1. Something has intruded on my personal life, which I’m still learning to deal with. It’s knocked my attention (already unbalanced) for a real loop, so this’ll be kind of haphazard. It’s a personal matter, but just know that…well, I don’t know what things will be like going forward.
2. I saw Godzilla vs. Kong last weekend, and intended to write up something about it, but the aforementioned something has rather gotten in the way of sitting down to it.
The short, spoiler-free version is that I enjoyed it a lot. There are a lot of stupid bits and the human story, especially on Team Godzilla’s side, needed a lot of work, but the two stars were given full and wonderful scope and the fights were very satisfying. I’ll probably do a post detailing fuller, more spoiler-filled thoughts sometime in the future.
3. My own ‘ideal’ for the Monsterverse moving forward would actually be to end it here and take a break for a few years, then come back with a full-on MCU-style ‘verse’, with solo films for Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and Ultraman before bringing them all together for a massive team up film. Save Ghidorah for the team-up, maybe start Godzilla on Biollante or Hedorah (whom I really would like to see done with modern special effects), Mothra on Battra, Gamera on Gyaos (who can always come back, since she’s a species more than an individual), and Ultraman on Bemular/The One (saving the Baltan for later).
Either that or, even more ideally, a Spectacular Spider-Man / Batman: The Animated Series animated show to serve as a kind of synthesis of the entire mythos (e.g. having the Red Bamboo as the arc villains of the first season and building up to King Ghidorah, etc.). Never going to happen unless / until my schemes of world domination take off, but I can dream.
4. Coming down from writing about the Snyderverse. Something that i noticed in looking back over the films (via clips, etc) was how unimaginative and blunt Superman is with his powers. I mentioned this in the rundown, but it irks me a lot. The writers seem to have no notion of either having any kind of fun with his abilities or even just using them in a half-way restrained and sensible manner. It’s like the only things he can think to do are “hit things really hard” or “laser them into oblivion.” No squeezing gun barrels shut or finger-flicking people to the ground for this Superman: gotta just smash everything.
By the way, the many creative ways that Superman uses his different powers is another source of the immense amount of fun you can get out of him. Like, in the animated series there’s a bit where he shaves by reflecting his heat-vision off of a mirror. Or in Lois & Clark, where Clark lies there absentmindedly juggling a basketball with nothing but his breath before sending it into a trashcan in the same way. Superman’s supposed to be a pure fantasy figure in many ways: a ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ character. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just fly to China to get authentic Chinese takeout? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could type 5000 words a minute? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could refurbish your whole apartment in about five minutes?
Come to think of it, this is a major reason why I liked Godzilla vs. Kong so much: it’s fun. Not just ‘so stupid it’s enjoyable’, but it actually tries hard to give the audience a good time, to adopt that ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ mentality. “Wouldn’t it be cool if Kong had a giant ax? Wouldn’t it be cool if Godzilla just sliced right through a battleship? Wouldn’t it be cool if they duked it out on an aircraft carrier?”
I’m reminded of a line from the extremely profane and kind of unpleasant, but oft-amusing video-game critic/comedian Yahtzee: “Remember fun? That thing video games were supposed to be before they became an ‘experience’?” That comes to my mind a lot these days.
5. As a post-Lenten treat, I recently re-listened to my audiobook version of Emma. You know, one of the things I love about Jane Austen is just how comfortable she is: that 18th-19th century England sense of being a well-established, ordered society where, if you keep out of trouble, nothing too terrible can be expected to happen: no invading armies, no desperate criminals, no prospect of total societal collapse; a society that can be counted on to be there and to function the way it’s supposed to.
I have often wished heartily that I could retire to an English country village about the late 18th, early 19th century, just for the quiet and the retirement. I’m the kind of person who really doesn’t want much happening around him. Quiet, secluded country living: that’s my goal.
As far as the Snyder-DC heroes, I’m a little curious as to what is loathsome about them? Now: I’ll freely say that I could not stomach any part of Man of Steel, and BatvsSupes was terrible in almost every single respect, and that I only have vague memories of Watchmen.
But: he doesn’t seem to be malicious towards the characters at all, and the strength of the casting really shines through.
I started answering in the comments, but realized that it’s gonna need it’s own post. The subject of how poorly these characters were handled in these films is one of those that just keeps growing and growing the more you look into it.
To be entirely fair, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen these films, mostly because I hated them. I have seen clips and sort of ‘pieced together’ versions of them since in the form of reviews, critiques, and so on. If needs be, I’m considering doing a revisit just to be sure I’m being fair (and because I’ve grown into a much bigger fan of Superman in particular in the intervening years), but nothing I’ve seen since and none of the arguments I’ve heard in their favor have altered my views so far, so take that for what it’s worth.
Also, I will say that the casting is genuinely very good: Henry Cavill was an excellent choice and could have been a great Superman (as shown by the handful of moments he actually gets to play the character in Justice League). Ben Affleck’s a respectable choice for Batman, star-power issues notwithstanding. Most of the other casting choices are fine in and of themselves, absent what they’re made to do (Though other casting choices are not so good, and in one particular case the casting is rivaling The Conqueror as possibly the worst of all time).
It might have been.
So, the Snyderverse starts with Man of Steel, an extremely bloated, unnecessarily convoluted take on the Superman origin story (as in, we open with Jor-El having an extended action sequence on Krypton). I’m going to leave off the bulk of the film’s many, many writing, visual, and storytelling issues for now: instead let’s just talk about their version of Clark Kent.
Through flashbacks and so on we follow Clark from a child to adulthood as he learns of his powers and alien heritage. Clark was a bullied outcast at school, who nevertheless once used his powers to save his classmates when their bus went in the river. This prompts Jonathan Kent to suggest that maybe it would have been better for him to have let them die rather than reveal his powers for fear that he might become an outcast if people knew he was an alien. Then Clark learns of his true heritage, which prompts him, as a teenager, to snap “You’re not my dad,” at Jonathan. Then there’s a tornado and Clark, at Jonathan’s insistence, lets his own father die rather than reveal his powers.
As a young adult, Clark wanders the globe working odd jobs and periodically saving people (not bothering to hide his identity in the process, by the way). At one point he’s working in a bar when a truck driver harasses a waitress. Clark intervenes, but when the guy challenges him to a fight, he quits and allows himself to be humiliated rather than doing anything. Later that night, he destroys the man’s truck in vengeance by impaling it on the logs he was carrying.
I can’t quite remember the sequence of events, but it ends up being that General Zod and his people show up and demand earth hand over their Kryptonian refugee – namely Clark. This prompts a scene where Clark visits a priest to say “I’m not sure humanity is worth saving.”
