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#they will never be you snyderverse superman you were the best of them all

lol-jackles · 3 years

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So Zack Snyder's Justice League, how was it? I loved it. The characters were all fleshed out more and did not mind the 4 hour long movie. I did not even mind the too many super hero's that were introduced. Whedon's was too rushed. The VFX blew me away.

It was awesome, it did not feel like 4 hours even though it could have been easily trimmed to 3.5 hours without sacrificing heart and soul.

I love the non-jokey violence in this movie. One of my biggest complaints about the MCU is the jokey violence. But in this movie when Wonder Woman, Steppenwolf and Superman punch, you see the ionized molecules fly away from the punches, the walls shudders and the ground rumbles and the surface buckles. I love this about Snyder’s visuals, that you can feel these are gods on Earth and not Earthlings with some godlike powers.

Seeing Wonder Woman utterly annihilate those terrorists was probably my favorite scene. She didn’t even care that they died; she wanted them gone. Each and every one spattered against the wall. That fight showed how dangerous Wonder Woman is, she’s literally a god compared to those regular humans.

I hate it whenever Marvel fanatics complain that Wonder Woman shouldn't kill when she NEVER hestiates from killing, even in the comics she's like this:

Seeing Wonder Woman as both warrior and teacher was the best thing. There’s this sort of debate as to her role in the Trinity. Superman is always the fireman. Batman is always the police officer. Wonder Woman has hovered between teacher and warrior, although according to the Delta Force, one of their most important jobs is battlefield teacher, so I say Wonder Woman can be both.

Cyborg is the heart and soul of this movie, his scene helping the waitress was compelling. Why did Joss Wheldon cut his arc????? Ray Fisher saying he will only return to Justice League if Synder returns makes complete sense. Cyborg's arc is the most evolutionary and seeing his father and him make eye contact on the ship just before they reawaken Superman was emotional.

When Flash entered the Speed Force to break the light barrier, I never thought I would be so moved, it was extraordinarily well done. Even his inner monologue was perfect because was absolutely necessary to frame what was happening — there was literally no other way without using subtitles or a narrator. It is honestly so inspiring and epic seeing Flash, a normal dude with super speed be the only one left standing and is gravely injured but faces death head on with only one goal in mind: to save the world.

What I loved so much about this movie was it’s a story about heroes becoming Gods…. in compelling ways. This is a complete opposite direction from Marvel’s Avengers where its shows heroes doing god-like things. IMO is far more interesting and inspirational seeing these powerful beings come together and act human and work as a team.

Other great additons:

Steppenwolf had … motivations? Gasp!

The Mother Box Gods.

The 100 ending scenes. Each one was great.

All of the “premonition” scenes. All of them. Every one.

Omega Beams??? Squeeeeeee!

The setup for a potential sequel or re-incorporation of the Snyderverse into the wider DCEU is hugely exciting to see.

I love Ben Affleck’s performance because he actually cares about doing well and isn’tTony Stark in a bat suit who says “Something is Definitely BLEEDING!”

Best of all, fleshing out Superman’s ressurection and return, and returning Superman back to being comic accurate aka optimism. There are more scenes of Lois and Superman talking about their history, which I loved, as it builds up their relationship and makes them both likeable.

The only thing I didn't like, no, loathe was the death of Silas Stone. I want HIM to be on the Justice League as some kind of civilian scientist/leader.

Can’t have everything.

I believe Zach Synder’s Justice League is revolutionizing the streaming movie experience. This changes the game now. Before, peoplle were worried that fans would get bored after 3 hours but not anymore, thanks to this movie.Sure, it doesn’t make a lot of money but it does bring in NEW subscribers.

One last thing, Holy Zeus Abs Batman! (every gay fanboys checking Grindr for Zeus)

#justice league #Zach Synder Justice League

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Joker Epilogue Explained

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This Zack Snyder’s Justice League article contains spoilers.

Despite the heroes’ best efforts throughout the four-hour epic, Zack Snyder’s Justice League still ends in scorched earth, with Darkseid’s forces decimating whatever’s left of the planet’s surface, turning it into a wasteland. Even after defeating Steppenwolf and preventing the disaster of Unity, it’s still not enough to stop what’s been coming to Snyder’s version of the DCEU since Bruce had his first “Knightmare” in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Or so it seems in an almost 10-minute-long epilogue, which includes a cameo from Jared Leto’s Joker especially shot for the Snyder Cut.

Joker’s inclusion in the movie might seem jarring to some, considering he has no bearing on the actual story being told for most of the film’s runtime. In fact, you could pretty much skip the epilogue completely and not lose much of the experience if you’re only watching for the main plot. That said, the tense conversation between Batman and Joker — as they look upon what Darkseid’s wrought on their planet — does raise some interesting questions as to what might be next for these archnemeses were Snyder to get yet another shot at the DCEU.

Ironically, Snyder actually shot the brand-new footage for Leto specifically because he thought he’d never get another chance to work with these characters. The director “couldn’t leave this universe without having a Joker/Batman scene,” according to producer Deborah Snyder in an interview with CBR. But shooting the scene in the middle of a pandemic was tricky: it involved sending a truck full of costumes to Leto’s house, who would then try them on for the director during Zoom calls to see what worked. According to Deborah, “there was a lot of Zooming and photos and things like that, but so much thought went into creating the character.”

This might explain why the “Joker Christ” look — a version of the villain wearing a crown of thorns featured in a Vanity Fair article — didn’t actually appear in the movie. It was likely one of the costume ideas that were nixed before filming. Something similar happened with Leto’s now-infamous “We live in a society” line in one of the trailers for the Snyder Cut, which the director says was ad-libbed by Leto himself while filming the epilogue. As you now know, that line is nowhere to be found in the scene, either.

So, what did make it into the epilogue? How did Snyder use his final chance to have these versions of Batman and Joker meet in a DCEU movie?

The Batman/Joker History

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For one thing, Snyder touches on some very familiar elements of their dynamic. Like with past iterations of this relationship, Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight and Leto’s Joker are truly inseparable. Even when faced with the end of the world, when all bets are off and the rules no longer apply, the hero and the villain still decide to team up instead of settling the score once and for all. Joker is especially cognizant of their connection, mentioning how Batman created him and how his beloved Bat now needs him to undo what Darkseid did, even though it’s unclear just what the clown can do against such insurmountable, cosmic odds.

Bruce’s threat that he’ll eventually kill Joker is a particularly weak one when he’s also welcomed the Clown Prince of Crime onto his team, and equipped him with a bulletproof vest and an assault rifle no less. Their tense back and forth in this scene is just another section of their eternal dance, even as the Joker dares Batman to kill him. But if Bats were to give in to the temptation and end the clown’s life, who would be there to give him a reach–

Harley Quinn is Dead

We learn a few other things from their brief conversation (and one has to wonder why they’ve decided to do this in the open where they can be spotted by Darkseid’s parademons or Evil Superman): Harley Quinn has died in this possible future, but not before expressing her true hatred for Mr. J. Whether it was always the plan for Harley to break away from her insane beau in time for Birds of Prey or Snyder was trying to connect the dots after the fact is unclear. But her death is clearly a particularly sore spot for Joker, who for a second seems to want to break his own proposed truce and take a shot at the Batman.

“You’re good,” Joker finally says when he regains his cool, realizing the Dark Knight wants the clown to give him a reason to put him down for good. Self-defense ain’t the same as murder in the Snyderverse, right?

The Death of Robin

Robin’s death is finally addressed with one of the coldest lines in the entire epilogue: “I’m happy to discuss in any way you like, why you sent a Boy Wonder to do a man’s job?” the Joker asks Batman. This is in reference to a couple of things. The vandalized Robin suit displayed in the Batcave is a stark reminder of what is likely Bruce’s biggest failure in this universe, but we’ve never actually learned how the Boy Wonder died despite the references to the meteoric death sprinkled across Snyder’s earlier DCEU work. We know the clown did it but not how (perhaps for the best) or the events that led up to Robin’s death.

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But that single line of dialogue delivered by the Joker suggests that some version of the 1988 comic book storyline “Death in the Family” has happened in this universe. In those comics, Robin (the second one, Jason Todd) goes off on his own to find his biological mother against Batman’s wishes, and instead comes face to face with the Joker, who murders him in extremely gruesome fashion. It’s a death that haunts Bruce as much as the deaths of his parents, which Leto’s Joker also references, along with Batman’s real name.

Batman Must Die

Most importantly, the epilogue seems to exist so that the Joker can plant a seed in Batman’s head: only his own self-sacrifice will be enough to stop Darkseid once and for all. This is a storyline that Snyder had planned to explore further in future Justice League sequels, a proposed trilogy that would have culminated with the Dark Knight’s death and the rise of a new Caped Crusader.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see this trilogy now that Snyder and the DCEU are parting ways, but the epilogue leaves the road clear for a sequel nonetheless, with Joker alluding to a time-travel plot that would involve Batman’s new crew going back in time to undo Lois Lane’s death and Superman’s villainous turn.

The DC Comics Inspirations

This is hardly the first time the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime have joined forces to fight a greater evil. Most recently, they’ve teamed up in the DC comics by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, particularly in Dark Nights: Metal and Last Knight on Earth, post-apocalyptic stories set in nightmarish wastelands that the director might have at least skimmed while writing this epilogue. In both of these stories, Joker is a key part of Batman’s ultimate victory. In Last Knight on Earth, Joker even finally become’s his “best friend”‘s sidekick.

But in terms of what inspired the grungier look of Justice League‘s Joker, it seems that the filmmaker and Leto went back to the Grant Morrison era of the character for inspiration. Just as Morrison and Tony Daniel’s “reborn” Joker was a clear influence on Leto’s get-up in Suicide Squad, the jarring butcher (?) costume worn by the clown in the epilogue might have been inspired by a similar look introduced in Morrison’s Batman and Robin series (above). Either way, it’s a very odd fashion choice when you’re about to go fight a New God, but then again, Joker isn’t exactly your average dresser.

With this Batman and Joker scene, Snyder reaffirms his love for these characters. Regardless of whether you find his take on their relationship worthy or not, it’s impossible to deny Snyder’s attention to detail when crafting his final DCEU scene, one full of references to Batman and the Joker’s past as well as their potential future. In his own divisive way, Snyder writes a love letter to these characters and goes out with a smile.

The post Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Joker Epilogue Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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wazafam · 3 years

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Last month Warner Bros. revealed that a new Superman movie was in production, with Star Wars and Star Trek director JJ Abrams producing and Black Panther comics writer Ta-Nehisi Coates working on the script. This announcement came just in advance of the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League, which brings back Henry Cavill as Superman.

RELATED: Superman & Lois: 5 Best Moments From The Pilot (& The 5 Worst)

Beyond this basic information not much has been revealed about the project. There have been rumors it will be a reboot unconnected to the DCEU, similar to Matt Reeves' The Batman and perhaps even featuring a Black Superman, but Coates himself suggested the new Superman movie might be part of the DCEU after all. There are certainly pros and cons to both.

10 Standalone: Superman Doesn't Have To Be White

While it's rumored that Warner Bros is looking to create a Superman movie with a Black actor as the lead, and the hiring of Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to point in that direction, there is no confirmation that this will actually come to pass.

Hopefully, it will as this would be a terrific victory for representation and diversity for DC, especially in light of recent allegations made by actor Ray Fisher about director Joss Whedon. It would also help them stand out from Marvel, which tends to cast white actors in traditionally white roles rather than aiming for diversity through these means.

9 DCEU: Henry Cavill Can Stay

At no point has either Henry Cavill or Warner Bros confirmed that he is no longer part of the DCEU, nor has he been fired from playing Superman. Rumors to the contrary all stem from Cavill being unable to appear as a cameo in Shazam due to his commitments to The Witcher.

With Zack Snyder's Justice League hopefully reminding fans why Cavill was so great as Superman, he needs another movie with him as the sole superhero, something he's not had since Man of Steel.

