The big WB/DC movie event this year was going to be Batman V Superman (BvS). So many fans were looking forward to this film. But somehow WB and directory/producer Zack Snyder took what seemed like a simple premise and convoluted it into a film that critics hated.
Cinema Static's review of BvS
When critics hate a film, that's a precursor to the movie-goers backing away from the film and setting its fate on an uncertain and more than likely, doomed path.
But what happened?
Personally, I did not mind the film but I knew where most of the different story pieces were coming from.
Snyder took three different stories from the archives of DC, jammed them into one film where there was not enough time to expound decently on all three plots. Instead, he chose to haphazardly introduce various themes into the opening act, confusing the living crap out of the general movie fan and film critic.
For the hard-core comic fan, we recognized the various aspects of the opening act and many of those fans enjoyed the film. But the fragmented, disjointed intro pieces were just too much for the outsider or general fan who looked to go enjoy a movie.
Snyder took so many aspects of decent stories and cheapened them to make his film.
-
He took the classic alternate realty tale of Batman V Superman, where vigilantes were outlawed, Superman was a government agent, and Bruce Wayne came out of retirement to put some beat down on bad guys who were becoming a controlling voice in a society.
Instead, we are shown a manipulated Bruce Wayne with a vendetta against the power that Superman wields.
Then we had a different kind of Batman in this film, one that did not shun using guns. I did not mind this new version, but it went against the decades old vision of the Dark Knight.
-
The other story was that of Doomsday. Again, another fantastic story from the past realm of Superman. The one and only creature that could, fist to fist, kill Superman. The creature that revitalized the Superman title when he was put to comic book pages. A creature born of Kryptonian science on the planet Krypton, who manages to break free of it's confinement to wreak havoc on the DC universe.
But in BvS, Doomsday is an inclusion, created by a human somehow tinkering with Kryptonian technology to create a mutated clone of General Zod.
-
Lex Luthor was introduced as a crazy, fanatic of an evil, manipulative scientist, I felt like they tried to mimic a veiled version of The Joker with this version of the classic Superman nemesis.
Not to mention Snyder uses the tool of Lex Luthor to introduce the Justice League and a weak plot point to "force" Superman to fight Batman.
-
The source material for this film was butchered. And then we have dream and fantasy scenes that are a trademark of Snyders work that could have been removed and instead, that time used more wisely to more fully explain all the disjointed opening scenes.
Instead, we have what amounts to Snyder in his sandbox counting to 10, only using odd numbers, and we're left with fantasy dream scenes to populate the even numbered slots.
-
Critics were not happy because Snyder made a film with too many tales to tell and not enough time to tell it. He made suppositions about what the movie-goer would understand and missed the mark. He could have focused on the classic fight story and had a great movie. WB/DC could have had another great movie to actually introduce the Justice League via the creature known as Doomsday. But they didn't trust themselves enough to dole out those stories i their own films.
Instead, DC failed in what Marvel has been doing well for years now, and that's tell a good story out of multiple threads pulled together from throughout the years.
But I do love what Snyder did with Batman and gave us one of the best Batman fight scenes we've ever seen.
I liked that they put this film out. I liked the cast. I wish Christoper Nolan wanted to stick around. He would have put out a brilliant story. But we have Snyder. And Snyder will put out Justice League.
Oh boy. But by then maybe DC/WB will actually decide on what tone they want in their movies and trust in their product. They have great, classic comic characters and they need to trust them.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Follow Cinema Static on: 
Comments
Post a Comment
Apologies for the moderation mode. I presume you understand...