don't movies on Friday nights these days. Busy as hell and even with digital tickets, there's a line for admittance.
Yeah, this movie isn't going to be worth the trouble. I typically only go through theater annoyance for Godzilla.
The very first scene is adorable and gave me hope for the rest of the movie. It's from two kids' phonecam as they try to interview Superman for their podcast.
Little kid: "Did you ever fight a hippo?"
Big kid: "Shut up."
Little kid: "But it's the deadliest one ..."
But then we're back in full swing Snyder. Superman's funeral with a sad song, montage of people in distress after having lost their hero. It's melodramatic, but as a scene alone there's nothing wrong with it. I can say that for a lot of scenes. Diana foiling the terrorist attack in London--great scene, but does nothing to further the movie. Lois and Ma Kent talking in the Daily Planet office.
The first stretch of the movie takes a tossed salad approach, not gelling together, and seem made with very different points of view. You'll get scenes where nothing is explained or established, you're just supposed to run with it, and if you know the comics or cartoons then you might be fine, so you'd think "okay, I guess this movie is for people familiar with the material." But then interspersed, you'll get scenes of exposition about other elements, and it's done in a clunky way. Apparently we're seeing the first time Mera and Aquaman meet, and she has to go over ... things he would've already known. It's clumsy writing. Either these are some of the scenes where some of it's Snyder, others are Whedon, or it's by someone who has no idea how to tell a story.
That said ... once we get past those clunky scenes and the movie actually feels like it's starting, it gets a lot better. It's not the silly-fest of Thor: Ragnarok, but it's not trying to be. Wisely the story sticks with the Keep It Simple, Stupid rule so that all the new elements won't be overwhelming the introduction of new characters. There are three McGuffins, if the bad guys get all three then it's the end of the world--probably for the best after how convoluted BvS got. On Superman's return ...
I'd assumed he would just suddenly be back, but there's instead a subplot concocted by Batman to resurrect him. It's a small detail, and causes some friction between characters, but I thought it was an interesting change.
While Supes isn't in this all that much, he actually does feel like Superman once he's back in the red and blue. All of the performances are good; I don't think that's ever been anyone's problem aside from Lex Luthor in BvS. Aquaman is an entirely different character here, more like Maui from Moana than Arthur Curry. It's not bad, but different than I was expecting. Cyborg is more interesting if you know what's going on with him from the comics, because the movie doesn't get into too much detail with that. Flash is set as the primary comic relief and I think that was the right choice. Never came off as too much to me.
The CGI is ... middling to bad. Most of it is serviceable, but a couple moments stand out as embarrassing to look at. One scene in Themyscira is pretty much an action scene between Valve rag dolls. Steppenwolf looks fine up-close, but they got lazy with his face any time he's not right up in the camera, and while I get he's supposed to be gigantic, there's no reason this had to be an all-CGI character. Flash is worst though--his suit looks strange in motion and the running/lightning effects look worse than the TV show. A CW show should not have a stronger superpower presentation that a movie this expensive.
I didn't see the sexism stuff. The only shots that could be interpreted as lingering on Wonder Woman is when the fight scenes go slow-mo. In that case, there are lingering shots of Batman too. The leather bikini armor is almost unnoticable because it's in a super-busy flashback scene to 5,000 years ago when Steppenwolf first tried to invade. That was one of the fun scenes from the early movie.
Amazonians, Atlanteans, and the men of Middle-Earth join forces against the Apokolips invasion. They get help from the old Greek gods, and--much to my surprise--a Green Lantern! Really thought WB would sweep those guys completely under the rug. It was a nice surprise.
There's some fun stuff as the movie keeps going. Aquaman giving a heartfelt talk had a clever payoff. The larger fights gave every character an integral role, which is odd because the large fights in Avengers seemed to struggle with what some characters should be doing. I wasn't pleased to see Batman using guns, even if they were on his vehicle or alien guns so nothing like what killed his parents, but I couldn't help smiling when the Batman theme from the Burton movies started playing while he drove the Batmobile through a warzone.
I'm riding the pluses of the movie's second half, but that first half is still a chore. It was certainly a stronger and more enjoyable movie than Suicide Squad, but in retrospect, I feel like this was more of a bandage for the DCEU. The tone the movie has by its end is so completely different from the beginning that it feels like WB turned a dial that decided how things are going to be going forward.
The first credit scene is just some silly stuff, which was nice.
The post-credits scene is, like the movie, a frustrating mix of good and bad, and is likely going to pertain to future movies:
Luthor has escape from prison/asylum, wherever the hell he was, and is now on a yacht. A smaller boat pulls up, and I could tell who it was just from the shadows as he walked, but the theater didn't go "WHOA!" until Deathstroke climbed onto the deck. Luthor tells him they need to from their own group to be a counter to the Justice League.