Zod urges Clark to join him in re-founding Krypton on Earth, Krypto-forming the planet (there’s some BS about a genetic codex, but who cares) and wiping out the population.
This leads to a lot of big fight scenes, where Superman carelessly slams the other Kryptonians around, knocks them them through buildings, drags them into populated areas, downs a massive ship into the middle of Metropolis, and generally causes an insane amount of collateral damage (including losing what seems to be a good chunk of the entire population of both Smallville and Metropolis). Damage he barely seems aware of, to the point that he sometimes moves out of the way of projectiles so that they miss him and hit buildings full of civilians. All while pretty much getting his butt kicked by people who have had similar powers for a matter of minutes after he’s had thirty years of experience with them. During these sequences he saves maybe a dozen people out of what must be tens of thousands being killed.
He then makes out with Lois Lane amidst the smouldering ashes.
It ends with Superman snapping Zod’s neck because he apparently couldn’t think of a better way to stop him from lasering a group of innocents.
Then in Batman v. Superman he opens by carelessly squashing a terrorist holding Lois Lane hostage (apparently killing as such doesn’t bother him. Also, this version seems incapable of using his powers in anything but the most unrestrained, destructive way possible: he can’t just rush up and knock the guy out with a flick of his finger or disarm him before he knows what’s happening: he has to slam him through several brick walls) then spends most of the film in a morose, existential crisis (“Superman was never real”. “No one stays good in this world”). He saves people while looking like he’s in perpetual mourning, then goes into depressed exile after someone sets off a bomb in his vicinity. During this his mother tells him he “doesn’t owe this world a thing” and he has a vision of Jonathan Kent telling him a story about how heroism is a zero-sum game where you can’t help some people without hurting others (same guy who, again, suggested he should let children die to keep himself safe).
We also get a vision of the future suggesting that Superman becomes the murderous dictator of a destroyed world after Lois is killed.
He then lets himself get completely humiliated by Batman before dying to stop Doomsday.
Okay, let’s delve into those.
So, it seems like Snyder chief takeaway on the Superman character is “he’s an alien”. Throughout the films Clark inexplicably identifies first and foremost as a Kryptonian (telling his mother “I found my parents”, introducing himself to Lois as ‘Kal-El’, talking about “My world” and “my people”, speaking of humans as though they were a separate concern from himself, etc.). This is fundamentally wrong. The core of the character is that despite his godlike powers, he’s an ordinary man, human in every way that counts, and he thinks of himself as such. He’s not an alien putting on a show of being human: he’s a man who happens to have a unique heritage.
Being a man, he still lives as a man, subject to the law, to morality, to human interests and desires, and he has to find a way to balance that with his superhuman abilities. This is a key point of what makes him interesting. Making him fundamentally an alien gives him a detached, purely ‘other’ characterization. He’s no longer an example or a paragon because he’s essentially separate from humanity.
Not to mention that it’s morally pretty reprehensible of Clark to decide that the people who have loved and raised him his whole life and the culture and civilization he grew up with count for less in his mind than the one’s he knows off a goddamn zip drive. Yes, he should be interested in Kryptonian culture and keen to preserve it and learn from it, but it cannot be his primary point of reference or the core of his identity.
You could, arguably, make this work by having it a phase he goes through: a bit of teenage rebellion or getting caught up in the excitement of his powers, but it has to be just that: a temporary phase that he learns from. It cannot be the foundation of his whole character.
Getting into more specifics, no version of Jonathan Kent should be telling Clark “maybe you should let people die to protect yourself.” No version Matha Kent should be telling him “You don’t owe this world a thing.” No version of Clark should let his own father die out of a fear of what might happen if his secret is revealed. The real Superman, faced with such a choice, wouldn’t even consider that: his attitude would be, “I’ll work out a cover story later, or I’ll get a new secret identity, or worst comes to worst, I’ll deal with it.”
(I don’t think Clark should be a bullied outcast either: he should be well-adjusted and well-liked, the one who defends other kids from bullies, not the one who needs to be defended. That’s not a huge deal, though, I just find it annoying that it seems like modern filmmakers have no idea how to write a childhood that doesn’t involve being a bullied outcast).
Clark should not be stealing clothes from people (he should knock on the door and politely ask to borrow some with a plausible story of a shipwreck or something). Faced with a bully, Clark shouldn’t just walk away and let the guy continue to abuse his coworker and then throw a petty temper tantrum when he’s out of sight. He should have the self-control to knock the guy around enough to teach him a lesson without blowing his cover, or else be able to find some other way to resolve the situation to protect the woman and put the guy in his place (and if he wants to stay undercover, impaling a semi-truck on logs is a lot more conspicuous then smacking a drunk around).
Normal human beings have enough self-control to do that, let alone Superman.
The massive collateral damage and the fact that Clark barely seems aware of it (again, making out with Lois Lane in the middle of ground zero, ignoring projectiles as they fly past him to blow up buildings, dragging Zod from a mostly-empty cornfield into the middle of Smallville, etc.) is another huge problem. Superman should be saving a lot more people than this. Or if, for whatever reason, he can’t, he should be absolutely devastated by the carnage. He should be doing everything he can, leaving himself open to attack in order to keep people safe or try to move the fight out of populated areas (which would also solve the issue of keeping the fights interesting when he should be dominating his less-experienced and acclimated opponents). Here he’s more concerned that he killed Zod than that he failed to save tens of thousands of innocent people. Not that he should be happy about the former, but he doesn’t even acknowledge the larger failure
(And having both these massive failures in the origin film, and indeed his first public appearance as Superman, was a terrible, terrible idea).
Oh, and you can’t claim that this was intended to set up BvS, since if it were, Superman or someone would have acknowledged it in Man of Steel. Instead, Man of Steel doesn’t even seem aware that it’s a problem. So, if it was intended as a set up, then the characters are behaving like myopic sociopaths, and if it wasn’t, then the writers were unaware that Superman leaving thousands of bodies in his wake is a huge issue until audiences pointed it out to them. It’s bad writing either way.
In BvS, there’s a bit where Lex blows up the Capital while Superman is there using a lead-covered bomb (don’t ask). This prompts Superman to go into guilt-ridden exile. Because apparently he feels that it was his fault that he didn’t stop it? Why would he assume that? He should be devastated and enraged, of course, but his response should be to pour all his efforts into tracking down and catching whoever was responsible.
