REVIEW: Wonder Woman Can't Save Dull "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"

[master of read]

i see this as more akin to frank millar's batman from DKR: old, harder, less forgiving than his younger days. if that's what they were going for, i can understand it. part of me still doesn't really like it but i understand it.

[dragonmp93]

And even then, it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be a dramatic turning point.

It Tv Tropes that it's known as Narm.

[brettc1]

Ben K. hit a lot of the things I found so tiring about this movie, right on the head. My family insisted on seeing it, so I got roped into going along with them. It's funny seeing this movie on Easter, since enduring this film feels so much like going to church. Not going to offer any anecdotal examples of upset children or bored and disappointed movie goers, (although I certainly encountered them in the hallways and the restroom, complaining about it. One young boy was pissed.) I kept myself awake this round by playing a game of "What the hell, Batman?" The rules of What the Hell, Batman are pretty simple. All you have to do is watch Batman do something that makes you say, "What the hell, Batman?" In no particular order:

1. Batman has a kinky survivor dream about being one of the only survivors of the Kal-Elpocalypse. He snaps necks, machine guns people down with Gusto, and it takes a legion of flying monkeys to bring him down. Batman now dreams about killing people in his sleep. Wooow.

2. Batman takes the Killdozer out for a drive. It is hungry and must be fed. I actually liked this sequence, just because the Batmobile in this movie is really cool, and I understand why he'd be pissed when Supes wrecks it. But, he still mulched three cars filled with, y'know, people. So, What the Hell Batman?

3. Batman nearly gets a cop to blow his own partners head apart with a shotgun. That was a serious What the Hell? moment. You couldn't have gotten out of the room without scaring that guy? Damn, you are one sad freak, Bruce.

4. Batman tortures Superman, then goes for the Kill shot. Holy ****. It was a nice car, Bruce, but damn you can afford another one. Smashing him around a room, throwing him off a roof, slowly cutting his face, getting ready to stick him in the throat. He was really gonna do it. What the hell?

5. Batman kills a bunch of other guys. Why did you say that name? Why did you say that name? Why did you say that name? Shoot at him when you think you think you think you've got him in a pincer attack? You're just killing your own guys. Try to stab him through his armor? You're getting punched in the throat. Pull out a grenade? Oh, you're gonna eat that grenade, boy. Did you seriously bring Gatling guns to a Gatling Rocket fight? Sucks to be you. You're gonna kill Diane Lane, and you really mean it? BATMAN BELIEVES YOU.

6. Batman lures Doomsday into Gotham. WOW.

7. Batman has a weird epiphany about the name 'Martha' and leaves his incredibly useful wouldn't it be nice to have that in case of an emergency nah I'll just leave it in this destroyed Church where Lois can do something stupid with it spear laying on the floor. What the hell, batmaaan?

8. WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh hell, this was better in two minutes than most of the actual movie!

This is going on Facebook! [with due spoiler warnings of course]

Brilliant!

Edit: "Batman dreams about killing people in his sleep." Still laughing!

[brettc1]

"The Killdozer is hungry and must be fed."

I think I wet my pants!

[BatmanJones]

Cranston is saved for Commisioner Gordon

I wish that were so but J. Jonah Jameson will be playing Jim Gordon. Cranston would have been miles better as Gordon or Luthor. That Snyder actually considered Cranston for Lex and passed on him for whatever Jesse Eisenberg was supposed to be is the perfect microcosm for his poor taste.

[TRS80]

TL;DR I just saw the movie and I liked it. I didnt love it. And thats ok because I see a way to fix it. Batman TAS to JLU(Timm/Diniverse if you will) best encapsulated the characters in this movie. And portray these character at their most classic interpretations and timelessness. It should be used as a writing guide for characters in movies going forward. This movie gets 7 frank millers out 10 and 2 reign of supermen out of 4.

Things right off the bat that irked me the wrong way:
Lex Luther is weak sauce. He should be an alpha male. Not whatever we saw. They should blame his quirkiness on Darkside/Apokoliptian/Brainiac manipulation. His plan was lame and Doomsday could have been hiding in the wreckage this whole time. Doomsday should have looked, meaner I guess. No need for Lex to be involved. I never liked the Kryptonian "science" from MoS, it was lame and they dragged that mess into BvS. Yeesh. You can create monsters like doomsday but cant figure out Luthor used cut off finger prints to fool your security system? And you can see Gotham from Metropolis? Wha, wha, I cant even. And boy was that movie long. It was two movies and they should have been released back to back about a month apart. Superman was still too, not superman-y? Still brooding for no damn reason. Aside from a few other cringe worthy parts, the pacing and gray filter made me sleepy at times. The tone is good for Batman, bad for Superman. IMO, this movie could have been way worse.