The scene is aggravating because 1. After the past hour of Justice League actually being good, they just had to make Lex Luthor the last thing you see? Thanks a lot. 2. There goes my thinking that Deathstroke wouldn't be in the Batman movie they're setting up. I'm almost certain they're sticking with him as the villain, because the alternative would mean him going after anyone else on the Justice League ... haha, no.
That said, the guy they got to play Deathstroke looks and acts perfect, so if they're going to go ahead with that, it'll probably be a good fit. I just don't give a shit about that character.
Too long, didn't read: I think people are being harsher than the movie deserved, but half of it is still a mess. It's really going to depend on whether you have patience to sit through the sloppy side of the movie before it starts to pick up.
It's a precedence dating back to the Silver Age, believe it or not. But Silver Age canon was so loose, it's debatable whether it was ever "official." I think the idea was introduced in an issue of Superboy, which were adventures with Clark in Smallville (or with the Legion of Superheroes) before he became Superman. He and Lex were best friends, similar in some ways to their dynamic in the show, Smallville. It also explained why Lex hates Superboy/man: he blames him for losing his hair. True story. I think it was from Kryptonite poisoning, but I'm not as sure about that.
Lex was the most fervent admirer of Superboy on the planet, and was working on a cure that would remove the ability for Kryptonite to hurt him at all, but something was up with Lex's experiment and it created a cloud of gas or something. Fortunately for Lex, it blew out the window. Unfortunately for Lex, Superboy was near at the time, saw it coming out of the window, thought it was smoke from a fire, and used his Super-breath to blow it back into the window. This gas caused Lex's hair to fall out and, enraged, he smashed his experiment while vowing to Superboy that now he would never finish making the Kryptonite cure.
At least, that's how I remember it from going through my dad's old comics. Lemme see if I can find it online...
<searches a bit>
Ah, here we go:
Found this on Reddit that goes over differences between Snyder's version and Whedon's final cut. In some cases Whedon changed where entire scenes took place. In others he just cut in close-ups of characters or added in dialogue.
(Under spoiler tag for length and, well, spoilers)
IMO Whedon is the main reason this is any good, if this thread is accurate. There were maybe two of the effective scenes that we're untouched Snyder scenes. And yeah, Whedon is responsible for adding in some of the clunky exposition. So the first stretch of movie being a mess largely is two very different styles clashing each scene.
But Whedon did that cute opening scene I mentioned in my review, and he came up with the big character development scenes that make the characters endearing and relatable. I'm not at all surprised that Lois/Ma Kent scene was his, or Batman giving Flash encouragement, or Batman admitting to Alfred that Superman was more of a normal person than he is. A lot of the best lines were inserted into Snyder scenes to make them more engaging.
I can't remember the exact lines, but dialogue for Superman that made him feel like Superman during the climax, all Whedon.
The one that sticks out is while Wondy is fighting Steppenwolf, Superman flies back from saving civilians and says "Is this guy still bothering you?", then punches Steppenwolf into a wall. It was said the way Reeves would've said it, the kind of tone you'd expect from the Big Blue Boy Scout.
Apparently James Wan directed a couple of the Aquaman scenes.
So, thank you, Joss Whedon. For all your faults, it sounds like I would've had a miserable time last night without your fixing this.
The post-credits scene is, like the movie, a frustrating mix of good and bad, and is likely going to pertain to future movies:
Luthor has escape from prison/asylum, wherever the hell he was, and is now on a yacht. A smaller boat pulls up, and I could tell who it was just from the shadows as he walked, but the theater didn't go "WHOA!" until Deathstroke climbed onto the deck. Luthor tells him they need to from their own group to be a counter to the Justice League.
The scene is aggravating because 1. After the past hour of Justice League actually being good, they just had to make Lex Luthor the last thing you see? Thanks a lot. 2. There goes my thinking that Deathstroke wouldn't be in the Batman movie they're setting up. I'm almost certain they're sticking with him as the villain, because the alternative would mean him going after anyone else on the Justice League ... haha, no.
That said, the guy they got to play Deathstroke looks and acts perfect, so if they're going to go ahead with that, it'll probably be a good fit. I just don't give a shit about that character.
There's a segment of the population that likes looking at things through dirty lenses and watching heroes move slower than they do? Otherwise, I got nothing.
The nice answer is that BvS got an emotional response out of certain people and that they had a response surpasses the many, many, many problems with the movie. An emotional response to a piece of media makes it personal, so critique of the movie becomes a personal attack. On top of that, there was the whole "it's for the fans/not for fans." If fans of DC comics/characters/cartoons criticized BvS, the response was "it's not for fans." If non-fans criticized BvS, the response was "it's only for fans." That latter one is true, but not for fans of DC stuff. The group came to realize they're fans of Zack Snyder.