8 Standalone: No Continuity Required

If Zack Snyder's Justice League proves anything, it's that the continuity of the DCEU has got somewhat complicated, even more so once fans begin discussing which version of Justice League is canon. With the DCEU Superman, for example, Clark Kent is canonically dead.

RELATED: 5 Reasons The Justice League Theatrical Cut Is A Worthy DC Movie (& 5 Why You Should Wait For The Snyder Cut)

While it's probably possible for the filmmakers to think up an excuse about how Kent survived, it would be a lot easier just to wipe the slate clean. This would also bring back Jimmy Olsen and Mercy Graves, and allow Lex Luthor to be a businessman again.

7 DCEU: So Much More Left To Tell

If there's one major reason not to have a major character such as Superman break from the DCEU it's that there are so many more stories left to tell within it, especially with this version of Superman. While the DCEU Batman is deliberately framed at the end of his career, and the leaked Justice League 2 storyboards showed he was supposed to die as part of the conclusion of the "Knightmare" storyline, Superman is still learning what it means to be an icon.

Audiences need to see him take on the likes of Brainiac and even Darkseid if possible while dealing with the fallout from the previous movies.

6 Standalone: A Break From The Divisive Snyderverse

Whether you love or loathe Zack Snyder's DC movies - Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, and Zack Snyder's Justice League - it's impossible to deny that they have been divisive. While fans will defend them to the hilt, they're certainly not for everyone, which is part of the reason Warner Bros made such an effort to retool Justice League into something more crowd-pleasing.

That mostly failed, but a fresh Superman movie with a new writer/director team in a brand new continuity might be a chance to make something that appeals to a wider audience.

5 DCEU: Supergirl Needs A Mentor

Last month it was revealed that the DCEU's Supergirl had been cast after many years of rumors, and The Young and the Restless actor Sasha Calle will be playing Kara Zor-El. Her first (and presumably not her last) appearance will be in next year's The Flash, where she will star alongside Ezra Miller's Barry Allen and both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck as Batman.

Notable by his absence is Henry Cavill's Superman, as it would've made sense for him to appear as a mentor figure for his Kryptonian cousin. If Cavill returns for another Superman movie he might have a chance to do just that.

4 Standalone: There's No Reason The DCEU Can't Continue

One of the biggest concerns fans have about the idea of Henry Cavill being replaced as Superman, and the next movie potentially being separate from the DCEU, is the suggestion that Cavill's Superman won't get to appear in any further DC movies if it happens. This is patently untrue.

RELATED: Superman: 10 Comics That Could Inspire The Next Film

As both Joker and The Batman prove, Warner Bros is quite content to allow more than one version of a character to appear in movies and TV shows, and the DCEU can continue with Henry Cavill's Superman if they need him, even if there's a new standalone Superman movie happening at the same time.

3 DCEU: The Amazing Spider-Man Effect

In terms of audience anticipation, perhaps the biggest problem with releasing a standalone Superman movie in its own separate universe is that by and large audiences don't take very kindly to reboots and fresh origin storylines coming too soon after the last one.

The DCEU is essentially all spun out of Man of Steel, so it doesn't matter so much if Batman gets a separate movie, but a standalone Superman reboot coming so soon after Zack Snyder's Justice League (and not that long after Man of Steel) raises too many comparisons to The Amazing Spider-Man, which audiences were very negative about regarding how quickly it arrived after Spider-Man 3.

2 Standalone: The Batman Is Greatly Anticipated

Matt Reeves' The Batman reboot coming next year is the best argument for the new Superman movie to be standalone. Currently, the first teaser trailer for The Batman has around 30 million views on Warner Bros' YouTube channel, and even though it's still a year away fans are greatly anticipating it.

This is despite both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton reportedly appearing in The Flash DCEU movie, which should also come out in 2022. DCEU fans aren't angry that The Batman is a standalone movie, in fact, they're completely in support of it.

1 DCEU: Zack Snyder's Justice League Is Getting A Lot Of Attention

After Justice League flopped in 2017 it seemed very easy for Warner Bros to essentially make Henry Cavill's Superman a scapegoat, fuelling rumors towards a Supergirl movie and providing no news on Man of Steel 2. Now, however, the tables have turned, and what should have just been a bone for fans to persuade them to subscribe to HBO Max has basically turned into a phenomenon.

Zack Snyder's Justice League is getting a lot of attention and in particular, the return of Cavill's Superman in the black solar suit. It would therefore be wise for Warner Bros to capitalize on this sudden surge of popularity and confirm Henry Cavill's return for the next Superman movie.

NEXT: Superman: 10 Mindblowing Comic Crossovers We'll Never See On Screen

Why The Next Superman Movie Should Be Standalone (& Why It Should Stay In The DCEU) from https://ift.tt/3c1zxhL

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intergalactic-zoo · 6 years

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In preparation for my viewing of Justice League, I decided to revisit Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I've been dithering with this post on and off for a month, and while I don't think it's gotten any shorter, at least I feel like it says all I'm going to need to say on the subject. Also, I added some pictures. Anyway, you may recall that I did not care for the movie the first time around. I'm approaching this like I did with my Man of Steel rewatch that I did in preparation for that viewing: trying to focus on the positive, to find the movie that I've seen fans posting gifs of on Tumblr for a year and a half. To that end, I'm watching the Ultimate Edition, which I've heard is better than the theatrical cut. Without further ado... I listened to the opening voiceover three times, twice with subtitles, and I'm still not sure what it means. "What falls...is fallen," is, I suppose, meant to be a way to set up Batman's character arc, that he goes from this nihilistic place to learning to hope again, but hoo boy does it make Batman sound like a pretentious MFA student. As unnecessary as the rehashed Batman origin is, I like that we see Martha Wayne being the proactive one in the alley. We typically see Thomas trying to take control, rushing forward to protect Martha and Bruce, and this is a nice change of pace from that. Batman and Superman's stories tend to be way too dad-centric, especially in adaptations, to the point where Martha Wayne is largely a cypher, despite having existed for almost eighty years. I'm no Batmanologist, but I think the only comic I've read that tried to characterize her at all was Batman: Death and the Maidens. Looking back to Man of Steel, this is an ongoing theme. Moms live longer in the Snyderverse, whether it's a few days, with Lara, a few seconds, with Martha Wayne, or indefinitely, with Martha Kent. Moms are also badasses, with Lara facing down Zod, Martha K. taking on Faora, and here, Martha W. trying to protect Bruce. It's a little weird that the Batcave is apparently adjacent to the Wayne family cemetery plots. Ugh, "the Superman." I'll accept "the Batman" as something people call Batman, but seriously, "the Superman" is what Nietzsche wrote about, not Jerry Siegel. At least, post-1933.

There's a giant alien spaceship destroying cities, and it's been active long enough for Bruce Wayne to ride a helicopter over to Metropolis and drive halfway across town in disaster traffic, but nobody at Wayne Enterprises looks out the window or starts to get out of the building until they get a call from the boss. Those are some dedicated employees, let me tell you. This is also a stark contrast to Superman, who never so much as shouts at bystanders to run during the big fight with Zod. Why doesn't Jack leave the building? It looks like the rest of the staff made it out, and as far as I'm aware, there's no tradition for the CFO or whatever to go down with the ship. Moreover, why does Bruce think he's still in the building? We just saw that he had no cell phone service, so it's not like their call was still connected. This scene tries to do what Man of Steel really failed at, examining the human cost of this destruction, but it doesn't work. There's no reason for Jack to make the sacrifice (at least they could have had him run back into the building to save someone, to make a parallel with Pa Kent in MOS—in the Snyderverse, Moms survive and Father Figures die for no reason), there's no reason for Bruce to think he's not among the evacuees, and we have no emotional connection to this character that we've never seen before in any medium. At least if it were "Lucius," the film could play on audience's previous familiarity with the character to tug some emotional strings, like it does with Jimmy Olsen later, but this is just the movie reaching for an emotional payoff that it hasn't earned. It's the same problem as the Jenny saying "he saved us" in Man of Steel—it relies on characters knowing things because the audience knows them, even though the characters have no way of knowing. It's a weird inversion of dramatic irony. The moment with the little girl who's lost her mom works considerably better, because at least it ties back to the origin flashback. The closest thing we have to a throughline for Batman's character in this movie is that he doesn't like it when people lose their moms. When I rewatched Man of Steel, I kept wondering what impression people on the street would get of Superman, and this is actually a nice reification of that. Bruce sees Superman pushing Zod back down from space, apparently in control, surrounded by debris from a Wayne Enterprises satellite, bringing him right back to the huge, densely-populated city that they were fighting in before, when presumably he could have flown him into the ocean just as easily. Bruce seems to have nothing but contempt for the battling aliens, and that's a way more genuine reaction than seeing him as a hero.

I am just infuriated by the callous incompetence of the Superman in this universe. Eighteen months later and there is still a wrecked alien spaceship leaking radioactive xenomaterials into the Indian Ocean. Like, for a movie so focused on mothers, it doesn't speak well of Martha Kent's character that she never taught her son to clean up his messes. We cut to a fictional country in Africa, where Lois acts like a jerk to Redshirt Jimmy, then sits down to interview General Amajagh with literally no chill. He says that he is "a man with nothing except a love of [his] people," and that's one of those lines that feels important. On one hand, it's more or less exactly what Zod said toward the end of Man of Steel, so that connection's made; on the other, it resonates with Batman's attitude, and Lex Luthor's as well. "These pious American fictions, spoken like truth" is another such line, and Luthor's "oldest lie in America" line echoes it later. The most suspicious thing about Jimmy Olsen is the idea that he'd be using a camera with film in 2016.

Hooray for casually lethal Superman. People like to justify the idea that Superman should be able to kill people in situations like this, where an innocent person is being held at gunpoint by a Bad Guy, because it would be a justified use of lethal force. And that would be true if Superman weren't, you know, Superman. He's not limited in the ways that, say, human law enforcement officers are. Even in the real world, we've seen an epidemic of police officers resorting to lethal force when effective nonlethal options are available. But for Superman, there are always nonlethal options available. We've seen this scenario before a thousand times, where Lois is in danger, held at gunpoint by a Bad Guy, and Superman manages to stop him without killing him. He can grab the gun at super-speed, he can block the bullet from exiting the barrel, he can melt the gun or the firing pin with heat vision, he can knock the Bad Guy out with a flick of his finger. We've seen literally all of those and a dozen other options spread out across half a dozen media for nigh on eight decades. But this is a Superman who defaults to lethal force, and I'm sorry, but that's not a heroic trait. Not in general, and especially not in the world of the last several years. Also, Lois and Superman share this look before he does the death-flight move, and she nods and lets go of Amajagh's arm and braces herself, implying this has happened before, or at least that they've discussed what they'd do in this situation. That adds a layer of complicity to Lois's behavior that's uncomfortable at best. We cut then to Nairomi villager Kahina Ziri's Congressional testimony, where it seems like the security contractors' intent in killing Amajagh's people was to frame Superman for their deaths. Which, first, is wholly unnecessary given that Superman actually does kill Amajagh, and second, would almost certainly be more effective if they had just used the flamethrowers rather than shooting the men and piling their bodies before burning them. Or did this universe's version of Lois Lane's "I Spent the Night with Superman" column mention his bullet-vision? Senator Finch decides to hold Superman responsible for the deaths of Amajagh's people (despite the fact that he stopped the CIA drone strike that also would have killed them, but that's actually fairly believable), and we see that the driving theme of the story is going to be the Responsible Use of Power and Holding the Powerful Accountable. It's a reasonable theme for a Superman movie (it's very similar to the theme of Superman IV, in fact), and a common theme of Superman stories going back to the Golden Age. Rarely, though, is it told through a version of Superman who is so obviously and disastrously irresponsible in his use of power. Ziri turns out to be lying, as part of Luthor's scheme, which is highlighted by how her recounting of events is directly contradicted by what we just saw. Leaving aside the elaborateness of Luthor's scheme, it's not a good look for all these African characters to be either sinister or witless pawns. The cops watching a Gotham/Metropolis football game are call sign Delta Charlie 27, and if you don't catch that Easter egg, don't worry, they repeat it three or four times to drive it home. And hey, if you thought "d***splash" was a weird phrase to hear in a Superman movie, wait 'til Officer Rucka drops an f-bomb. Clark comes in while Lois is in the bath, and right off the bat says he doesn't care what was said at the hearing. Which...kind of validates the point of the hearing. He also says he "didn't kill those men," which isn't quite accurate, is it, Clark? Like Ziri's testimony, Clark here is saying something that is directly at odds with what we just saw. Unlike her, though, we're never given a reason for the incongruity. It's common in superhero stories to have characters survive experiences that would cripple or kill normal humans. People point out how brutal Captain America is to a lot of the guys on the ship at the beginning of The Winter Soldier, and how some of the guys he kicks or throws his mighty shield at would likely have sustained pretty grievous injuries. There are two ways to deal with this; in Winter Soldier, we never really revisit the issue. Whether the anonymous cannon fodder died or were injured or were knocked out never comes up again, so we can assume whatever we like. The other way is to show some indication that, however improbably, the person survived their experience. Having a quick shot where they groan or rub their head or squirm on the ground is pretty commonplace, especially in superhero cartoons, for instance. This movie tries to do the former, treating these minor villains like goons in a beat-em-up arcade game, whose bloodless bodies disappear once their hit points are exhausted. Which might be fine, if not for the fact that "who administers lethal justice" is an explicit theme in the movie. As a result, we're left with an inconsistency between what Clark says and what we saw him do, with enough ambiguity in his words to make us wonder if he's being as duplicitous as Ziri was. Lois points out that there's a cost to his actions, which again feels like one of those "this is thematically important" lines. The Lois and Clark interaction is good here; I like seeing them being affectionate and even physical with one another. And yet, as if to drive home that point about themes, Lois warns him that he's going to flood the apartment if he climbs into the bathtub, and he just smiles and continues. This is a Superman who does what he wants, and damn the consequences. Hope they don't have any downstairs neighbors.