This points to another, and arguably more fundamental issue: throughout both films, Clark is incessantly morose, miserable, and downbeat. He hardly ever even smiles or jokes or looks happy. Nor do we get a sense of what his values are or why he does what he does, never any sense of why Clark is Superman. We don’t even know whether this version of Superman has a moral principle against killing people (he’s anguished when he kills Zod, but it isn’t clear whether this is because he killed someone or because he killed the last other Kryptonian. The fact that he thinks nothing of squashing the guy in BvS argues the latter, as does the fact that he seems to be very tempted to kill Luthor in their confrontation and only stops when Luthor reminds him that his mother will die if he does).
It’s non-stop doubt and deconstruction, not just from his opponents, but even from his own parents. He never, as far as I can recall, actually comes out with a reason why he’s decided “humanity is worth saving” (Superman shouldn’t start from asking that question: at most it should come up in his darkest hour), nor does he ever make positive affirmation that what he is doing is right or that he cares about people for their own sake. Yeah, he saves people, but he does it with an expression and attitude that suggests he doesn’t know why he’s doing it (unlike in real Superman stories, where he saves people with gusto and then gives them a friendly quip or pep talk, or a self-deprecating word to Lois to explain his absence).
In fact, I can’t figure out why he bothers helping people except that, on a meta level he’s supposed to be Superman. He claims it’s because his father wanted it of him, except Jonathan wanted him to let people die, so….
In Man of Steel, his big declaration of motive when he decides to stand against Zod is “Krypton had its chance!” Note the negative nature of the statement: not “Earth is my home,” or “these people deserve to live,” or even just a “you’re insane”. The fact that he has a brief moment of crisis before this where he actually hesitates to reject Zod’s offer is another problem: saving humanity at the cost of not replacing Krypton should not be a difficult choice for him.
Superman is supposed to be a fundamentally hopeful, optimistic character: the hero who fights in the light, who doesn’t wear a mask, who tries to show people the best they can be. He’s supposed to be a good person who happens to have the power to do what any other good person would want to be able to do. Here, he’s an apathetic, ineffectual cipher.
When he goes off to fight Batman, he tells Lois “No one stays good in this world.”
No version of Superman should say that. Contrast with the message a real version of Superman leaves her with in a similar situation in a better movie: “Believe. Always believe.”
Again, he doesn’t even have the decency, moral awareness, or self-control of a normal person in this version. He even blows off a work assignment just because he doesn’t think it’s important (why Perry White doesn’t think ‘vigilante dressed as a bat is branding people one city away’ isn’t worth writing about is another story, but Clark should have the responsibility and maturity to do the damn assignment anyway. No one is in character in these films. Except maybe Alfred). I’m not sure how much of this is deliberate subversion and how much is just that Snyder and his writers seem to have no clue what a genuinely exemplary human being actually looks like, but it’s bad either way.
Meanwhile everyone talks about how controversial he is, how dangerous he is, how disruptive he is. We are told he’s an icon of hope, but chiefly for the sake of the characters expressing doubts as to whether he should be (Clark himself at one point says “Superman was never real”). There’s also some talk about ‘hope’ in the abstract (mostly in Jor-El’s ramblings), but it never amounts to a principle or a clearly set of values or anything but a word that gets repeated over and over, contrasting sharply with the dour, cynical nature of both the films and the protagonist. The movies spend almost all their screen time subverting and questioning Superman’s character and position as a beacon of hope and almost no time establishing them. They’re so set on deconstructing him that they don’t bother to construct him in the first place. The total effect is of a failure and fraud who finally redeems himself by dying.
“I heard a kid saying that he wanted to be an Elite when he grows up because it would be fun to kill bad guys. Fun to kill. People have to know there’s a better way.” -Actual Superman articulating his principles
Also, to dip into Justice League, much as I enjoyed the scene where Supes dominates the entire rest of the team at once, Superman’s default, confused state should not be “kill everyone,” provocation or no (that would have made the episodes of The Adventures of Superman and Lois & Clark where he got amnesia following a meteor strike very different). And even if you could soup up some explanation of why he’s like that, he needs to react to it afterwards: “Oh, my God: I nearly killed people…”
(That’s not even considering the fact that, in an amnesiac state, Superman should be defaulting to Clark’s personality).
Speaking of which, regarding the nightmare flash-forward in BvS: Superman’s reaction to the death of Lois Lane would not be to join forces with Darkseid and become a mass-murdering dictator. Again, this points to the trend of undermining his position as a hero: the repeated suggestions that he’s just one bad day, one tragic loss away from becoming the worst villain of them all.
Because apparently he has no qualms about killing people, imposing dictatorial rule, or destroying the planet as such outside of the fact that he has a girlfriend? Or he genuinely considers that an option, but Lois somehow makes him think it’s worth trying to save humanity instead? This ties in with Jonathan Kent telling him that he only decided there was good in the world after meeting Martha, suggesting that Lois Lane is the only reason Clark sees any good in humanity at all, which is, again, fundamentally contrary to his character and frankly rather appalling.
I’m fine with the idea of Superman potentially going rogue, by the way, but it wouldn’t play out like this. He’s not going to be siding with Darkseid and helping to commit world-wide genocide. If he loses his way, he’d become more like the Gort-based civilization from The Day the Earth Stood Still: “Here’s a perfect, peaceful, enlightened society. Disrupt it and die.”
All of this, once again, points to Snyder’s fundamental misinterpretation of the character: the idea that Superman stands so far apart from humanity that he would ever consider just wiping them out (remember the “not sure humanity is worth saving” line?), that the most interesting thing about him are his powers, and that he really has no core beliefs or motivations of his own, he just sort of reacts to things.
Regardless, Superman’s sense of morality cannot be that fragile. Again, normal people do not go from ‘I lost the woman I love’ to ‘Stalin had the right idea,’ let alone someone like Superman.
Incidentally, this is something I notice a lot in contemporary fiction. Modern protagonists don’t usually have principles or values that they believe to be objectively right. Instead they have relationships. You rarely hear the protagonists in contemporary stories actually articulating a set of principles that they believe in, they just say something like “I believe in my friends” or “I believe in us” or some such thing. So here, Superman doesn’t believe in truth, justice, and the American way, doesn’t articulate why he refuses to kill his enemies or why he believes in humanity’s potential for good. Instead, he simply ‘finds good’ in his relationship with Lois or his mother, apparently with the proviso that if that ever gets taken from him, all bets are off. Likewise Batman doesn’t seem to care about justice, but he comes to respect Superman and try to honor his ‘legacy.’
(Even apart from the moral issues, given that their relationship is given almost no development and Lois herself almost no characterization outside of ‘determined reporter who loves Superman’, the idea that Lois is what keeps him on the straight and narrow is frankly embarrassing. Lois herself is extremely ill-served here as well, by the way, lacking almost all the fiery self-assurance and affectionate sarcasm that she’s supposed to have, and lacking any clear personality to replace it with. Like Clark, she’s a lay figure being halfheartedly put through the motions, not a developed character).
