Comic Book Films & TV

[Noah]

2 hours ago, Maxx said:

It's rebounded up to a strong 41%!

It's rating 9.6/10 in imdb. This is important, credible feedback that you are ignoring here. 

 

 

 

 

[Lint]

6 hours ago, Maxx said:

Oh here's the fun part; that whole "darker than you anticipate" came from someone who prefaced it with "I assumed it was be really dark"

It's rebounded up to a strong 41%!  I'm just glad I bought my tickets long enough ago that I no longer feel any attachment to that money, so it won't feel wasted if the movie sucks.

It's down to 37%!

[Your Mom]

I have a real conflict this weekend. I don't want to see that movie at all  Or like if I do I am afraid I am going to be laughing and Christopher will be mad.

[Maxx]

2 hours ago, Ziggy Srardust said:

I have a real conflict this weekend. I don't want to see that movie at all  Or like if I do I am afraid I am going to be laughing and Christopher will be mad.

Are you planning on bringing the kids if you go?  Because I'm seeing reviews that say its probably best if you don't.

[Your Mom]

11 hours ago, Maxx said:

Are you planning on bringing the kids if you go?  Because I'm seeing reviews that say its probably best if you don't.

Had been thinking about it but I had decided against it based on what I heard. Glad I didn't say they could yet. I would see it first and then maybe take them but that would mean having to watch it twice and no thank you to that.

[=BK=]

On 3/23/2016 at 07:16, Benji said:

I don't get how you can make a humourless Superman film. I'm not saying go full blown 60s Batman, but everything about the character is a bit goofy and kitsch, embrace it, don't hide it with 90s GRIMDARKness.

It still annoys me that Arrowverse's Ollie is so damned humourless. Probably a polarising thing to say, but I actually preferred Justin Hartley's Ollie (nothing wrong with Amell himself, just the characterisation still feels off to me).

But Oliver isn't humorless. He's plenty funny, they're just not super silly jokes.

 

Diggle: You know, Oliver, somebody once told me that secrets have weight. The more you keep, the harder it is to keep moving.

Oliver: You see how hard I work out.

 

And stuff like him using the Arrow launchers to nonchalantly shoot Barry in the back and respond with " I heard you heal fast" when Barry complains.

[Benji]

It was hyperbole.

[stokeriño]

Speaking of Batman films that aren't grim.

 

[GA!]

Zack Snyder in "worst director working today" shocker. I think the level at which he has fucked up so many bankable concepts in the last 12 years is unprecedented.

[Maxx]

I have seen it.  My immediate reaction
 

 

Spoiler-y thoughts to come, gotta eat dinner first since I haven't had any because jesus fucking christ that was long.

But I can give you a preview of my more in depth review
 

 

[Lint]

Oh I can't wait to see this...

[Maxx]

Ooookay, long review, filled to the brim with spoilers for pretty much the entire movie... you've been warned

 

 

The good?  Affleck is great as Batman/Bruce Wayne.  There's a really cool Batman fight scene that's like something you'd see from an Arkham game.  Wonder Woman is pretty cool for her brief appearance.

 

The bad?  Um...everything else?  The pacing is atrocious.  The story is not good.  Batman and Superman interact on screen for about 25 minutes.

This is a movie that set out to accomplish way too much and had to cram a bunch of shit in to make it work.  Even if they just concentrated on doing that, everything still would have felt way too rushed.  But they didn't just concentrate on doing that, oh no, they had to cram in a ton of unnecessary shit on top of that.  Batman's dream sequences?  Yes plural.  What the fuck was that?  They did plenty to explain why he was pissed at Superman, they didn't need his shoot em up fever dream which features references to Darkseid which he would have no way of knowing about.  Or how about the dream where he sees his mom's tomb bleeding and then a bat monster pops out of it?  What the fuck was that?  What was the point? Why did that go into the film, it added nothing.  If you thought this movie wasn't bloated and convoluted enough already, don't worry, the last dream sequence manages to jam in fucking time travel as well.  I believe that was The Flash, though it was hard to say because apparently past Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, they've given up entirely on making the characters look like their comic book counterparts.  Time Travel mech suit guy looked enough like the greasy burnout edition of Barry Allen we see towards the end to assume its him.  Travels back in time to warn Batman about shit that will hopefully never come up again because the last thing this cinematic universe needs is let ZacK Synder adapt recent DC comics shitstorms like Flashpoint Paradox.

Yes, you get to briefly see The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg.  How do you see them?  Via an email.  Picture this, you've been watching this shit for two hours, things have finally fallen into place and the stage is set for Batman and Superman to throw down, as advertised.  Superman flies off to Gotham and shit is about to get real OH WAIT before we get to that, let's watch Wonder Woman check her fucking email.  Here's some brief security footage of other people because don't forget we're letting Zack Snyder make a Justice League movie since we're too fucking impatient to build this thing correctly!  Anyways, back to the fight, don't forget how hyped you were before our momentum killing cutaway!

And then we have Batman Vs. Superman, the event we all came to see.  It's alright.  A decent fight scene, and the first half of it features some very cool Batman using his gadgets and strategic planning.   But its pretty short, and when you stop and think about the fact that the whole thing centers on Batman trying to stab Superman in the chest with a kryptonite spear and kill him, it loses something.   Yes Zack Snyder's Batman is a little loosey goosey when it comes to that whole no killing thing, he absolutely kills some henchmen in this film.  Or maybe they're not dead, just horrifically maimed by explosions.  Doesn't matter to Batman, who brands criminals with his symbol, which apparently gets them beaten to death in prison.  Really makes you wonder how the fuck The Joker is still alive if Bats is this blase about killing.