Alfred tells Bruce that "a feeling of powerlessness [...] turns good men cruel," in case you're taking notes on themes. And then this leads into our scene of Silicon Valley Startup CEO Lex Luthor, who offhandedly mentions that his father grew up poor and oppressed in East Germany before launching into his kryptonite weapon pitch. There's some weirdness here in the way they go from kryptonite weapons as deterrents to the "metahuman thesis" which suggests that Lex thinks metahumans are related to Kryptonians, and I wonder if that ties into the rumors from before this movie came out that the Amazons would have been descended from that empty pod on the Kryptonian ship. Lex's negotiations with Senator Jolly Rancher underscore that theme of power, and the abuses thereof. Lex pretends to be interested in preventing the metahumans from instituting a fascist state, but really just wants to be the guy with the launch codes. Much as I dislike this Heath Ledgeresque portrayal of the character (though he's not my least favorite version of Lex), this is a good understanding of the core of Lex's character. Clark has a sad at Kahina on TV pointing out that his actions have consequences. Meanwhile, there's a "beloved" statue of him in Heroes' Park. I wish we had a little indication of how we got to that point, how the city apparently got back to normal and built a massive monument in the span of 18 months. For comparison, only a handful of buildings in a single area were destroyed or damaged in New York on 9/11, and they didn't start constructing the memorial until almost five full years later. A line about how Superman assisted with the cleanup, a shot of a newspaper article on how helpful he was in rebuilding the city, those little things would have helped to make sense of the world we're presented with. As the story actually stands, it's another attempt to have a meaningful moment without actually earning it, and it further undercuts the movie's inconsistent attempts to explore the consequences of these superhero battles. Clark Kent, news reporter, is unaware of the vigilante in the town across the bay whose exploits were literally front page news the day before. So he's actually incompetent at both his jobs. And so is Perry White, who is a cynical jerk here who basically flaunts his lack of integrity. When Clark hits him with the same point that Kahina made on the news, he dismisses the very notion of the American conscience. Lois comes in with the bullet she recovered from Amajagh's camp, which is a one-of-a-kind cutting edge bullet not available anywhere. So, to recap, Lex Luthor had his people use unique, easily-traceable bullets to kill people in an attempt to frame Superman, who does not use guns, for their murder. And yet Lois thinks this means the U.S. government armed the rebels while claiming to support the elected government, even though it was already said that the government was officially neutral, and she knows the CIA was involved in going after Amajagh because she just washed the agent's blood off her shirt. Superman blew up a damn drone on the way to save her. Did he not mention that? One day it'd be nice to get back to superhero costumes that look like they might believably fit under a person's civilian clothes, rather than having to spend all their time on mannequins in those heroes' basements.

Clark Kent, news reporter, doesn't recognize the famous playboy billionaire businessman who lives in the town across the bay, owns an office building that he helped demolish (not to mention a satellite), and who was namechecked by the guy defacing a statue of him. It's bad enough that Clark managed to even get this job when his résumé reads "fisherman, waiter, US Air Force baggage handler," and it's worse that he doesn't find it odd that he, a guy with no more than 1.5 years' newspaper experience who struggles to file sports articles, gets specifically requested to cover a high-class fundraiser, but he hasn't even bothered to research the big-name donors who were specifically invited to the event he's covering? He is staggeringly incompetent. As bad a newsman as this movie's Perry White is, that he even tolerates Clark is a testament to superhuman patience. Clark tells Bruce that he's "seen" the "Bat vigilante," except...no, he hasn't? He's seen a newspaper story about it, and talked to a few people who fear Batman, but he hasn't actually seen Batman. He makes a crack about Batman thinking he's above the law, after scoffing himself at the idea of being accountable to a higher authority a few scenes ago. Again, Bruce is 100% right here: Clark is being a hypocrite, and doesn't even have the "Batman's tactics are too brutal" moral high ground to stand on when he risked an international incident by unnecessarily splattering a warlord through two brick walls. Like, the charitable interpretation here is that Clark is dealing with a crisis of conscience, trying to find an answer to the question of using power responsibly. So he's putting this question to other people with power—Perry, Bruce—in hopes of, what? Finding a satisfying answer for himself? Getting the guidance he seems to need? Exploring alternative points of view? The closest thing we have to a conclusion to this muddled plotline is that Superman sacrifices himself in the end, which could indicate that he realizes there's no way to use this much power responsibly. That would be a potentially interesting take, even if I think it's ultimately at odds with the whole point of Superman. If this were the Dark Knight Rises of the Man of Steel-iverse, a coda to Snyder's version of Superman the way that DKR was for Nolan's Batman, it could work. Instead, this is the springboard for the entire DC shared film universe, so it can't end with the message of "superhumans shouldn't exist because that amount of power inevitably corrupts or has unforseen negative consequences." It has to end with "Superman was actually great and now we need to get all the superhumans together because bad things are coming that regular people can't stop." Even if that weren't the case, we still have a situation where Superman sacrifices himself knowing full well that there is technology that could resurrect him as an unstoppable monster and that there are people willing to do just that. Even if the conclusion of his asinine soul-searching is "no one man should have all this power," his sacrifice doesn't fix that. It just wipes his hands of having to figure out who has that power and how it's used. Even his heroic sacrifice represents an irresponsible attitude toward the enormous power he possesses, and that's almost impressive.

Lex Luthor pops up, and the World's Greatest Detective doesn't find it odd that he knows the name of the occasional sports reporter who's covering the gala. Lex could not be more obvious about knowing who the two of them are. He also mentions that Bruce is finally in Metropolis, "after all these years." Metropolis, you'll recall, was home to a Wayne Enterprises building less than two years ago, and Bruce was heavily enough involved in its operations that he was on a first-name basis with the manager, and the staff didn't bother evacuating until they got the word directly from Mr. Wayne. Like, even if we imagine that Bruce traveling across the harbor to a building he owned was a freak occurrence during the battle, this also suggests that after witnessing and being traumatized by all that destruction, Bruce Wayne didn't bother setting foot in the city to help rebuilding efforts. Clark sees a report about a fire in Juarez and saves a little girl, leading to another "here's some religious imagery" scene, and a talking heads segment about how "every religion believes in a messianic figure," which I'm almost certain is complete nonsense. What's worse is that this segment made me agree with Andrew Sullivan of all people. The last bit poses the same basic question that young Clark asked Pa Kent in Man of Steel: should he just let people die on principle? And yeah, it'd be hard to tell a parent that their kid died because Superman restrained himself from saving them. But isn't it also hard to tell a kid that their parent died because Superman acted without restraint and, say, disabled a spaceship so that it would crash in the middle of a city? There's a fairly rapid-fire sequence where the bat-branded crook from earlier gets transferred to Metropolis and killed on the orders of Luthor's Russian merc, Wally the statue vandal gets released on Luthor-paid bail, gets cleaned up, and meets with Senator Finch, and Lois confirms things she already suspected about the strange bullet (with a bit of bathroom gender essentialism from General Swanwick). Clark gets in another fight with Perry, who tells him "you could stand for something in 1938, but not anymore," which...

And we also learn that not only has Clark Kent, a guy who can travel from the northeast coastal U.S. to Juarez in seconds, hasn't filed either of the stories he's been assigned so far. Like, sports stories don't have a long shelf life, my dude. You are a terrible reporter. We're treated to a painfully unfunny Jon Stewart monologue about Superman wanting not to be considered American anymore. It's weird on several levels, since we've had no indication that Superman's made any statements at this point about...anything, but it's also just not well-written. Superman must be American because he wears red and blue and has an S on his chest? It's a bigger stretch than the right-wing radio host I heard circa 1997 saying that the blue-and-white electric costume meant Superman now represented the United Nations. It makes more sense as a response to that Goyer-penned story from a few years back about Superman renouncing his U.S. citizenship, but even then it's still not good. Verbal sparring with Bruce and Diana, then we get the "Knightmare" sequence. I want to laugh about Batman wearing a mask over his mask, but honestly that's pretty true to the character.

Mad Bat-Max fights Superman Nazis and Parademons with guns until Superman kills him for taking "her" from him, presumably Lois. And then the Flash shows up to say "Bruce! Bruce! Justice League premieres in November, 2017! Mark your calendars!" or something. Did we need two scenes back to back where Bruce dreamily realizes that Lois Lane is important and Superman is bad (though Flash is notably vague with his pronouns)? Do we have any indication at all as to what's behind Batman's weird dreams? I've seen Justice League at this point, and I still can't answer those questions. Speaking of scenes we've already seen, Clark Kent gets a mysterious envelope with the Batman newspaper article he waved around earlier and a bunch of Polaroids of that dead bat-branded criminal, with the phrase "Judge Jury Executioner" written on the bottom. Literally none of this, down to that phrasing, is news to Clark, but hey anything worth doing is worth doing twice I guess. Also, even though he hasn't published anything about Batman, even though he's only asked a handful of people about the Bat vigilante, he doesn't stop to wonder who would send him these pictures, or whether it might be an attempt to manipulate him. Bruce learns that the White Portuguese is a ship, which I feel like he probably could have found out without downloading Lex's mainframe. He already knows about the kryptonite, and he knows it's being delivered to Lex Luthor, so he's going to steal it and use it to kill Superman, based on logic straight out of the Iraq war. It's a bad argument, especially for a guy who we know doesn't care about the consequences of his branding low-level thugs but has allowed the Joker to keep on living. It is easy to craft actual reasons to rein in the reckless, inexperienced, cavalier Superman of this universe, but Batman manages to be just as wrong and just as hypocritical as Superman. For the record, I think this is really the turning point of the movie, the sequence from Knightmare to this point. This is where the movie takes a hard right turn from a kind of fascinating mediocre to Actually Bad. All these overwrought dialogue-heavy scenes hammering on the same points as though the universe itself is trying to force Batman and Superman to fight, because it is. It's not just Luthor; as much as he's orchestrating, he isn't behind Batman's dreams or the branded crook's girlfriend being in the police station when Superman shows up. Every conversation Clark and Bruce have is driving them to fight each other because that's the title of the movie, not because it makes sense for either of their characters. And they both have to be hypocritical idiot fanatics for the plot to make any sense at all. I was going to say that this is plot driving character, but it's not, because there's not enough of either. This is a fight scene driving everything else. The battle between Batman and Superman is the given, and nothing else needs to make sense so long as it ends up with them fighting. So, after seeing Days of Future Bats using a handgun, we get a fakeout with him aiming a sniper rifle at the guys hauling the kryptonite. Psych, it's actually a tracer! Batman doesn't kill people, silly! And then he Batmobile-rams an apparently-occupied car so that it flips over several times and takes out a trailer office. Psych! Batman totally kills people. Okay, so maybe the office was empty, and maybe that car was just sitting next to all the other occupied cars, with its headlights on, but empty as well. Maybe? Maybe you can argue that he didn't kill anyone with it. Not so much after he harpoons it and uses it to flatten a car with at least four guys in it. And then uses his hood-mounted bat-guns to 1000% kill at least another two in an SUV. I won't even blame him for the guy he let drive into a tanker truck, but he definitely decapitates at least one more with his car driving through the top of the semi carrying the kryptonite.