This concept art gives them more personality than they had across two movies and roughly five hours of screen time
The disdain, or at least disinterest, that Snyder has for Superman is palpable. He dumps almost every key aspect of the character – the optimism, the commitment to principle, his status as an ordinary person, the Lois Lane love triangle (and with it the humility and self-abasement that balances his heroics), the strong value for life, even the fundamental decency – and spends most of the bloated run time emphasizing what a confused, morose, ineffective figure he is and having him toss his powers around in the most excessive, uncontrolled manner possible while undermining and cross-examining his ostensible iconic status with superficial philosophizing and suggesting he’s one bad day away from becoming a horrible monster. That’s when he isn’t just plain ignoring him in favor of other characters and plot lines.
If you have any doubt that Snyder wanted to annoy fans of Superman, look no further than Jimmy Olsen. At the start of BvS, a completely new character shows up, announces his name as Jimmy Olsen, and gets immediately killed because he was really a CIA plant and was using Lois to spy on his target. Now, there was no reason whatsoever to make this character Jimmy Olsen. You could have named him anything. But someone decided to make this throw-away character who deceives Lois and then dies one of the core Superman cast.
The only reason to do something like this would be as a middle-finger to the fans.
That’s really the question that recurs through all of this: “Why? Why are you making these choices? Why are you having Superman’s first meeting with Lois Lane involve him cauterizing her wound with his laser vision while she screams in agony? Why did you think it was a good idea to have Clark let his father die to protect himself? Why is Superman so joyless, directionless, and self-doubting? Why did you ‘force’ Superman to kill someone in his first film? Why do you have this whole nightmare sequence of the future at all? Why the sea of skulls and the H.R. Gieger-esque Kryptonian designs and the enormous body count? Why is any of this part of your vision for Superman?”
It’s really hard to come up with a plausible explanation other than “a sense of contempt for the character as he has been traditionally portrayed.” Or at the very least it’s hard for me to see how the films would have been any different if that were the motive.
(Also by the way, Synder’s too incompetent or apathetic to even instruct Henry Cavill to act differently as Clark Kent and Superman. In fact, Clark Kent hardly exists at all in these films.)
Ugh, I haven’t even gotten to Batman yet.
Fortunately, Batman isn’t as bad as Superman (partly because he’s already ‘darker’ character, and partly because he doesn’t have a whole film focusing on him), but again Snyder tries to push the ‘edginess’ by having Batman being a straight-up psychopathic murderer who brands criminals with his logo, ensuring they’ll be killed in prison (whether that’s an expected result or prompted by Luthor, the fact that Batman keeps doing it regardless is still on him), at least when he doesn’t opt to simply blow up bad guys with the batmobile’s firepower or toss batarangs into their throats. He also freely uses guns while ranting about how pointless his crusade against crime is, and has allowed Wayne Manor to fall into decay, because apparently he no longer cares about his family name or legacy. Oh, and he claims that the chief lesson his parents taught him was “dying in a gutter for no reason at all.” Thank you for that insight in the character who’s life is entirely defined by the legacy of his parents.
Then of course there’s the little fact that Batman decides to straight-up murder Superman in cold blood because he’s afraid of what he might do in the future.
That’s frankly a line you cannot have Batman cross. I’m not completely against Batman killing (though I think you need to have a very good excuse for that), but once he decides to preemptively murder someone because of what might happen later then he’s crossed over from hero or even antihero into straight-up villain territory. And he precedes it by beating, torturing, and taunting Superman while he has him at his mercy.
However dark or rough he may be, Batman cannot be doing this kind of stuff. He should be preparing of course, ready to take out Superman if need be, but cold-blooded, premeditated murder cannot be an option for him, especially against someone who hasn’t done anything wrong (unless you want to count his reckless, myopic incompetence. Justify one character assassination with the other character assassination. There’s quite a bit of that in this series). Paranoid murderer is not the right characterization for Batman.
I kind of feel like that should go without saying.
Batman confronts Superman with dignity and restraint. Not frothing murderous rage.
Also, Alfred should not be allowing Bruce to go through with this. This is an “I’ve locked the Batcave until you come to your senses” moment.
And you can’t say “well, the movie is him learning from his mistake,” because this isn’t the sort of thing you just ‘learn’ from. You can’t excuse this as a difference of philosophy or a conflict of interests. You can’t even excuse it as a momentary loss of control in the face of extreme provocation (e.g. Civil War) because he planned the whole thing. There is no way that Clark and Bruce can be friends or teammates after this, at least not without some serious penance on Bruce’s part.
Oh, and the reason why Superman doesn’t just talk to Batman instead of fighting him – when Superman has no reason to be fighting Batman at all, since as far as he knows he’s in no danger whatsoever from him and his motivation for being there at all is try to convince Batman to help save his mother – is that Snyder thought that they shouldn’t talk in their suits because he found the idea of costumed heroes talking to each other to be silly. Who the hell let this guy anywhere near these characters?
(And I have to point out that two minutes later, Superman trusts this man to save his mother’s life).
Besides all of that, if preemptive murder is a moral option for Batman, why the heck is the Joker still alive in this universe? You mean to say that Superman needs to be put down with extreme prejudice, but we still have to suffer through Jared Leto’s performance? That doesn’t seem remotely fair.
(See, that’s the practical issue with allowing Batman to kill as a matter of course: there becomes no reason for him not to simply execute the Joker or any of his other rogues the next time they meet. Or even hunt them down Punisher style and throw a Batarang through their throats. Once Batman starts killing people, he can’t have a rogues gallery anymore).
Both Batman and Superman in these films seem to have no faith in or motivation for their own missions: they’re just going through the motions because apparently they lack the personality or agency to do anything else. The films spend most of their time deconstructing and subverting them, questioning the very purpose of their ‘heroics’. That is when the movies aren’t tripping over themselves to be as violent, dark, cynical, and dour as possible. And in all that time they neglect to give their characters any goals or values worth examining in the first place.
It is as if the filmmakers have a degree of contempt for the very idea of costumed superheroes.
Now, the excuse being made for all of this is that “Snyder wanted to start off with dark, unimpressive versions of the characters and then payoff with them becoming true heroes in Justice League.” But the problem is that these are core characterization issues. Superman’s lack of humanity, lack of purpose or principles, his alienation, his morose, dour attitude and so on are not things that can be adequately corrected with a bout of character development at the end of a nine hour story line. Because even if you somehow correct all of that at the eleventh hour, he will still have been the character who spent most of his life and most of our time knowing him as an apathetic and ineffectual alien. A Clark Kent who has to learn optimism, care for human life in adulthood after letting his father die and after dying himself is for that very reason an unacceptable version of Clark Kent. A Superman whose first public appearance has at least a five-digit body count cannot ‘grow into’ an icon of hope. Ditto for a Batman who ‘grew out of’ being a paranoid murderer who regularly guns down thugs from an armored vehicle and tried to murder Superman in cold blood (also, this version of Batman is a 20 year veteran, which in itself wrecks the “developing into the classic character” idea: he should be retiring at this point, not ‘growing into’ the role).