The good parts:
Batfleck. The fan service to TDKR was much appreciated. And simply through exposure I'm more okay with Batman doing some killing than I was when Keaton did it. This is the part of Batman I compromised to enjoy this film. The TDKR route sells this Batman. Although me and my wife now have a good laugh about Batman doing crossfit. Wonder Woman was great. Her smile during the Doomsday fight sealed the deal for me. Lois Lane actually made a difference. The strong female roles in this film felt natural and refreshing. While some of the nagging problems with MoS are still present, it felt like it was distancing itself. Once smallville finishes his super saiyan nap. We will have an opportunity to get a slightly different Superman. The one those of us alive before smartphones grew up with. The Flash cameo brings in elements of time travel and the multiverse. This alone could be the key to a fresher and brighter cinematic universe in the future. I'm hoping that all of this plot compression will pay off, so we can get to a real Justice League movie even faster. I prefer Martian Manhunter instead of Cyborg. MM would fit better in the gray filter verse. But, Miles frigging Dyson as Cyborgs dad? Brilliant. The Neil Degrasse Tyson cameo with him wearing, I think, the same vest he wore in his New 52 cameo tickled me. I highly suspect Darkside at work, and cant wait to see just how things play out. I am more hopeful for future DC cinematic movies than I was after MoS.

[brettc1]

Wonder Woman: You brought him back to the city?

Batman: There's a kryptonite spear here that is the only thing that might kill him.

Wonder Woman: And you figured if you just came back and got it you would never find him again?

Batman: ....

[Jeremi]

Wonder Woman: You brought him back to the city?

Batman: There's a kryptonite spear here that is the only thing that might kill him.

Wonder Woman: And you figured if you just came back and got it you would never find him again?

Batman: ....

No you see it was okay because Batman told us that it was abandoned...much like every other place they were fighting.

[Divine Spark]

[Divine Spark]

Which doesn't make a single bit of a sense from a storytelling perspective.

When a character changes in a story, there has to be a reason for the change. What was the reason for his change? Superman's death? Superman was just as violent as he was, so the change doesn't work.

Had Superman actually been heroic and avoided killing people, then this change would have worked. But that's not how it happened. So it seems like Batman just cops out on killing for no good reason.

Are you talking about when he "killed" that terrorist? If so, he even says that he didn't kill that guy.

[batnbreakfast]

Yeah, what great strong characters we got with WW and Lois Lane. I'm laughing at that. WW barely rises over cameo screentime and her Xena theme makes me cringe. A complete failure marketing the movie with WW to people. Lois was done well in the first half (aside from the bathtub scene which was nice to watch but doesn't get you points with girls or women) and has nothing to do in the second half. Her quest for the spear should have been a deleted scene, it was an excuse for more screentime but they should have given Amy Adams something better to work with. Those bug me more than giggling Lex Luthor. Where was Terio involved? My hopes were on him saving audiences from lines like that. Too many eastereggs to bring in DC fans hurt the movie as well.

There really is a good movie in Batman v Superman, a movie I liked. People would praise Snyder if the characters weren't called Batman or Superman. Justice League is off to a rocky start but it still can be hammered into something great.

[mrPizza]

water's wet. sky's blue. dumb movie makes bank. Saw it twice, so yeah they got me.

[Vworp Vworp]

And even then, it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be a dramatic turning point.

Indeed... which is what made all the funnier. Basically, all the film's laugh out loud moments were unintentional ones.

[Vworp Vworp]

In this movie Batman is fed up and deals out punishment accordingly. He's in the twilight of his career where he feels like he's tired of playing kid games with criminals.

The problem is that he also seems to be fed up with detective work or looking for any actual evidence before deciding to murder someone just because he thinks they might be a threat.

For me, Batman's levels of violence weren't an especially big deal for me. But his inherent stupidity (that no amount of "oh, but he's tired and jaded and blah blah blah" can justify) really was.

[krazijoe]

Meh, I liked it, I don't care what other people thought.