Are we supposed to be okay with this because Batman only has the power to kill dozens of people, rather than millions? Is his argument against Superman really just a matter of numbers? The thing about this scene that's most galling, though, is how unnecessary it is. Batman knows what ship the kryptonite is on, where it's docking, who's taking it, and where they're planning to deliver it. He puts a tracking device on the truck. There is no reason whatsoever for him to be chasing after them in his sports tank. He kills at least seven people and endangers at least a half-dozen other drivers we see on the road because, what, sneaking was too hard for The Batman? He was too lazy to set up an ambush? Nothing in this scene makes sense, and it thoroughly undermines what little moral high ground Batman had. It makes him look less like he's upset that Superman endangers people and more like he's just upset that Superman does it more efficiently. And then his car bounces off of Superman, which is actually a pretty cool idea. I always like it when Superman's powers are treated kind of casually; it makes him seem so effortlessly powerful. But then he gives Batman this 'go home and stop being Batman, or else' speech, and Batman asks "do you bleed," and ugh. That little detour kept Batman from pursuing the kryptonite shipment, so instead he uses the tracer. Surprise, it's at a LexCorp research facility! Except now they know Batman's after them! World's Greatest Detective, everybody! Lois meets with the General again and gives him the bullet. Senator Finch asks Superman to come to Congress. Lex ogles the kryptonite. Superman meets with Martha Kent, who tells him "when people see what you do, then they'll know who you are." She follows this up with "you're not a killer. You're not a threat." Except that he is. He's both of those things. He killed Zod, he killed Amajagh, and that's just the two we've seen directly, that's not even blaming him for all those killed in collateral damage. The last time we saw him in costume, he was literally threatening Batman. Martha's pouring a big ol' glass of Granny's Peach Tea right here. And then "you don't owe this world a thing. You never did," which is a pretty garbage sentiment, there, Martha. It's no wonder that this Superman doesn't bother to clean up his messes, doesn't think he should be held accountable, doesn't seem to have much agency beyond asking other people what he should do, if that's the message he's been getting his whole life. Hide your abilities to save yourself, you don't have to help people...these aren't the philosophies that build a hero. And Superman doesn't argue with her, doesn't plead a case. He just looks melancholy.

Ziri sees the contractors, then goes back to tell Sen. Finch that she lied before. The General meets back up with Lois to tell her that the bullet was developed by LexCorp and that it was a setup to make Superman look responsible. So, again, LexCorp hired mercenaries directly, armed them with unique LexCorp-designed bullets, and had them shoot a bunch of people to frame Superman, who doesn't use guns, for killing them, when he did in fact kill their leader and didn't actually need to be framed for anything. Everyone in this movie is an idiot. Perry won't run Lois's story against Luthor on the word of an anonymous source, and Finch knows that Ziri lied about pretty much everything because Luthor threatened her. So, if all this could be stirred up by one witness lying, why did they even need to kill the villagers in the first place? Luthor shows up, sends Mercy into the Congressional chamber, and tells Sen. Finch that the oldest lie in America is "that power can be innocent." And, again, he's right. We know he's right. Superman and Batman's reckless abuses of their respective powers makes them both responsible for unnecessary, avoidable, unjust deaths. And while you might argue that Luthor's being a hypocrite here, since his men push Ziri in front of a subway train and since he's about to blow up Congress, it's not like he's exempting himself from that statement. Luthor is willing to use his power, lethally if necessary, unilaterally to achieve his own ends. How is he any different from our two ostensible protagonists? We've seen this kind of question asked before, particularly in Lex Luthor stories. Luthor is cynical, megalomaniacal, and narcissistic. He can't imagine that Superman would use his power altruistically because he can't believe that anyone wields power without expecting something in return. And in these stories, we know that Luthor is projecting his own flaws onto Superman because he's unwilling to accept that he might be wrong. But having the Superman of these films, who uses his power irresponsibly and doesn't care about accountability, recontextualizes Luthor's position. He's no longer obviously wrong, no longer clearly trying to justify his own actions. This Luthor is a power-hungry narcissist, sure, but when opposed to a cavalier, unrestrained Superman, he's got a point. Anyway, in keeping with the movie's need to hammer every point home, Senator Finch chokes on her speech no less than three times as we take four long, loving shots at the jar labeled "Granny's Peach Tea" on her lectern. Then the Wallybomb blows and Superman just stands there, looking melancholy. Was his last line when he threatened Batman? Is this meant to be another allegory, Christ remaining silent under Pilate's questioning or something? Or is this Superman just a passive observer when he's not chasing down the Batman story or murdering warlords? Like, seriously, the U.S. Capitol Building just exploded. There are probably people in other rooms. There are priceless artifacts in this building. Maybe don't just stand there?

To Superman's credit, we do see him rescue a woman and bring her to the EMTs. And then he looks melancholy at Lois and flies off. The Capitol is still smoking, EMTs are working with people on stretchers, cops are zipping up body bags, but Superman doesn't try to reassure the crowd, doesn't ask the first responders how he can help, doesn't tell Lois what happened or where he's going. He just flies away. It's as if the filmmakers heard the criticism that Superman barely saves anyone in Man of Steel, and put this in as a "fine, see? He saved someone. Happy now?" As if Superman's got better things to do than help people who need help. We learn on the TV at Wayne Manor that first responders are still bringing victims out. Superman has to at least suspect that this was targeting him, right? And he just disappears, rather than help people who got hurt because they were near him. It's a theme for this version of Superman. Naturally, this drives Batman to go steal the kryptonite from Luthor's lab, which he was already going to do but now I guess he did it angrier. Superman has a sad with Lois about how he shouldn't have even bothered with helping people, and it was his dad's dream anyway. Lex gets into the Kryptonian ship's database, Batman does crossfit and makes his kryptonite weapons, and then he gets into Luthor's "META_HUMAN" folder where he's helpfully assigned the Justice League handy symbols and, apparently, names (or two-letter designations that just happen to correspond to their names).

If you were worried that maybe you wouldn't recognize one of the surveillance shots of Diana, it's okay, she always makes sure to look directly at the camera. But we get to hear her amazing theme music for the first time, so that's good. Luthor brings Zod's body into the Kryptonian ship and drips his own blood on it for reasons, and in the Daily Planet office and around the world, people are debating the degree of Superman's complicity in the bombing of Congress. It's not entirely fair to pin that on him, but the point that he's got nigh-unlimited power and did nothing to prevent people from being killed can be levied on other things he's done, so it's kind of a wash. Lois Lane, who generally makes out pretty good in these movies, sits at home watching TV, where they've figured out who the bomber was, but still haven't ruled out Superman as a co-conspirator. Because if he wanted to kill a whole bunch of people, he'd have some rando who hates him build a bomb. I can't decide what's dumber: that Lex keeps trying to frame Superman for murder with tactics that Superman doesn't use, or that people buy it. Lois eventually gets up and investigates Wally (and learns that the bullet and wheelchair were made of the same metal, because why not? Lex Luthor, criminal mastermind everybody), but she's weirdly passive here. You'd think she'd already be out fighting to clear Superman's name, badgering police officers and so forth. So much of this movie happens to our protagonists. Clark's already been sad in a field, and sad in a building, and sad in a city, so now he gets to be sad on a mountain.

And look, sad dead dad is there too, giving a speech about well-intended actions having unintended negative consequences. There's no clear message here. Is Pa saying that trying to be a hero means other people will get hurt?

That having a loving relationship will assuage your guilt? You'd expect there to be some kind of turning point to this conversation, that Clark would hear what he needs to hear, either that he's doing the right thing or the wrong thing, but we don't really get that. At most, it implies that he should listen to Lois (or maybe Martha), but even that's a bit of a stretch. Martha Kent gets kidnapped, Lois Lane gets kidnapped, and Lex throws her off a building so he can ramble Theology 101 at Superman. We get confirmation that Lex's dad was abusive, which hearkens all the way back to Alfred's comment about powerlessness making men cruel. We also get confirmation that Lex knows who Batman and Superman really are, because of course he does. He's going to force Superman to kill Batman so that the public sees what a monster Superman is. For killing a guy who's already a criminal vigilante that the papers say have gone too far. He also had Martha tied up, humiliated, and photographed, for a bit of that Killing Joke flair. Superman tells Lois that he has to convince Batman to help him, or he has to die, and the first part of that would ring truer if he hadn't threatened Batman earlier. Strange doings are afoot at the Kryptonian spaceship, and Wonder Woman reads her e-mail one 18-point line at a time.

When Superman confronts Batman, he sends some mixed messages. He tries talking, admits he was wrong, says there's no time, then shoves him because why not? It's not like he's in a hurry or anything. He hits Batman for no reason except that he has to hit Batman in order to fulfill the promise of the title. He also keeps throwing Batman, when he could pretty easily restrain him in order to, you know, ask for the help he needs. Instead, he's got to win the pissing match.

The bit where Batman's punching Superman in the face until the kryptonite gas wears off is very well done. It's one of the best bits of Superman fight choreography ever on film, up there with the bullet to the eye in Superman Returns and the punch-rush-punch in the Zod battle in Man of Steel. It's also pretty great that Batman literally hits him with a kitchen sink. He tells Superman that his parents, dying in the gutter, taught him "the world only makes sense if you force it to," which seems like a good metaphor for this movie. People seem to be able to derive a lot of messages out of this film, largely because it throws a whole bunch of stuff out that's meant to seem deep even if none of them actually fit together coherently. And then "you're letting him kill Martha," which is, yes, dumb from every possible angle. Superman doesn't specify who "him" is, doesn't specify who "Martha" is (but we get some flashback sequences to remind you that Bruce Wayne's mom was also named Martha!), and this doesn't make Batman even more enraged since he got that letter earlier about how he let his family die. I do like that Lois saves Superman. And suddenly they're all bestest friends, after wasting a bunch of time in a totally avoidable way. Batman kills several people from his bulletproof plane with his giant bat-Gatling gun, kills a few more dudes in the next fight, and finally kills the Russian in a scene pulled from Dark Knight Returns. Except in Dark Knight Returns, that scene stands out as a kind of turning point for Batman, because despite how ruthless he is in battles up to that point, killing a guy with a gun is still a line he doesn't typically cross. In this movie, Batman's already used a gun in a prophetic dream sequence, and he's been cavalier about killing people already, so it's just another notch on the utility belt here.