Part of characterization is where the character comes from, the history that has shaped him. Even if we try to argue we’re building to the real Superman and Batman, I would argue that the real Superman and Batman cannot legitimately come from these characters. If you want to take them on a journey and have them develop into themselves, you still need to start from someone who is fundamentally the same person. For instance, Superman can learn something of the complexities of life or the unintended consequences of using his powers, but he needs to start from being an essentially decent, hopeful person, not a morose alien consumed with the idea of being an outcast.
Not to mention that having these be the dominant notes for both characters for the vast majority of your grand vision is terrible, terrible idea to begin with. It’s like Luke Skywalker thinking of murdering his own nephew in his sleep or Godzilla running away from a fight; whatever justification or explanation you can come up with for Superman killing people and wondering if humanity is worth saving or Batman resolving on cold-blooded murder as a preemptive measure, the fact that he is doing it at all is the problem.
This is not how you work with established, beloved heroes. You can’t have them acting completely the opposite of their characters, undermining or contradicting them for the bulk of the screen time of three bloated movies only to claim it’s brilliant because the final hour arguably has them growing into something like the people they were supposed to be in the first place (I’d also like to point out that at the start of that third film that will tie everything together and allow the characters to come into their own, one of our protagonists is a 20 year veteran nearing retirement and the other is dead).
And all of that is assuming that Snyder’s cut of Justice League actually does what this argument claims it does. All the above should give a good idea why I’m skeptical of that.
1. Been adjusting lately to various life developments (yeah, I’m gonna go with that), which means I haven’t quite worked out how to fit blogging into the picture. I intend to blog more regularly going forward, but so far I haven’t worked out how.
2. Working on a post summarizing how I think Zack Synder butchered Superman and Batman. There’s a lot there, but I’m realizing that, if I want to be entirely fair, I should probably revisit the DCEU. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of the Snyder films (mostly because I hated them), and in that time I’ve become a much more fervent and informed Superman fan. Watching clips now I keep thinking “that’s wrong. That’s stupid. Man, they really didn’t care there, did they?” So at some point in the future I may do a DCEU rundown as a companion to my Marvel rundown (though, as the DCEU has no real ending nor any plans for one, I’ll probably cut myself off at some point. Maybe with the *shudder* Snyder cut…).
3. Speaking of which, I also need to revisit the Christopher Reeves films. I saw them long, long ago and remember not really liking them that much, despite Mr. Reeves’ definitive performance. Mostly it was because I didn’t at all like some of the story choices (e.g. the turning back time in the first film, the de-powering subplot in the second, etc.). But perhaps they’ll play better now.
4. Honestly, one of my favorite iterations so far is Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman from the mid nineties. Despite the lackluster special effects, reduced Superman powerlevel, and the oft-cheesy scripts I think Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher are among the best incarnations of Clark and Lois, especially Mr. Cain, who makes Clark perfectly the ‘normal, decent guy’ he’s supposed to be. Like, I love the detail that his fridge is full of junk food since, while he doesn’t need to eat, he likes it and so goes for whatever tastes the best because why not? That’s the kind of development onto Superman’s character that I like: thinking through the logical implications of his powers and asking how a guy like Clark would respond. Or the way he regularly calls home to his parents to discuss how his life is going. And I like the Kents’ charmingly casual approach to his powers (when Clark’s a little dubious about the cape his mother insists “It’ll look great when you’re flying”). Or, one of my favorite touches, Clark gets his job at the Planet by interviewing an old actress as she says goodbye to a theater being torn down. That’s the kind of guy he needs to be; sympathetic, open, and showing interest in and value for everyone he meets.
Miss Hatcher’s Lois is on point as well, with that delightful blend of sarcasm, self-assurance, and vulnerability that makes the character. She and Mr. Cain have fantastic chemistry and really come across as honest-to-goodness friends in spite of their chop-busting antics.
5. See, here’s what I think most people get wrong: when making a Superman adaptation, the most important thing is to get Clark Kent right. Because if you do Clark right, Superman will follow. But if you focus on Superman, you’re liable to miss the whole point. You see, Clark Kent is the real character. Even if you have Superman in costume most of the time, you have to remember that Clark is the true identity. Fundamentally, whatever crazy stuff you’re having him do, carrying a satellite into orbit or fighting psychic vigilantes on the Moon, you have to keep in mind that it’s the kid from Kansas who is doing all this (as Lois says in Superman vs. the Elite: “You can take the kid out of the cornfield…”).
4. I think another problem filmmakers run into when adapting Superman (and similar properties) is simply that they overthink things. See, I suspect that a lot of filmmakers will approach a major cultural touchstone like that and think “Since this is such a big, important property, there must be some real depth to it. It must be full of hidden meaning and subtle complexities, and if I’m going to really do this right, I have to be just as deep and complex. I have to really make this an event!”
What they’re missing is that it is precisely the simplicity of the story, the straightforward, unapologetic nature of it that gives it it’s power. The fundamental Superman story is “man has the power to save the day in every circumstance, but never takes the credit for it so the woman he loves has no idea what he does.” You can sum it up in a sentence (I just did), but there are almost an infinitude of things you can do with it.
Now, you can do things with Superman beyond that simple formula, but the point is that the Superman idea is a pretty straightforward one. The more you try to make it ‘deep’ and complex, the more you add to it, the more specificity you give it, the more likely you’re going to lose the thing that made it interesting in the first place.
To put it more simply, I remember someone saying that if you want to make a good Superman movie, just take the airplane sequence from Superman Returns and do that for ninety minutes. Which is pretty accurate.
Greatness in storytelling is not a matter of complexity, ambiguity, believability, relatability, or anything of the kind. It is a matter of a unique idea perfectly realized.
I have absolutely no interest in the Snyder cut of Justice League and I never did.
Honestly, the man who made Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, the guy who openly sneered at fans of Superman who expected a hopeful, upbeat hero and arrogantly likened experiencing his ‘mature’ and ‘gritty’ version to losing one’s virginity (while displaying an absurdly childish understanding of human behavior, storytelling, and consequences throughout), and we’re supposed to be excited that he gets carte-blanche and an unlimited runtime?