Eisenberg's Luthor is here, coked out of his goddamn mind and looking like Arcade just walked off the pages of an X-Men comic and onto the screen.  This is not a good take on Lex Luthor and critics who said he was trying to out ham Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey were being too nice.  His dialogue is dreadful.  Why be direct when you can wax philosophic and poetic, because hey look how smart I am!  I loved the scene where he's giving a speech and can't quite come up with the right poetic phrase to end it, then just cuts it shorts, as I assume the writers just planned to come back and finish it, then never got around to it.  This is not a Lex Luthor from the comics, this is just bad.

Did you know Batman and Superman both have mothers named Martha?  Because that's a pretty essential plot point here!  Its the fucking reason Batman stops short of killing Superman, because he starts crying about how Martha is going to die, rather than saying "my mother"  And Martha is going to die because Luthor figures out that Superman is Clark Kent and kidnaps his mother to get him to fight Batman.  When does he figure it out?  Don't know, its never mentioned.  He just knows it all of a sudden.  Maybe its from the Kryptonian ship that he manages to take control of.  I don't know and I don't care, because all of this is so stupid.  

And its in the Kryptonian ship that Lex creates Doomsday, who looks like a big pile of shit.  Not only is he needlessly crammed into an already overstuff film, they can't even get him right.  He's gigantic and has heat vision, sure why not?  He can't be killed by nukes, because they shoot one at him and Superman, who is adversly affected by it until glorious sunlight heals him.  The fight is one big stupid CGI mess, and its pretty much the final act of the movie, as everyone assumed it would be when they stupidly put it in the trailer.  I say pretty much because there is something unexpected that happens.  Unexpected because of how fucking dumb it is.  If you know comics, you know Doomsday was part of a pretty significant event, and guess what?  It's in the movie too!  That's right, Superman fucking dies.

 And then we get two waaaaaaaaaaay too long funeral sequences, possibly way too long because they're shot in fucking slow motion like 75% of the movie.  But hey, gotta have a fucking shell casing fall to the ground in super slow motion during a salute.  And Batman tells Wonder Woman they need to recruit Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg so they can all fight together.  Why does he think they will need to fight?  "Oh its just a feeling I have."  There you have it, the genesis of the Justice League.   Oh, and of course its pretty much inferred that Superman isn't actually dead, because in the Snyderverse he's literally Christ, so clearly he has to rise from the grave.  Why have him die at all then?  Was the movie not enough of a joyless, dour shit show already?  Synder's reasoning for not using Grant Gustin as the Flash is spot on, he doesn't fit in this universe at all, because he's capable of being happy.

Oh and look, I wrote all that and didn't even mention the senate hearing being blown up by a suicide bomber.  Or Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen making a brief appearance and getting shot in the head.

 

TL;DR non spoilery version: There's a reason Marvel didn't start with Captain America Vs Iron Man: Assemblin' Avengers.  There is too much to a story like that to jam into one movie.  But if you're going to attempt it anyways, you could at least try to stay on track with that story and not jam in a bunch of other needless shit.  2 hours and 45 minutes and a whole lot of it is wasted.  You might also want to try to get the characters right, people kind of like that.

 

 

I got a special extended version because the fire alarm went off by mistake and the movie shut off for 10 minutes.  But I was actually quite happy about that, because even though it made it even longer, it got me a free ticket to another movie.  I'll probably use it to see Zootopia so I can remember what joy and laughter are.

 

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

Counting the Adam West film, I think this is the 9th feature film to star "Bruce Wayne as Batman," and they still fucking shoehorned in the Batman origin story

[Noah]

 

[VerbalPuke]

Holy shit, Preacher is going to be a tv series on AMC. I don't know if you guys discussed or not. 

But I am cautiously optimistic.

[The DBZemon King]

 

[brenchill]

BvS Spoiler...

 

Batman killed people

 

[MalaCloudy Black]

Zack Snyder's logic for that is absolutely fucking baffling, too. BvS spoilers:

Spoiler

“I tried to do it by proxy,” he explained. “Shoot the car they’re in, the car blows up or the grenade would go off in the guy’s hand, or when he shoots the tank and the guy pretty much lights the tank [himself]. I perceive it as him not killing directly, but if the bad guys are associated with a thing that happens to blow up, he would say that that’s not really my problem. A little more like manslaughter than murder.” 

Soooo basically.. "I tossed a grenade at your car, your fault if it explodes and you're still there!" fuck off.

Also, because it's a Batman/Superman/superhero movie it's on track to make a projected bajillion ($180m) dollars at the box office this weekend.

[Maxx]

It was always going to have a big opening, but I don't think it has legs.  It's not a movie people will want to see multiple times, either because they didn't like it or because it's so goddamn long.  And I can't imagine it's appealing to kids, all the stuff they'd be interested in happens two hours after they've probably checked out.

Yes, a shitty, poorly reviewed Transformers movie can make a bunch of money, but that's a 100 minutes of CGI action scenes, it's a whole lot more digestible than BVS.

 

[Noah]

I'm seeing an increasing number of people in various Facebook groups I'm a part of say that they rather enjoyed it. Seems to be mostly because they were convinced by all the press that the movie was would be the drizzling shits and because they expected that, they enjoyed what they saw.

The old going in with low expectations trick.