Martha and Batman's banter is very good, though. Doomsday is born amidst Luthor's continued nonsense about killing gods, and let's talk about Doomsday for a second. My feelings on Doomsday are well-documented (and oddly similar to my feelings about Zod), but I have a soft spot for the big galoot because the Death of Superman got me into Superman comics. Doomsday, for all that he's a long-haired bone monster in bike shorts, was a distinctive monster. This version of Doomsday, on the other hand, is basically indistinguishable from trolls we've seen in Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies. He's slimy, he's smooth, and somehow turning into a monster gave General Zod the groin of a Ken doll. His design is totally uninteresting. Even making him into something more clearly a misshapen hybrid of Zod and Luthor would have been better than this gray hulk. He gets bony and glowy later, but it's still weirdly restrained compared to the designs we've seen in the comics. Superman saving Luthor from Doomsday's punch is one of the few moments that a recognizable Superman comes through in this movie. Doomsday has his King Kong moment, and Wonder Woman wonders if maybe her great power entails some kind of great responsibility. Superman and Doomsday get nuked because it gives the movie an excuse to do another Dark Knight Returns scene devoid of its context. Batman realizes that Doomsday is Kryptonian, so rather than flying over to the spear and returning to the uninhabited island that Doomsday currently occupies, he thinks the best plan is to lead the rampaging indestructible murder monster back through the heavily populated city whose partial destruction so traumatized him before, so he can retrieve the kryptonite spear there and kill it. These are literally the worst superheroes. Thankfully, Wonder Woman shows up to save his bacon and to improve the movie by a billion times or so with her awesome theme music. Batman mentions that the port is abandoned, in a nice illustration of how a line or two can smooth over apparent plot holes (though I suspect the buildings Doomsday heat-visioned to get at the Batwing weren't quite so unoccupied).

It's about as elegant a solution as the "Duke's alive!" dub at the end of the G.I. Joe Movie, but several scenes would have benefited from more of that. Superman does the heroic sacrifice thing, and it's more necessary than I gave it credit for the first time I saw it. Wonder Woman is occupied keeping Doomsday tied up, Batman is out of his league, and Superman's clearly struggling to do a head-on charge with the kryptonite spear, so getting around to hit it from behind isn't much of an option. Unlike the end of Man of Steel, this feels much more genuinely like there wasn't another choice, rather than like the writers painted themselves into a corner. Some black ops guys go spelunking into the Kryptonian ship to find Luthor communing (?) with Steppenwolf (???), then take him into custody, where he gets his head shaved. The Daily Planet runs with a simply godawful headline, "SUPERMAN DEAD[:] NIGHT OF TERROR MORNING OF LOSS," which leads me to believe that all the copy editors died during Zod's attack. Clark Kent also died, and the Daily Planet prints in color on interior pages, so they must be doing all right. At the memorial for Clark, Martha gives Lois an envelope Clark had sent to surprise her, and it's an engagement ring. I could quibble with the logic of this scene, but it's poignant enough to let it pass.

The dual funeral scene is done pretty well, jumping back and forth between the big to-do at what appears to be the Metropolis branch of Arlington National Cemetery, and the more understated service in Smallville. The Smallville priest does a really weird reading that's clearly about resurrection, rather than a more standard Psalm, but it's ~*~foreshadowing~*~. Bruce and Diana talk about the Avengers Initiative, and now Batman believes men can be good, and they can rebuild. He's so full of hope now. For reasons. Batman comes to visit Lex Luthor with his Bat-branding iron, and says he's going to have Lex transferred to Arkham Asylum. Lex raves about bells and another pronoun that presumably belongs to some Apokolips thing, setting up the sequel, and I'm just tired. And then the dirt levitates off of Superman's coffin. Final thoughts: I'm definitely not as angry this time around as I was walking out of the theater a year and a half ago. Whether that's because the Ultimate Edition hangs together better or because I spaced it out over the course of three days or because I knew what to expect, I really can't say. So, positives: Ben Affleck isn't bad as Batman, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams do fine with what they're given, and Wonder Woman is great. The rest? There are scenes, like Amajagh's death or the aftermath of the Zod battle, that would be improved with a single line. "I dropped him off at an Interpol office." "Superman led the rebuilding efforts." "Rubber bullets, honest." Those would be clunky telling-not-showing moments, but they could easily smooth over some of the film's bigger problems. On the other hand, we have so many unnecessary scenes, things that happen over and over, driving home muddled thematic points (power, gods, etc.) or references ("Martha," "granny's peach tea," etc.) so that even the most inattentive viewer is going to catch everything the filmmakers thought was significant. What's telling is the things they thought insignificant. The text of the movie is so preoccupied with putting a human face to the casualties of these superhero battles and the ability to decide who lives and who dies, but the visual language of the movie doesn't care about those things at all. I keep harping on Amajagh's death because it's the clearest example of this; Superman slams the guy through two stone walls, and he is never mentioned again. The text of the film suggests that Superman didn't kill anyone in the village, but we have no reason whatsoever to think that he didn't kill that guy that we definitely watched him kill. Batman is so angered by Superman's callous disregard for life, then goes hurling cars around with no regard for safety, and no justification in the plot. During that chase sequence, I had a hard time judging just how many people he killed because of the effects shots. A car that was visibly full of dudes shooting at Batman before the stunt...

...is empty immediately after.

The text of the movie is telling us about how dangerous it is to let individuals decide who lives and who dies, and real people get hurt as a consequence even to well-intentioned actions. But the visuals tell a different story, that violence is cool and bloodless, that victims of violence don't even matter enough to be shown on the receiving end of that violence, and that those who commit crimes deserve neither due process nor the continued freedom to live (unless they're good criminals like the titular protagonists). This is a problem, and this kind of dissonance subverts every message the movie is trying to send, every theme it's trying to explore. Take, for instance, the repeated, not-even-subtextual theme of power: who has it, who abuses it, and how to hold the powerful accountable. We have three powerful characters who abuse their power: Superman, Batman, and Lex Luthor. Of the three, only one is punished for it: Lex, whose punishment comes in the form of Batman continuing to abuse his power by threatening him in prison and sending him to get abused in Arkham. Batman forgives Superman for the death and destruction that followed in his wake because of his sacrifice, and he feels no need to turn himself in or moderate his actions, just to assemble an army because Marty McFlash said he should. Heck, Batman's justification for building the kryptonite arsenal and Superman trap is ludicrous even judging these characters as they are (as opposed to how the movie wants us to see them), but he's vindicated because if he'd failed to build those weapons, Lex Luthor would have destroyed the city and probably the world with his laserface murdermonster. And to what end? Lex Luthor's master plan requires him to be both a Xanatosian genius and a complete idiot. He figures out Superman and Batman's true identities, manipulates them in ways that end up being both obvious and unnecessary (unless we're meant to believe that he plants Santos's wife in the police station for Clark to meet), and all so he can turn General Zod's corpse into a monster that immediately tries to kill him? If the implication is meant to be that he's been under Apokoliptian control the whole time, it might have been a good idea to make that clear (maybe trade one of the piss jar shots for that). As it stands, it looks like Luthor's plan was to occupy Superman and Batman long enough that he could destroy the world. For a movie that clearly has ambitions of being more complex and deep and dark than your standard superhero fare, that's an incredibly cartoonish goal. And that's kind of the story of the whole movie. You can't argue that Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice isn't ambitious. It has aspirations of being deep and meaningful, of exploring the meaning of superheroes in a real world, the human costs of their battles, the responsible use of power and the methods we might use to hold the powerful accountable for their abuses. But it's not so invested in exploring these ideas that it's willing to tone down the explosions and lethal violence. It gives us two protagonists who are like parodies of the characters they're meant to be. Batman is a terrible detective who hates Superman for endangering people's lives, but who kills criminals for no reason and doesn't care who gets hurt in his crusade for his idea of justice. Superman vacillates between cavalier and passive, either using his powers with reckless abandon or asking other people what he should do but not actually coming to a position himself beyond "being Superman is dumb." He acts like saving people is a chore (much like doing his assignments for the paper), like accountability and responsibility are grave impositions on his brooding time. The movie dwells a lot on parents and the lessons we learn from them, so maybe it's intentional that our three principal male characters are all emotionally-stunted man-children who need to grow the hell up. I doubt it, though. All this wouldn't be such a problem if we weren't continually being told by the text of the film that Superman saves people and is a symbol of hope and doesn't kill, that Batman is concerned about one man having the ability to kill and using it so irresponsibly. The text of the movie is at odds with the visuals, with the world that was created in Man of Steel, and with its own larger role in building a Justice League shared universe. And none of these elements quite jive with the story that the filmmakers clearly wanted to tell. So, in the end, just as in Man of Steel, we see the villain's philosophy validated. Power isn't innocent in this world. Everyone with power in this movie is corrupt or compromised, from Amajagh to Luthor to Superman to Batman to Perry freaking White. Even Wonder Woman is tarnished a bit when you realize that, according to her stated backstory, she didn't think it necessary to fight off the alien army that tried to kryptoform the world two years back. She just spends her time going to fancy galas. There might be an interesting story to tell along those themes, about how the powerful must either be corrupted or paralyzed by their power, but the movie can't decide what it wants to be. Is it a sincere meditation on the nature of power and accountability? A smash-bang action movie built around a classic superhero fight-then-team-up? A deconstruction of superhero morality in a real-world context? A mash-up adaptation of Dark Knight Returns and the Death of Superman? An exploration of the unintended consequences and human cost of these summer blockbuster set pieces? These ideas fight for dominance, and none of them ever quite gains the upper hand. The result is this muddled, cynical mess of an action-driven film that wants to say something important but never quite figures out what. Bottom line: if you want to watch a movie that attempts to explore the "must there be a Superman" question, features some brooding, an inconsistent tone, and a great cast doing their best with a story that can't live up to its potential, I know one that gets it done in half the time:

#IFTTT #Blogger #TheFortressOfSoliloquy

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BEN AFFLECK V SNYDERMAN: DAWN OF JAM-IT-ALL-INTO-ONE-MOVIE REVIEW

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE REVIEW (don't you just love saying it? I hated the film's title since day one) THE CRITICS ARE WRONG! Ben Affleck V Snyderman: Dawn Of Jam-It-All-Into-One-Movie ISN'T worse than Man Of Murder! BvS does deserve its 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Man Of Murder deserves about a 12% on it, if that. The movie's opening weekend box office (even with the massive two day drop once bad word of mouth got out) only proves what we've already known for a longtime: that audiences WANT to see Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in a movie, they want to see DC characters, no matter how bad the movie is or how badly it depicts the characters. How sad it is that Warner Butchers and the awful filmmakers it hires continually shits on the good faith and enthusiasm and interest of the audience instead of rewarding it with a great film that does all of the characters justice for once. I understand how critics are confused though: Man Of Murder, for all its faults, its shakey-cam, poor editing, lack of character and story development, weak attempt at shuffled storytelling, tonal inconsistency and just plain old inconsistency, is still a more focused film than BvS in that at the end of the day it's just supposed to be telling Snyderman's origin story. Dawn Of Jam-It-All-Into-One-Movie, on the other hand, tried to do a Justice League origin, Dark Knight Returns, Death Of Superman, Injustice, and Knightmare all in one film, while still trying to set up and tease upcoming films, even at the expense of itself. Ben Affleck V Snyderman is really simultaneously both a better yet worse film than Man Of Murder though. Better in the sense that there were more moments that I liked in it than MOS, but worse because it's actually less "focused". There were 3 main improvements in BvS over Man Of Murder: 1.) No whorish product placement 2.) Less shakey-cam/the camera is actually held still for more than 3 seconds at a time 3.) They can't ruin Superman's origin again since they did that in the last movie...all that was left for them to do was ruin the Clark Kent aspect and kill him, which they did (more on that later) The film is so ludicrously self serious and pretentious that I found myself laughing at moments that were not supposed to be funny. They say there's no humor in the snyderverse, but I disagree, this movie was full of funny moments: - The Wayne murder and young metersoxual mop-top haircut dime-a-dozen child actor Bruce Wayne falling slow-mo down a hole and floating on bats was a riot - The "fuckit" credits sequence where credits are casually dropped on screen as scenes from the movie play, I thought they stopped doing that shit in superhero movies a while ago...that was a clear indicator that the film would be a pile of shit right there - That wheelchair Jesse Zuckerberg tried out for Scoot McNairy whirring every time it moved made me laugh my ass off -- almost reminded me of that one Mad TV skit, "The Brightlings", where Seth Green plays an old man in a motor-powered wheelchair who rides it into people (Almost as funny as BvS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPO6H1c7tw ). I literally blurted out "Lieutenant Dan" in the theater when Scoot McNairy's character was bailed out of prison and went to see Lex, and everyone fucking laughed. - The blairing shitty egyptian techno music that played every time Gall Gagot showed up was distractingly comical - Jason Momoa's douchey Battlefield Earth character holding his breath underwater was a knee slapper - Batman hitting Superman with a sink was fucking hilarious -- they jammed everything into this film including the kitchen sink, maybe Snyder was just trying to homage Frank Miller's timeless classic & critical darling film version of The Spirit in which Gabriel Macht hits Samuel L Jackson with a sink in front of a green screen...Snyder loves to borrow from Frank Miller, you know. - "Martha" being the safe word had me grabbing my sides in laughter and unbelief. And they said there's no jokes in the snyderverse.... .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... TLDR review of the film: - It sucks- Jesse Zuckerberg was a predictably terrible choice for Lex Luthor, who is also written horrendously - Gall Gagot is a terrible actress and a terrible Wonder Woman choice- Superman is shit on- It's more of a Batman movie than a Superman movie...which is to say it's a Batman movie - Snyder's Doomsday is still more accurate than Snyder's Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and Lex Luthor- Affleck was fine - The last 40 minutes of the film are the only time I ever gave a shit - Lex vs Superman on the roof, Batman vs Superman, and Doomsday vs everyone are the only interesting parts and where I was semi entertained and gave a damn- Jeremy Irons' Alfred is the best thing in the movie ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... LONG DETAILED, IN DEPTH REVIEW: I will address the rest of the film in sections, starting with my thoughts on how it handled the characters below: .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... SUPERMAN: Snyder shits the bed with Superman again, and even Cavill is awful this time. Cavill's "Superman" has 3 expressions: sad, sad, and more sad. But Cavill is of course the last problem with Snyder's "Superman", the biggest problems have always been Snyder and the writing. The movie is custom made to make trailers out of. We're robbed of so many potentially great Superman moments in this film, moments that we thought were just teases in the trailers for maybe big action scenes....turns out they were just teases in the movie too. There are several moments in the film where you think a great Superman moment is coming, but they never happen: - There's a scene where Lois Lane is held hostage by terrorists (right after she remarks that she's "not a woman, she's a reporter", BARF), where you think Supes is going to swoop in and fight the bad guys...I'm there waiting, thinking, hoping it's going to be awesome and that we'll finally get to see Superman do something Superman-like and that it will feel like a Superman movie, but nope. He just kills the terrorist holding Lois hostage (after a guy that's supposed to be Jimmy Olsen is shot in the head) in the dumbest way possible and the scene is over. I'd have thought a heat vision blast to the guy would have been smart...but since Snyder is not smart, he instead has Superman jump at him. Dumb (also, looks like that "killing to learn not to kill" rule only beget....more killing, eh, snyderbots? Hahaha). - Do we get to see Superman saving people from a burning building and putting the fires out? Nope, instead we see him bringing one person out of this huge fire behind him and standing there to be touched like the messiah. - Superman dragging a boat on a chain, oh boy, so we get to see him go into the water and dig it up? Nope....just mopey Supes walking along the ice with what a burden it is to help people and be a superhero weighing upon him. He's good but "everyone"/talking heads hate him...like Spider-Man. He's good but people fear him...like the X-Men. He even gets a flashback pep talk scene with Kevin Costner on a mountain top (perhaps where the tornado dropped him, LOL), who gives Snyderman a "Silence of the Horses" speech (I LOL'd when Clark, like Clarice, asked if the horse nightmare ever stopped). This is Costner's version of Alfred's "Burn the forrest down" speech in The Dark Knight. They make Snyderman pretty much like everything but Superman, really. - Do we get to see Supes save those people on the roof from the flood we saw in the trailer? Nope....just him hovering there like the messiah again in exactly what the trailer showed. - How about a shirt rip scene, we at least get that, right? Nope! Snyder sets one up when Clark sees the Day Of The Dead fire on TV....and then cuts it off. - A bomb goes off in Congress, with a huge fire on TV, and does Snyderman put the fire out, and try to get the remaining people outside to safety? Nope.....he just stands there and looks at the ground. There is virtually zero reveling and enjoying the Superman character in the film on behalf of the filmmakers, whereas we get scene after scene of Batman beating up thugs and showing off his array of popularity that are made with excitement, Superman gets no such thing. There's no awe or sense of wonder or fun the way Snyder handles these scenes with Superman. They're treated as background for bits of boring, uninteresting, pretentious, lofty dialogue pseudo-philosophizing about "does the world need superheroes?" and "what is a man?" and all that bullshit you don't go to a Superman movie for. These should have been exciting action pieces where we see Superman being heroic finally... instead they feel like Snyder dutifully tacked them into the film because he suddenly remembered Superman was in the movie and he had to do some shit with him too. Snyder doesn't like or understand Superman though. It's blatant and thrown in your face in the dialogue in the movie too, everything from "It's not 1938 so you can't be principled and stand for something anymore" to "Superman was never real", and finally -- and most egregiously, from the mouth of Snyderman himself, hands down the line I hated the most in the film, the scene that made me almost get up in anger -- the part where Snyderman says to Amy Adams: "No one stays good in this world"..... and mopily, sadly flies away to fight Ben Affleck. That line, the delivery, and everything in it is the literal antithesis of Superman in every sense imaginable, and I think probably more than anything sums up best why Snyder doesn't get it. Snyder figuratively killed Superman in Man Of Murder, he literally killed him in BvS in addition to ripping the character apart with every other line of dialogue, references to the shitty Injustice videogame storyline where Superman is a codependent simp who turns evil because Lois Lane is killed (complete opposite of what he did when she died in Kingdom Come), Snyder killed Professor Hamilton, he killed Mercy Graves (who is also terribly miscast as Tao Okamoto -- an anorexic asian chick with hipster glasses -- Snyder does not give a FUCK about the Superman universe), and he killed Jimmy Olsen after replacing him with "Jenny" on the Daily Planet roster in Man Of Murder....and there are still people who think Snyder likes Superman, lol? Wake the fuck up! Snyder can't even be consistent with his own bullshit take on the character: "Superman was never real, it was just the dream of a farmer from Kansas", wrong, Zack, in your version, "Superman" is all holy-space-ghost-papa Jor El's idea, and him telling Clark he is space Jesus and the bridge between worlds is why Clark becomes Superman in your version; it was because he was told to, not because it was a dream of Clark's own, or did you forget that? It's okay though, I don't blame you for not wanting to rewatch Man Of Murder before you made this film, I would not either.

Snyder's Clark is also awful and comes off jealous of Batman. "Batman is sticking his nose in people's shit where it doesn't belong!!" is the summary of why Clark dislikes Batman, meanwhile Snyderman does the same stuff. The bathtub scene with Amy Adams was stupid, chemistry-less, and a cheap way of saying "hey, these two are in a relationship" without ever actually having to develop it. A kiss on top of some dead bodies because it's the last 20 minutes of Man Of Murder and it hadn't happened yet, and suddenly they're moving in together in BvS. And I still say fuck you, Snyder, for removing the red trunks. Guess it's easier to rape the characters without their "underwear" on like I pointed out, eh, Zack?

Also, Martha Kent is a waitress now. I really hated that, just like when they had her working at Sears in Man Of Murder. Guess it's not "hip" and "rebooted" enough if she's a farmer. A "post modern" take on Superman sucks all of the "super" out of the character.

The few decent Superman moments are very small in this movie: Batman punching Superman in the face as the kryptonite gas started wearing off and Batman's reaction as his punches lost their effect was the only really good Superman moment in it. I liked Supes flying Doomsday into space, and I liked the scene where Supes walked into Congress and walked up to Holly Hunter in the hearing...that was cool and felt semi-Superman-ish. I also liked that they referenced Clark's middle name of "Joseph" in the film, but Lex should never have known who he was, especially not without a story explanation, but more on that later....

There's one other moment in the film that seems "Supermanish", and it's at the end, very briefly (if you blink, you'll miss it), where Superman, Batman, and Waifer Woman are standing together, where Supes starts talking about Doomsday with Batman and the two start talking about how they can stop him...I thought to myself "this is nice, this seems like the fucking Justice League, feels like World's Finest.."...it was immediately more interesting than anything else in the film where the two were at odds, it felt right and natural, seeing them work together, and then....poof. It was gone. Lost in a CGI explosion of poorly rendered characters, fire, plotholes, and shitty egyptian techno music. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... BATMAN: Snyder and Warner Butchers clearly like Batman the best and it shows. There's no question that Batman is handled the best of all the heroes in this film. Snyder gets half of the character right.... and then fucks up the other half. Some people didn't like Batman branding people, I was fine with it. Though I'm sure Snyder didn't intend it to be this way, I thought it was a nice callback to Batman's Zorro roots. Zorro would carve a letter "Z" into his victims with a sword...not that different a concept if you think about it. I liked that Bruce Wayne did his own detective shit here, I liked the entrance to the batcave being through a river that opened, and I especially liked the black and gray costume. It also needs the trunks, but there's a moment in the film where Batman gets out of the batmobile and walks up to the batcave computer and the way he looked and moved made me lean over to my friend and say "That looks like fucking Batman!", so I was thrilled to see the most visually accurate Batman in live action since the '89 film. Suit was a little bulky for my tastes and the ears were a bit small, but I understood the look they were going for and can appreciate it.

Now onto the bad stuff: there's a scene where Bruce Wayne goes undercover at some fight club and he's dressed just like Bruce Wayne, it made me laugh because surely, Bruce would have been in a disguise of some sort. Here it was just Affleck in his default Wayne look. Matches Malone would've been cool, but they'd have had to explain that character I suppose (since it's just Wayne with a mustache, which would have been comical without the background on that character), but they jam enough other references into the film and don't bother to explain them, so I'm not sure why they didn't bother with Matches too, but whatever. Where they fuck up with Batman is they make him a hypocritical idiot. He supposedly doesn't like Snyderman because he causes collateral damage, but that's half of what Affeck's Batman does. While I prefer a Batman that doesn't kill because there's a lot more mileage and drama they get out of the character that way when he has stronger morals, I'm fine with a Batman who kills the bad guys, but if that's the case, the Joker should be dead, and so should all of his rogues gallery, really. Going to kill Superman because there's a 1% chance he might be a bad guy and letting known, repetitive, unremorseful killers live is stupid. I don't have a problem with a Batman that kills, '30s Batman killed, Burton's Batman killed, yeah, yeah, I know that, snyderbots, but they only killed BAD GUYS. They didn't leave a metric fuck ton of deadly collateral damage nonchalantly in their wake, which is the problem I have with Batfleck, particularly given his criticism of Snyderman. This Batman just doesn't give a fuck if there's innocent bystanders and they get hurt.... he destroys a boat and a wall that don't need to be destroyed. Snyder didn't want to have his Batman shoot a guy in the head to save Martha.... I don't know why, but instead he wanted him to blow up the guy's flamethrower, causing a massive explosion that would have killed Martha, as he "rescues" her from it... whereas a bullet would have been one clean kill.

I don't really care for Batman with the voice augmentor, either.... I like that they at least showed how it worked though with Alfred testing it. But yeah, Snyder gets certain aspects of Batman right, then shits on them to tell the story he wants to tell. Batman is a detective early on.... but suddenly he can't figure out that Superman is good, something even Alfred knows. He's mad at collateral damage Supes caused in Metropolis, but he causes collateral damage all around Gotham. He makes a kryptonite spear and gas, but....no monkey knuckles, or, ya know, a bullet. Snyder's Batman is basically a moron. But Affleck played the moronic Bats well. Josh Brolin would have been a better old Batman and Bruce Wayne, but they should never have done Bruce as an older man to begin with, he should have been the same age as Supes, you know, like in the comics and Dark Knight Returns, but more on that later. I liked this batmobile better than the tumbler at least.