When I first heard about this and started seeing trailers, I figured it would be completely different from the original cut: a different story, with a lot more things going on. Then I started seeing summaries and reviews and I thought, “Wait, so this is the exact same Steppenwolf / Mother Boxes story, only told over four hours? That plot was thin over a two-hour film: you stretched it out to four?” Similar to how I’ve heard there’s a six-hour cut of Black Panther: a film where well over half the theatrical screentime is pure filler. I have to wonder just what they heck these filmmakers are wasting time and money on.
Enter the legendary Mauler (legendary as in I was legitimately uncertain whether he still existed as a reviewer, as it’s been eight months since his last video), who seems to have hated the Snyder cut and the praise it’s been getting so much that he did a rush job to tear it apart.
It isn’t his best work (he jumps around a lot in this one, a consequence of the rushed production it seems), but as usual he bring clear, logical arguments and side-by-side footage to illustrate just how bad this version is and to make the case that, believe it or not, Joss Whedon actually did all he could to save the damn thing.
(Learned that most of the few moments I actually liked from the original cut, e.g. Superman showing up with a corny line about justice, Supes and Flash saving civilians, Flash commenting on how digging up Clark with super-speed felt disrespectful – literally the one moment I actually liked the Flash in that movie – were original to Whedon’s cut).
(And seriously, Flash can time travel at will? Cyborg can control all machines on earth? What the heck is this?)
Mauler does a great job of breaking scenes and character arcs down logically, illustrating why they do or do not make sense and what they bring to the story or take away from it.
I particularly liked his summation of why Snyder doesn’t deserve any slack:
“How many directors get to shit out a horrendously written movie destroying established, beloved characters with a multi-million dollar backing and an all-star cast? Three times?”
Language warning, by the way: he’s no Razorfist, but he doesn’t mince words.
“Four ***ing hours and the characters are almost as thin, if not thinner, than a two-hour cut? How the **** does that happen?”
(By the way, can we please stop with the boom reverb on alien / demonic bad guys? They do it in every film these days and it’s really old, making them all sound exactly the same. Again, like a child’s idea of how a meany villain ought to sound. I’d like to point out that Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, Powers Boothe, Ron Perlman, Kevin Michael Richardson, Corey Burton, Mark Hamill, David Warner, Michael Ansara, and so on didn’t need it for voicing far more intimidating and memorable versions of the DC villains).
Between depression and job hunting, been really behind on writing. So instead of any new original fiction, I’m just plugging along offering you works I like. And I’ve got a treat for you today: the first three of Dave and Max Fleischer’s original Superman cartoons.
My goodness, the artistry on these old cartoons is amazing. Look at the shadows, the expressive movement. There was such a great style to these things, where they didn’t feel like they were supposed to be imitating real life, but were following more of a loose, imagination-based set of rules. These particular ones are more ‘realistic’ than most of the time, but even they keep that exaggerated, animated style. And of course the great use of music and sound to supplement the animation (the main ‘Superman’ score sounds like an embryonic version of the John Williams theme, which I’m sure is no coincidence).
The imagination on display is fantastic as well. I love those mechanical monsters: such a cool, weird, science-fiction design. And I like the way they move: like how the one just walks through the door without breaking stride.
I also like the simple, straightforward storytelling. You don’t need to know the Mad Scientist’s whole backstory, just that “people laughed at me and I will show them all!” The other villains are just after money. Simple enough, even if they use some rather extreme measures to get it. We don’t need anything else.
The Clark – Lois – Superman dynamic is nicely realized, even in shorthand. She blows off Clark and cheerfully plays dirty to try to get ahead of him (though they seem to have a friendly dynamic), while Superman anonymously keeps her safe and Clark quietly lets her take the professional credit.
(By the way, I like how Lois just grabs a plane to fly up and ask for an interview with the mad scientist. That right there pretty much sums up her character. Also love her taking charge of the crisis in Billion Dollar Limited).
This is Superman’s first appearance in cinematic form, and a key step the character’s development since this was when he gained the ability to fly (in the original comics he could simply ‘leap tall buildings in a single bound’ The Fleischers rightly judged that this would look ridiculous on screen and so just had him fly, though the influence of his original powerset can be seen in some of the action scenes, especially in Billion Dollar Limited). The streamlined origin story leaves out Ma and Pa Kent – who had been part of the comics, though their names and role varied between issues – and neither Lex Luthor nor Jimmy Olsen were yet staple characters (although the Mad Scientist in the first short is reminiscent of the early Luthor).
And in conclusion, this is another work that I’m giving canon status, and twice over. In the first place the cartoons themselves are a pivotal piece of American animation and culture: one of the Fleischer brother’s key contributions (along with Popeye and Betty Boop). Anyone interested in animation really needs to watch these.
And in the second, the Superman story as such in at least one of its classic forms is certainly part of the canon. Whether its Siegel-Shuster comics, Fleischer cartoons, Kirk Alyn serials, George Reeves TV, Christopher Reeves films, Lois and Clark, or the DCAU, or, best of all, all of them, anyone interested in western fiction should be familiar with Superman (no, Snyder does not count. And let’s just get ahead of things and say neither does J.J. Abrams).
So, the other day I decided to finally check out Justice League. And…yeah, it’s really bad. Don’t get me wrong; it’s nothing like as bad as Batman v Superman (which is one of the very few films I hate as much as The Last Jedi). That film was painful; this one is entertainingly bad, and it has some definite highlights.
Gal Gadot being one of the key high points. I’m just gonna sprinkle pictures of her throughout to give you something nice to look at.
With Superman dead, Batman and Wonder Woman soon discover that fear-fueled ‘parademons’ are spreading all over the Earth, heralding the return of Steppenwolf, an agent of Apokalypse, who plans to destroy the world with his three all-powerful ‘Mother Boxes’, which in ancient times were captured by the Amazons, Atlateans, and Humans, who each took and guarded one (hilariously, the humans are shown burying theirs…about two feet underground). So, Batman and Wonder Woman set about gathering three other powerful allies: Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash to try to stop him.
So…yeah, the story is pretty standard: villain wants to use ancient superweapon to conquer and/or destroy the world. Essentially it’s the same plot as The Avengers, which really emphasizes how badly done it is in this case.
In the first place, Steppenwolf is a terrible villain. He has no motivation other than a pure desire for power – great characterization there; never seen that before – no unique design, nothing entertaining or interesting to say, no perspective, no discernable personality, no backstory, nothing. He might be the single most generic bad guy I’ve seen in a major comic book film (well, the guy from Thor: The Dark World might have him beat).