The nasty response is that some people's mental landscape is a smoky, bleak nightmare and seeing that reflected on screen gave them a sense of unity.
I think Snyder does have his talents. I rolled my eyes over the World Without Hope montage at the beginning of Justice League because it was Snyder falling back on what he did with Watchmen. But the scene isn't bad, and why shouldn't he do what he's good at? If he's a mess outside his comfort zone, maybe it's better he stay in his comfort zone. And then realized he should be directing music videos. I think he'd excel at that.
I was a pretty big Zack Snyder fan after 300 and Watchmen, which I thought were awesomeness incarnate at the time. But after a while the one trick of his proverbial pony got a little stale.
Yes! I heard in an interview with Adam Levine (of Maroon 5) that EVERY other part of the world still watches music videos. Artists make videos mostly for Europe, but every other populated continent has a sizable audience for music videos. It’s only here in the U.S. that MTV devolved into the sad shell of its former self.
Also, YouTube sees a lot of traffic for music videos. The youngin’s watch them.
I was a pretty big Zack Snyder fan after 300 and Watchmen, which I thought were awesomeness incarnate at the time. But after a while the one trick of his proverbial pony got a little stale.
I tried to Frankenstein two posts that had different quotes and messed it up when I tried to fix it, so I deleted it.
I can see the headline: Zack Snyder goes from multi-million dollar films to Youtube sensation.
Snyder's cut sounds neutral and forgettable ... mostly. The main rumored difference was that Superman was going to be evil for the rest of the movie. Pretty sure it was Warner Bros execs who nixed that before Whedon got on board fixing it.
I tried to Frankenstein two posts that had different quotes and messed it up when I tried to fix it, so I deleted it.
I can see the headline: Zack Snyder goes from multi-million dollar films to Youtube sensation.
Snyder's cut sounds neutral and forgettable ... mostly. The main rumored difference was that Superman was going to be evil for the rest of the movie. Pretty sure it was Warner Bros execs who nixed that before Whedon got on board fixing it.
I watched a few cam footage clips of YouTube. Is it just me or do a lot of the one-on-one fight scenes look like Injustice game footage? I don't mean cut scenes. I mean actual fighting footage. It's really sloppy and uninteresting.
The nice answer is that BvS got an emotional response out of certain people and that they had a response surpasses the many, many, many problems with the movie. An emotional response to a piece of media makes it personal, so critique of the movie becomes a personal attack. On top of that, there was the whole "it's for the fans/not for fans." If fans of DC comics/characters/cartoons criticized BvS, the response was "it's not for fans." If non-fans criticized BvS, the response was "it's only for fans." That latter one is true, but not for fans of DC stuff. The group came to realize they're fans of Zack Snyder.
The nasty response is that some people's mental landscape is a smoky, bleak nightmare and seeing that reflected on screen gave them a sense of unity.
I think Snyder does have his talents. I rolled my eyes over the World Without Hope montage at the beginning of Justice League because it was Snyder falling back on what he did with Watchmen. But the scene isn't bad, and why shouldn't he do what he's good at? If he's a mess outside his comfort zone, maybe it's better he stay in his comfort zone. And then realized he should be directing music videos. I think he'd excel at that.
I wonder if part of the issue is that divisiveness was baked into the franchise. There was a fairly strong undercurrent in the ramp up to 'Man of Steel' -- if you didn't like this new direction for Superman, you are the wrong sort of fan (i.e. "Nerd!") It reminds me of a similar sentiment present with the Star Trek reboot, another movie series that has faced diminishing returns after a couple of films of middling quality and suggestions that the hardcore fans are a problem, not an opportunity.
Coincidentally, Justice League only opened to $96 million domestic, which is the smallest opening of any film in the DCEU. Its total, international box office for the weekend only reached $281 million, versus an expected $325 million. The Hollywood Reporter describes this performance as 'dismal'.
Seeing how reactionary WB is, I'm curious about their next move.
That said, I'm looking forward to their next three projects than many others, even though Wonder Woman 2 has no script and its contracts are yet to be finalized.
Friday and Saturday, they were so angry. But then people started asking if they liked the movie or not, and you'd think the list of criticisms would mean no, they didn't. But that would mean betraying their own fanbase and ... I don't buying into WB's scheme or something?
So the new narrative is "I loved Justice League, but I hated everything Whedon did and still want the Snyder cut." ... right. More than half the footage used is estimated to be Whedon's.
I still think that fans worry too much about how a movie isn't what they wanted instead of what it is. Having said that, BvS is still boring. The most interesting part of it was the earthquake.
Why not petition for the six-hour two-movie version David Goyer had written while we're at it?