The fight with Superman being resolved by "Martha" was idiotic. Batman spends months, weeks training and hating Superman, with an in-depth list of reasons why....and suddenly all of that is resolved, all of his suspicions and fears of Superman just float away because their moms have the same name. Sure, the way to Bruce's heart would probably be through his parents, but this was just bullshit inconsistency for even this shitty take on Batman. Affleck gave a fine performance....although I never buy him completely as Bruce Wayne. I still see Ben Affleck. Yes, he's acting and making an effort....but there are scenes where it really feels like you're watching a guy act and not an immersed character in a movie, if that makes sense. Still, he's a better actor than Cavill...which doesn't set the bar very high performance-wise for this film. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... LEX LUTHOR:

Jesse Zuckerberg is a decent actor and gives a good performance in this movie....but not as Lex Luthor. Lex in this movie is the worst live action version of the character ever. Jars of piss and feeding people Jolly Ranchers aren't who Lex Luthor is. This Lex leaves notes for people -- that they don't even get -- signed as someone else to start trouble, he gives jars of piss to people, shoves candy in people's mouths, he has ticks... he's basically like a high school prankster. I fully expect the extended cut of the film to include a scene of him leaving a flaming bag of shit at Wayne Manor and ringing the doorbell before running away, blaming Superman.

Maybe this is what Eisenberg was going for, but his "Lex" was honestly hard to watch in many scenes. Reminded me of Jim Carey's Riddler, maybe Dr Sivana, but he also reminded me of Hector Hammond in the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film (which was also hard to watch -- both the film and the Hector Hammond character I mean). I'm not sure what he was going for here....he was almost more like the Joker than Lex in some scenes. They even have him talk about his abusive father as he monologues to Superman like Joker in The Dark Knight, and make remarks at Lois too ("Ooh, you're feisty!" = "Little fight in ya, I like that!"), before throwing her off a building...just like Ledger's Joker threw Maggie Gylenhaal out of a building in The TDK. I know Lex has had abusive parents before in the comics.... but they should have revealed this info in a different way from how it was done with The Joker in TDK.

This Lex was so fay and effete, when the guy he feeds the candy to comes up to him and says "maybe we can help each other", I half thought Lex was going to give him a blowjob when he told him to step into his office. His plan of getting Batman to fight Superman and then Doomsday to destroy everything if it didn't work made no sense. Neither did how he deduced the secret identities of Batman and Superman -- there's zero explanation for it.

As predicted, Jesse Zuckerberg as Lex Luthor is the third worst casting in a superhero film of all time, right after Gall Gagot as Wonder Woman (2), and Ezra Miller as The Flash (1). There is no "Heath Ledger" or "Michael Keaton" "surprise" here, as anyone with a brain could have deduced (and did, like yours truly) the moment he was cast. This Lex also has terrible motivation for hating Superman, if you can even call it motivation at all....he basically hates him because he has powers and only people with knowledge should have powers, or something? Lots of esoteric mumbo jumbo about "gods" and "man" do not a great character make. He actually seemed even less like Lex Luthor to me once his head was shaved: then he just came across as Michael Cera with a shaved head, like some little wimpy kid, mumbling about shit in jail, evoking nothing but pity. "Ding ding ding ding ding" thank God they brought Terrio on board, eh, snyderbots? LOL! What a joke. Jesse Zuckerberg -- as I've said since day one -- would have been a better Riddler, Toyman, or even Dr Sivana or Jimmy Olsen, he was never going to be a good Lex Luthor, he had zero chance. Decent actor, but terribly miscast. A dog cannot play a cat and vice versa. Get it, snyderbots. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. LOIS LANE: Her character sucked in this movie. I've never liked Amy Adams as Lois Lane, she doesn't look like her, and Lois should be closer in age to Clark. Lois should not be a few or several years older than Clark. But then again, everyone's been around before Clark in the snyderverse: Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etc....so fuck it, Lois may as well be too. Her faux feminist dialogue about how she's "not a woman, but a reporter" were total fucking cringe too. Amy Adams' Lois is the most unlikable Lois ever to appear live action, in my opinion. She's not funny, she's not witty, she's not vulnerable, she's not all that pretty, she's not nosey, she's not playfully competitive... she just sucks. The scene where Supes catches Lois from her perspective was the only good scene with her. Having her save Superman again and again was awful, and so was having her show up wherever the plot needed her to be....like tossing the kryptonite spear, then retrieving it later not knowing it was needed. More on that sloppiness later... .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... PERRY "WHITE": Laurence Fishburne is actually great in this movie. One of the few good actors and good performances in this film. I liked him....not as Perry White, he's totally miscast, Perry's not black, sorry not sorry...everything must be darker in Snyder's world, including Perry White I guess...but I liked Fishburne as an actor in this film being a good actor giving a good performance. It's refreshing to see, especially when the movie's this bad. It helped to get through certain scenes. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ALFRED: Jeremy Irons' Alfred is the best thing in the film, and a better Alfred than Michael Caine, in my opinion. He's funny, he's not preachy, he doesn't always have a speech prepared or fortune cookie advice, he's just the butler doing butler-y and helpful things (even though they *said* he's a "bodyguard", not a "butler" in the snyderverse...thankfully not much of that came through), and I liked that. He even gets a few lines in the film directly from the comics, which only makes him feel more Alfred-y. Only complaint -- which is not even Irons' fault -- is that there's not more of an age distance between he and Affleck. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... WONDER WOMAN: Gall Gagot was every bit as awful as I thought she'd be. Looks like Jeff Goldblum in the face, has a pool cue body, and terrible English speaking and acting skills. Her brown costume also sucked and so did that shitty blairing Egyptian techno music that played whenever she showed up. Her little smile while fighting Doomsday -- supposedly for her life, a force that's so powerful it kills Superman -- was out of place and stupid, a dumb tryhard attempt to remphasize that she's a "warrior" and "strong woman who can take on da boys!" bullshit. Her feminazi dialogue about how bad men are was also heavy handed and fucking sucked. Gall's the second worst casting of all time and she shouldn't have been in the film, neither should her character have been in the film for that matter. Cybore and Aquamariner shouldn't have been in the film, either. Gall Gagot is a terrible actress and can't even speak fluent english. Stupid people and snyderbots who don't know anything about Wonder Woman will think this is great "cuz she not from merikah dah!!!". But what they don't get is that Wonder Woman is a PHYSICALLY PERFECT MAGICAL character and can speak any language of her choice fluently and perfectly, and therefore she would speak English perfectly and without an accent. Secondly, if she WERE to have an accent, it'd be a GREEK one, not an Israeli one, so the moronic snyderbots are even wrong by their own logic. Because it's not really about "realism" or whatever other bullshit they say, it's about changing the characters into the actors to accommodate the shitty casting. They've done it with Lex Luthor and Jesse Zuckerberg quite obviously, likewise with Jason Momariner and the tattoos and Aquaman, but for some reason snyderbots can't see that so clearly with Gall Gagot Wafer Woman....perhaps that's because they have no idea what Wonder Woman is supposed to be like. Fan-fake shits. Also, lack of boobs, ass, hips, and curves is a completely perfect and valid criticism of the person who is supposed to be playing WONDER WOMAN. A sex symbol, a supposed physically perfect woman. Why is it we can have a physically accurate Batman and Superman, but suddenly it's wrong and hateful to hold the person playing Wonder Woman to the same standard? Snyderbots are morons. If the roles were reversed they'd have someone like DJ Qualls as Superman.

Gall Gagot shouldn't be playing Wonder Woman because she doesn't look or talk like her, and cannot. Wonder Woman is physically perfect, has blue eyes, boobs, hips, ass, is athletic, etc. Gall Gagot is a pool cue. Gall Gagot looks like Jeff Goldblum in the face. Gall Gagot has the English speaking and acting skills of a paper bag. Wonder Woman can speak any language of her choosing fluently and perfectly because she is magical, therefore she would not have an Israeli accent. If she had an accent at all, she would have a Greek one since she is based in Greek mythology, not an Israeli one. The Wonder Woman costume is iconic. The stars on the suit look great. America did not invent stars, nor does it have ownership of them, or the colors blue, red, white, and yellow. It's entirely possible a magical ancient civilization like Wonder Woman's may have had these colors and stars long before america did, therefore there is no reason to get rid of the stars on her uniform because she's not from America. She could also still be an ambassador to the country and deliberately choose her outfit for those reasons....removing the stars on Wonder Woman's suit removes an element of her iconography because america hating pussified cuckolds are in control of the characters. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with what does and does not make sense for the characters, because having stars made as much sense as anything else about the character. Ask yourselves two questions, snyderbots:

- Do you like the characters? - Do you think there's anything wrong with them? If you answered "yes" to either of those questions, then why do you support such shitty representations of them on screen? .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... THE FLASH: Ezra Miller looked just like Gall Gagot in the film, and he also looked just like Ezra Fairy Allen Miller: long dark hair, asian androgynous looking face, facial hair, and looked nothing like any version of The Flash. Also sounded like a Bizarro James Franco when he spoke. Him saving Zack Snyder the cameo convenience store clerk (who's he think he is, Stan Lee?) from a robbery in the crappy email footage was fitting in that the two worst things about the snyderverse should of course share a scene together. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... DOOMSDAY: Doomsday's look was disappointing, but still looked more like Doomsday than Snyder's Aquaman looked like Aquaman, Flash looked like Flash, Wonder Woman looked like Wonder Woman, and Lex looked like Lex, so I can't fault him much visually. However, breathing fire and sending off nuclear pulses was fucking lame. Just keep him a big monster that fucks shit up. His origin in the film was pretty dumb though: Snyder has Lex cut himself over Zod's dead body in some alien fluid and wammo, this makes Doomsday. It comes off as more "voodoo" than science, but whatever. Thought it would have been cool to show Lex creating Doomsday in a lab somewhere, gradually over time, this just seemed like there wasn't much though put into it, but whatever. People will say "They're aliens, so who knows how their tech works?"...I'll say that's true, but this just seemed lazy and stupid. I was fine with Doomsday being the big bad since I consider him a throwaway character with no personality and he's basically just a thing to punch, so it didn't bum me out that we didn't see him on Krypton and all that, I would have been fine if they handled him as a Cadmus creation like in the Bruce Timm Justice League cartoons, but the way they brought him about in the film was just stupid. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... THE STORY: It's dumb. ALL FLASHBACKS AND DREAM SEQUENCES SHOULD HAVE BEEN CUT FROM THE MOVIE. The entire flashback sequence with young meterosexual haircut Bruce Wayne falling down a hole and witnessing his parents' murder in slow-mo should have been cut out of the beginning of the film entirely, if it were in the film at all it should have been a flashback when Bruce is brooding in the cave later on in the film. They should never have opened with it, and then went to another flashback on top of it. All of the dream sequences for Batman that teased Darkseid, where Snyderman Temple Of Doom heart-grabs Batman (since Supes can only become evil in the snyderverse) should have been left out of the film. They should have just tried to focus on Batman and Superman and doing a strong character piece instead of setting up yet another movie when they can't even set this film up right. Superman just became Superman and they kill him in his second movie. They also kill Clark Kent -- why? Just more effort and ludicrousness if they choose to bring Clark back too -- it was utterly pointless to kill him, but then again, Snyder hates the Clark Kent element of the character so maybe Clark won't return at all. Also, if Superman can come back and he was stabbed in the heart, why couldn't Zod? He only had his neck snapped.

Why not give Wonder Woman the kryptonite spear (she's good with ancient weapons, right, after all, she's even got a friggin' sword and shield!) and have Superman push Doomsday onto it? If they'd have talked to Batman, perhaps they could have come up with a pla-- oh wait, this Batman is an idiot in this version, nevermind.

Batman hides under a piece of building to avoid Doomsday's nuclear blast, meanwhile buildings all around him are destroyed by it. The flashback scene at the beginning of the film would have been enough motivation to show why Batman is concerned about Snyderman, the film should have opened with that and left it that way instead of doing the origin yet again and pointless dream sequences to show why Batman hates him.