Really, with all the fantastic villains in the DC Universe that haven’t shown up yet – Grodd, Sinestro, Brainiac, Mongul, Vandal Savage, and so on – who the heck decided to go with Steppenwolf? I’d never even heard of him, and I’ve got a decent working knowledge of the DCU. He’s one of Darkseid’s warriors, and…that’s about it. He’s not an interesting villain, but he’s related to one. It’s as if, instead of Loki, The Avengers featured Thanos’s cousin, Manos.
…okay, never mind; that would have been awesome.
It doesn’t help that Steppenwolf looks as though he stepped directly out of a God of War game, without getting a graphical upgrade.
Another huge problem is that the Justice League itself is…kind of a failure. You see, as conceived in this film, it only exists to fight Steppenwolf because Superman isn’t around. Then they reach the conclusion that they can’t stop him without Superman, so they revive him and…after that it’s pretty much just marking time until Superman fixes everything.
Now, I love Superman, and pretty much the whole reason I watched this movie was because I heard they actually tried to get him right this time, so I did enjoy seeing him basically take over the film every time he was on screen (the scene where he effortlessly beats the crap out of the entire rest of the League at once is easily my favorite). However, this is supposed to be a Justice League movie: a team up. But apart from maybe Cyborg, no one else even needed to be there for the climax. They went from the whole team at once barely being able to faze Steppenwolf to Superman punting him around the room like a volleyball.
See, this is another reason Steppenwolf doesn’t work as a villain: he’s just a straightforward physical threat, meaning that, to fight him, they just need the strongest fighter they can possibly get. Or to put it another way, there is absolutely nothing the likes of Batman can do against him, while in turn there’s absolutely nothing Steppenwolf can do to counter Superman.
Contrast this with The Avengers, where Loki is able to bring both physical power and deadly cunning as well as his own private army to bear against the heroes, meaning that he can fight each of them – and vice versa – in their own particular way or all of them at once. Likewise, every single one of the team had a crucial role to play in the climax, one that suited their character and abilities, with Captain America strategizing and rescuing civilians, Iron Man running the perimeter, Hawkeye calling out movements and sniping from a distance, Black Widow handling tech and infiltration duties, while Thor and Hulk tore up the battlefield. Everyone had a moment to shine; everyone had a reason to be there.
The problem is balance, and this film has none of it. The Justice League, arguably the single greatest superhero team in comics, is nothing but a holding pattern for Superman.
(For what it’s worth, I actually think a good choice for the villain would have been Brainiac: he has the physical power and resources to challenge the team, but without being simply indestructible, so the less-powerful team members would be able to contribute, and he has the intellect to counteract Superman’s overwhelming physical force and necessitate a coordinated effort to stop him, as well as being a planet-level threat.)
Then, of course, there’s the problem so many people have pointed out; that the whole franchise has so very clearly been rushed and that, going into this team up, we’ve only met Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, and only the latter two have had their own films (and only Wonder Woman has had an actually good film). Also, Wonder Woman was introduced in Batman v. Superman and has already fought alongside those two, meaning that when it comes to the characters we actually know, there’s no novelty factor to seeing them team up as they were practically introduced as a team, and when it comes to the others there is no investment since we’re meeting them for the first time. The ‘team up’ aspect of this film is about as botched as it could possibly be.
(That isn’t even considering the fact that this version of Batman tried to straight-up murder the world’s greatest hero in a fit of paranoia the last time we saw him. You decided to do it, franchise; you’ve gotta live with it).
So the film is a conceptual nightmare, but the problems don’t stop there. The film is riddled with plot holes, moments that make no sense, and just bad writing in general. Things like a random street thug somehow guess the monster that attacked him was from space, or Cyborg hacking the Batcomputer by accident (though it doesn’t really matter since Bruce has no problem straight up telling Aquaman that he’s Batman in front about twenty civilians), or the fact that, as far as I recall, we never learn just how Cyborg’s father got hold of the Mother Box (spoilers, I guess, except it’s so poorly established that I’m not even sure if they meant it to be a twist). He just has it, yet Steppenwolf can’t find it, but knows that the people in the lab know where it is? Actually, where was it? Cyborg just flies off and grabs it from…I don’t know, wherever it was being kept.
(Speaking of the Mother Boxes, what a stupid name for the Macguffin. And hey, just think: if Steppenwolf had only called them Martha Boxes he could have gotten Batman on his side).
Don’t tell Captain Marvel she’s smiling!
Aquaman has apparently spent his whole life staying away from Atlantis, yet knows where they keep their ultimate secret that could doom the world and he can just swim in there whenever he wants (also, way to waste such a pivotal moment in his story: his return to Atlantis after growing up on land lasts about five minutes during which he visits the basement vault). Batman and Wonder Woman somehow don’t notice the hulking half-robot listening in on their conversation from about twenty feet away because he’s partly hidden behind a tree. Batman’s contingency plan in case the revived Superman has lost his mind is to show him Lois Lane: why not just have her there the whole time?
And so on and so forth; the film is just shy of incoherent in its writing and it struggles to maintain any kind of structure at all. Cyborg’s subplot with his father goes completely unresolved; Flash’s arc with his father involves two scenes and a lot of running puns. Aquaman has no arc at all to speak of; he’s just kind of along for the ride. And Batman is mostly tasked with trying very hard to make us forget how badly his character was betrayed last time around and not really succeeding.
Wonder Woman’s ‘arc’ is that she hides herself away from the world rather than being a beacon of hope like Superman, and then at the end she goes public. Apparently not one of the hostages or terrorists in her opening action sequence bothered to mention the superhuman Amazon that saved the day, nor did anyone notice the insanely beautiful woman in low-cut armor and a skirt standing on the rooftop or running around town. Seriously, if she regularly spends her time beating up terrorists in broad daylight, how, exactly, has she remained ‘in hiding’ for the past century?
(By the way, the rent-a-villains here identify themselves as ‘Reactionary Terrorists’, which kinda made me laugh: Hollywood is really desperate to avoid reality on that particular subject, isn’t it?)
Then there’s the Flash. My, my, my…
Hold onto those good feelings. Here we go…
See, I like the Flash. On the Justice League cartoon (which is about thousand times smarter and better written than this film, by the way) he was probably my favorite character. I love how they wrote him as an immature goofball on the surface and a truly humble, selfless hero underneath; the guy who doesn’t just save people, but remembers their names afterwards, and all the while he’s second only to Superman in terms of raw power. Flash was awesome, and since then I’ve always had a soft spot for the character.