Amidst the 9/11 imagery (again), the Metropolis flashback from the perspective of the people was cool, particularly when we see Superman get knocked into a building from their point of view, but the world's being destroyed by a giant dubstep weapon literally right outside a building window, and Bruce Wayne has to call the guy who works there to tell him to evacuate the building before anyone has the good sense to get out. This was moronic. (Also, even with its retcon of the Man Of Murder ending, BvS only re-emphasized what was already obvious from Man Of Murder: METROPOLIS WAS NOT EVACUATED AND THERE WERE MANY PEOPLE THERE WHEN SNYDERMAN FOUGHT ZOD, just for the snyderbots keeping score ;) )

Snyderman is blamed for killing terorists....who were obviously killed with machine guns. Do they really think he'd grab a machine gun and just shoot them when he can snap their necks and push them through walls? Maybe they just think Snyderman is that hardcore...I don't know, but the logic and reasoning behind this was stupid.

Also, CONGRESS is destroyed. A fucking bomb goes off, and that's the last we hear of it. It's never brought up again in the film.

You can't copy and paste parts of Dark Knight Returns into this story because there's nothing else from it to go along with it: you can't do a DKR style Batman that's an old man with a history but a young rookie Superman with no history, and the two just met so they have no history with each other, and therefore no DKR conflict, as their history, the fact that they'd both lived as long as each other and lived through the same events and dealt with them differently, is the driving force behind their conflict in DKR.... BvS has none of that. But Snyder doesn't give a shit, he just copies and pastes all of the Dark Knight Returns Batman shit that he liked into the movie and hoped the rest would contort around it, continuity he established in MOS where Supes was supposedly the first ever DC hero be damned. Now we got Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and pretty much everyone else older and around longer than Supes. The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg should never been in the film, and their cameo placement is handled in the most lazy, shoehorned, uncreative manner, at the most inappropriate time in the film. We get what is essentially little teaser trailers for each of the characters that had everything but a release date sticker attached to it, right as we're about to finally see Batman and Superman fight, the thing the entire movie was supposedly built around, that everyone bought a ticket for, they have a 6 minute interruption of Gall Gagot opening emails right as the fight is about to happen. Also, imagine if you're a kid watching these email videos and don't know who the characters are (why would you? They're unrecognizable). They're all scary and unlikable: Zack Snyer being rescued by a man that looks like a woman with a ponytail and beard in a convenience store robbery, a klingon with glowing white eyes in the water, a black guy's head and chest strapped to a board screaming at the camera....if you were a kid, you were probably like "WTF is this?". It's uncomfortable and there's no excitement to it...it's just scary looking people screaming at shit.

The film is full of bad pacing, bad editing, and inconsistency, it's just a series of scenes happening again with no flow or harmony to them. What little energy the fight between Batman and Superman had leading up to it is dissolved by the inappropriate placement of the email scene, which takes you out of the movie. Even when Superman lands to fight Batman, his attitude and mannerisms seem absolutely different from the last moment we saw him. The tone is off...and it feels phony. Cavill's acting in the scene is terrible "Stop...ugh...You don't understand!"...sounded like a sound bite from a videogame. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... EASTER EGGS/VISUAL REFERENCES: Dark Knight Returns, Batman punching through a wall saying "I believe you", Batman standing on something high with a rifle, Batman jumping with his arm stretched in the air, Knightmare Batnan, The Man-Bat in the Wayne's tomb during another dream sequence (with VENOM leaking out of it, LOL), Superman looking zombie like after a nuke, Superman floating in space and opening his eyes to reveal heat vision like in Injustice, Superman falling a certain way to look like his Death Of Superman comic pose after Doomsday kills him, the silver "S" shield on the black coffin, Flash showing up to warn Batman about something like in Crisis On Infinite Earths, it was cool to see a Parademon (they looked good), I got all of the visual references to the comics, and I appreciated them and thought they were cool. They helped me -- a comics fan -- get through an otherwise unbearable film. Unfortunately they mean nothing to the general audience and non comic book people who just came in the hopes of a good movie, they also do nothing for the story. I think it's great that Zack Snyder vaguely seemingly understands the picture parts of the comic books, but he doesn't understand any of the characters, motivations, or stories, and therein lies the problem, since it makes everything else meaningless. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... THE SCORE: It's terrible. Un-hummable, unmemorable....it will not stand the test of time like anything John Williams, Danny Elfman, or Shirley Walker have done. It's quite generic, just boring, droll background music, and at the same time bombastic and loud. Hans Zimmer retiring from doing superhero films is one of the best things to come out of this movie. He can take Junkie XL with him for that matter. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... And that about sums up most of my thoughts on the film. It's a long read, jumbled and chaotic (not unlike the film), so I apologize, and I'm sure I probably left some stuff out which I'll kick myself later for, but what do you think? What were your thoughts on the film?

#batma #superman #zack snyder #justice league #jl #dc comics #justice league unlimited #batman v supeman: dawn of justice #batman v superman #wonder woman #the flash

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Army of the Dead: How Advanced Are Zeus and His Alpha Zombie Society?

https://ift.tt/2RBBQk8

This Army of the Dead article contains spoilers.

It’s not a subtle image. But then who comes to a Zack Snyder movie for that? During the bloody and marvelous opening credits to Army of the Dead, the alpha zombie they call Zeus (Richard Cetrone) earns his nickname while staring up at a statue of the ancient Greek god of thunder in front of the fictional Mount Olympus hotel and casino. Our Mr. Zombie+ may not be an actual god, but one alpha can clearly recognize another’s game, and as we eventually learn, “Zeus” will make the Greco-Roman themed high-rise his home in the months to come.

Olympus is again the seat of power for those who seek to rule over all.

Such is our early introduction to Snyder’s update of zombie lore in Army of the Dead, the filmmaker’s second zombie movie after his debut film nearly 20 years ago, the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004), and his first original project since 2011’s Sucker Punch. Obviously, Snyder is still playing with genre in his new undead adventure, embedding a heist movie into the trappings of a more traditional zombie survival horror. However, the closer one examines the zombie hierarchy of this new movie, the more evident it is that there’s little you could call “traditional” about Zeus and his brood.

“I think the conversation I was starting to have with myself is: What will people allow in this genre of film?” Snyder told Den of Geek earlier this month about Army of the Dead. If audiences are receptive to the film, the answer will be a lot since Snyder’s movie seems to suggest zombies can be highly intelligent, successful at problem solving, and even in some ways more evolved and egalitarian than us. And if they can ever get outside of the ruins of Las Vegas… they really might just be the new gods of this world.

Of course on paper, the idea of a “smarter zombie” is not entirely new. The grandfather of our modern conceptualization of zombie lore, George A. Romero, even began toying with his image of mindless undead shamblers with his third zombie movie, Day of the Dead (1985). In that film, a zombie they call Bub is trained to solve rudimentary puzzles and even use a gun by humans; he then develops affection for the scientist who taught him. Romero further built on the idea in Land of the Dead (2005) when a zombie nicknamed “Big Daddy” leads a pseudo-revolution by organizing fellow walkers to storm Dennis Hopper’s high-rise citadel of power.

However, both those films, particularly Land, were far more intrigued with the allegorical aspects of the undead workers of the world uniting, as opposed to deepening the definition of a zombie itself. Big Daddy and his cohorts represented the “have-nots” of capitalism and 20th century geopolitics, with Hopper’s character a thinly veiled caricature of then-U.S. President George W. Bush (he is killed by oil at the end of the film).

Other fictions have also somewhat explored the idea of an intelligent zombie, but it’s always been in a format meant to feed into other genre tropes, like the romantic comedy in Warm Bodies (2013) or high fantasy in Game of Thrones. Still, Thrones is probably the best comparison to what Snyder is going for in Army of the Dead since the White Walkers (or “Others” in George R.R. Martin’s novels) are the top of a hierarchical food chain with the ability to magically command the more mindless Wights. They even kept pets like undead horses and bears—which is not dissimilar to Zeus’ own undead mount and tiger in Army of the Dead.

Nevertheless, the White Walkers are essentially a fantastical catchall for any force of nature (or inescapable death) that overwhelms and obliterates the petty grievances of man. Hence the countless think pieces about the Night King being the harbinger of climate change. By contrast, “alphas” in Army of the Dead are not allegorical creatures at all. They’re envisioned to be the next step in evolution among the undead and (perhaps) humanity as well.

We don’t technically know where Zeus comes from in this story. There’s some cheeky lip-service paid in the cold open about the zombie king hailing from Area 51, yet these details are intentionally left vague and dubious. The point is that he was in the military’s custody and they rather hilariously lost control of the zombie. Now every person he bites becomes an alpha—which is odd since it raises the question of where the traditional walkers came from if Zeus is the proverbial Patient Zero of the zombie outbreak.

Be that as it may, after the new normal sets in around Vegas, we learn Zeus rules on high from Olympus, sending out his zombie tiger as if it were both a hunting dog and a herald to announce his power. And his elected ruling class of zombies have developed the ability to communicate and barter with the living humans who occasionally slip into their domain. We learn from Lilly (Nora Arnezeder) that she only successfully ferrets materials in and out of Vegas by sacrificing “shitheads” to her alpha zombie gods. And when she feeds one such sexist pig to the alphas, Zeus’ zombie bride (Hera?) communicates with the humans through a series of vocal cues, making it clear she accepts that these mouth-breathers are buying safe passage.

Which raises the question: just how smart are the alpha zombies in Army of the Dead?

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The answer appears to be very. Zeus is able to organize his fellow alphas into an army that attacks in waves, like the Night King in Game of Thrones. Yet each alpha appears to have its own personality and ambition. They are not extensions of his will, but creatures with their own individual thought processes—they just fear the real alpha among them. Maybe this is the only element of allegorical heft in the film, since Zeus has organized zombie society around a group of powerful producers who take what they want through virtue of their talent (the alphas) and a bunch of underachiever shamblers who don’t complain about getting scraps. One even wonders if there’s an undead Atlas to shrug among Zeus’ cohorts?

In any event, Zeus is able to problem solve enough to build a seemingly magic helmet that no high-powered bullet can penetrate, thereby protecting his sensitive brain tissue, and he can strategize how to lead an assault with both alphas and shamblers. Most importantly though… he can grieve.

In another significant departure from typical zombie fiction, Zeus procreates in this film the old-fashioned way. His new species still increases its numbers via zombie bites. Yet Zeus and his proverbial bride also conceive a child who is still in utero when she is decapitated. Zeus is able to be anguished by the desecration of her body (and later her final death), and he can be outraged by discovering his zombie child died for realsies in utero.

We have seen “zombie babies” and zombie children before, including in Snyder’s own Dawn of the Dead remake. But we have never seen zombies conceive a child, which seems to suggest zombies can actually age and grow in this universe. After all, the baby Zeus and his lover intended to birth could grow from an apparently zombified embryo, so can Zeus and his minions grow older themselves? Zeus’ hair certainly grows out over the length of the movie.

In which case, are the alphas in Army of the Dead really dead at all? In a biological sense, yes. Their hearts stop beating and they can apparently take any form of punishment except a bullet or blade to the cranium. In a philosophical sense, however, the differences between the living and the dead appear to have become moot. The alphas can procreate, strategize, and build a society of their own.

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As even Lilly says, this isn’t their prison; it’s their kingdom. A realm for a new species that in some ways is an improvement on ours. For starters, they are a lot harder to kill. Zeus’ lover is outright decapitated and her head’s still going. But, on a more serious note, they also display fewer deficiencies of character. If Martin (Garret Dillahunt) hadn’t screwed over his compatriots to get to the roof alone, most of the cast of characters in Army of the Dead would’ve survived. In a plot point straight out of James Cameron’s Aliens, at least the alpha zombies aren’t “fucking each other over” for a percentage.

Additionally, the alphas can overtake entire communities in the span of a few days. If not for the wall erected by humans during the movie’s opening credits, North America would be swarming with zombies. So, in a way, putting Zeus down at the end was the best thing our heroes could’ve done for their obsolete species.

But—as teased by Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick) surviving just long enough to get out of the irradiated ruins of Vegas to notice his zombie bite—life, much like death, will find a way. And among the alphas, those distinctions are becoming almost meaningless.

The post Army of the Dead: How Advanced Are Zeus and His Alpha Zombie Society? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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