Now, this Flash, on the other hand, is one of the most obnoxious characters I’ve seen in a superhero film. He’s this wimpy, chatty, smirking little douche who keeps making dumb, unfunny jokes at the worst possible times, when he isn’t tripping over his own feet or chatting nonstop like he thinks the mere sound of his voice is hilarious. If you took your average hipster college student and forced him to watch everything Joss Whedon ever wrote Clockwork Orange style for a few weeks on end, you might end up with something akin to this Flash’s personality. He is that insufferable.
There were only two moments with him that I actually liked; one was when he and Cyborg are digging up Superman’s grave (by the way, why those two? Wouldn’t Wonder Woman and Aquaman have been quicker?) and he comments that he could use superspeed to do the job in an instant, but can’t help feeling it would be disrespectful. That felt at least moderately like how a real human being might behave. The other was the great “Oh, crap!” moment during the fight with Superman when he realizes that Supes can move and react just as fast as he can.
On the subject of the Flash, let’s tackle this film’s attempts at humor. It goes about as well as its attempt at a villain. I think there was only one joke in the film that I actually laughed at (I laughed at quite a few other parts, however). For the record, it was when Batman is laying out their plan for the final battle and Aquaman just says, “I think we’re gonna be dead way before that.” I also kind of like it when one of Steppenwolf’s hostages pleas, “We have families!” he answers, “Why does everyone keep telling me that?” Because it is a good point; he literally just killed someone who made the exact same plea a second ago (it’s pretty much Steppenwolf’s only good moment in the film).
For the rest, we have truly cringe-inducing jokes. For instance, “I’m not the one who brought a pitchfork” (said after seeing said pitchfork turn back oncoming floodwater), “Woah, he is tall!” “I’m a snack-hole,” “what is brunch?” and so on. We also have the old (and God is it tired) Whedonesque gag of self-consciously describing what is happening on screen (“Oh, they just left. That’s rude”). Part of the trouble is that so many of the jokes come from the Flash, who, again, is incredibly obnoxious in his whole persona. Another problem is that they often come at the worst possible moments. There’s a bit where Steppenwolf murders an innocent woman just off screen after we hear her begging and crying for mercy, and then it’s immediately followed by the Flash ‘comically’ panicking. Or after the dramatic fight with Superman we cut to Batman – Batman – lying on the ground ‘comically’ griping about which bones are broken (was there a typo in the script? Who the heck gives that kind of gag to Batman?). Or there’s another moment where Aquaman gives an actually decent line about how he’s fine with dying for an honorable cause, approaching something like character…then it transitions into a joke about him sitting on Wonder Woman’s lasso and babbling the truth, which is not just tonally inappropriate, but completely subverts his assertion by having him admit that he isn’t fine with dying. Thanks movie: you have a good character moment and then immediately spoil it for a cheap gag.
Also, they’re really convinced the phrase ‘talk to fish’ is funny. Every time someone says it, there is this awkward-as-hell pause like they’re just waiting for the laughter to die down. I don’t know why they thought this was so funny; it’s a light chuckle line at best, but any humor is utterly ruined by the subsequent “you’re laughing now” performance.
So, this is a very bad film, let’s call it. Is there anything good about it?
Besides the obvious
Again, Superman is easily the best thing about this film. After two movies dedicated to tearing him down, they finally make an attempt to get him right. It’s terrible from a storytelling point of view, but Lord, it is satisfying to see him curb-stomping everyone in this film (Batman absolutely deserved to get pounded into the pavement after BvS). Likewise, when he shows up in the final battle, the first thing he does is note that there are still civilians in the area and head off to make sure they’re safe. That is something Superman would do (though it does point to the problem that the writers are clearly struggling to find a way to keep the battle going once Superman shows up so that we don’t notice that the story is basically over the moment he joins the fight). He gets a little time to be with Lois, to enjoy being home in Kansas, even to submit with good grace to an interview with a bunch of nervous kids for their podcast (this is the opening scene of the film, by the way, and it establishes his character better in two minutes than the previous films managed in over five collective hours…though this is where the infamous reshoots came in. My very first note on this film is “Holy crap! What’s up with his lip?!”)
(Speaking of civilians, at least this film makes a point to show innocent people in danger and being rescued by our heroes, putting the climactic battle into context. Which is more than some films – including one whose title may or may not rhyme with ‘slack anther’ – bother to do).
Gal Gadot is still the perfect Wonder Woman, and she struggles to maintain a level of class throughout the proceedings. I actually kind of like her interactions with Bruce Wayne, though otherwise she really doesn’t have much to do except draw the eye every time she’s onscreen and participate in the action scenes.
Aquaman is actually my favorite of the newcomers: he actually has something of a decent personality, being a laid-back, inwardly bitter badass who saves people with a bad grace then charges drinks to their tabs. His thrill in combat and macho persona were pretty enjoyable and made him stand out from the other characters. I’m actually thinking I might go see his film when if comes out, not because I think it’ll be good, but because I figure this guy is at least entertaining company.
I also did appreciate that Cyborg, despite his utterly bland personality, was allowed to give his catchphrase “boo-yah.” Though the delivery fell flat and only served to remind me of how much better his character was portrayed in the Teen Titans cartoon (again, the show aimed at children was much more human, thoughtful, and better written than this film ostensibly directed at adults).
I will say that parts of the film do work as dumb fun, and there is some undeniably cool imagery. The parademons looked good, and I admit I did like seeing one of the Green Lantern Corps show up in a flashback.
Oh, and the opening credits, done over scenes of the world mourning Superman, is very nice, even if not earned by past films. It’s a somber, respectful piece of work in the midst of all the chaos and nonsense.
Likewise, I liked the mid-credit scene of Superman and the Flash starting a race, even though Flash is still obnoxious as ever. The bit where Superman asks “which coast?” is pretty much perfect.
On the other hand, it’s followed by a post-credits scene featuring the return of Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, just to remind us that John Wayne wasn’t that bad a choice to play Genghis Khan. God, I’d forgotten how annoying his voice is: I was chanting for Deathstroke to kill him.
Oh, yeah, Deathstrokes there in the post-credits scene too, and Luthor tries to set up a sequel. Like that’s gonna happen.
Justice League is the film The Avengers could have been had the filmmakers not put the time and effort into building the world and characters and managing the crossover with care. It isn’t anything like one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, but it is probably one of the messiest films I’ve seen, at least in terms of a major franchise. It’s falling apart at the seams, trying to do too much and ultimately achieving very little. Through a combination hubris, greed, pretentiousness, and impatience, Warner Brothers and Zack Snyder tripped over themselves to get to this point as soon as possible with a string of mostly-terrible films, with the result that the long awaited dream of a Justice League film, featuring some of the greatest superheroes of all time, thought impossible for decades, has come true at last and the best that can be said of it is “dumb fun.” What a sad indictment of the entertainment industry.
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Serpent's Den 