[SPOILERS\u2014If you haven\u2019t seen this movie and are bothered by knowing serious plot points in advance of doing so, then you probably shouldn\u2019t read this.]<\/p>\n
Before I get to the movie, I should first give a little background on my history with and love (and then hatred) of DC Comics. I\u2019ve been a fan of Superman since I can remember. I grew up seeing re-runs of the George Reeves television series, and I loved the early movies (though they got progressively worse as time went on). I collected comic books as soon as I was old enough to earn my own disposable income. I\u2019d make trips to the drug store every 2 weeks and buy up all my titles and spend the next few hours reading and re-reading them, falling deeper and deeper in love with all my favorite characters and teams. In no particular order, I remember fondly Batman and the Outsiders, Teen Titans, All-Star Squadron, Justice League of America, The Legion of Super Heroes, Superman, Superboy, DC Comics Presents, World\u2019s Finest Comics, Green Lantern, The Flash, and probably a few others I\u2019m not remembering as I write this. Marvel? Feh. Marvel was OK. I liked Fantastic Four and a couple of other titles. But in general, I was not fond of their wussy teens bitten by all manner of insects; and their whiny, angst-ridden \u201cpoor us\u201d mutants. I liked my heroes to be fantastic. I wanted to have to suspend a hell of a lot of disbelief when reading about them. People from other planets with all manner of powers\u2014THAT fires up the imagination! Random gene mutation? BORING. Can you tell that Batman was one of my least-favorite characters?<\/p>\n
I read comics until DC\u2019s \u201cCrisis On Infinite Earths\u201d series. I collected the entire series. I collected the \u201cWho\u2019s Who?\u201d companion guide. I bought every crossover title I could find, even if I didn\u2019t collect that series. And then they finished it. The tagline for \u201cCrisis\u201d was, \u201cWorlds will live, worlds will die; and the DC Universe will never be the same!\u201d Well, they were right. As far as I was concerned, they had killed everything I loved about the DC Universe, including Supergirl and the Flash. What they did was stupid and unnecessary, and I decided I was done. I stopped collecting and made room for other things in my life. A few years later while on a family trip I was in a New England drug store with a few minutes to kill, so I found the comic book section of their magazine rack. I grabbed the latest issue of \u201cSuperman\u201d and took it out to the car. The art had certainly changed, as had the quality of the paper. I saw these as generally good things. Superman was fighting someone (as usual). The fight ended up in space. Where Superman HAD TO HOLD HIS BREATH. What?!? What the hell was this? I almost cried. I threw the comic on the car\u2019s floor in disgust and have not purchased one since then (about 30 years). I was right\u2014they had ruined everything.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to the 21st century. A lot has changed in the media of TV and the movies. Marvel has spent the last decade packaging up their most popular characters (and a few more minor ones) for consumption both on the big screen as well as television, masterfully weaving and presenting the backstories for Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk in the movies; and bringing us ongoing shows like \u201cAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.\u201d, \u201cAgent Carter\u201d, \u201cJessica Jones\u201d, and \u201cDaredevil\u201d. As I write this, there have been two \u201cAvengers\u201d movies and we are anxiously awaiting a third (\u201cCivil War\u201d). Where has DC been during all of this? Mostly silent. They gave us \u201cMan Of Steel\u201d in 2013, which I rather liked. And someone with a lot of love and a lot of respect for pre-Crisis lore has been pouring their heart into \u201cArrow,\u201d \u201cThe Flash,\u201d and \u201cSupergirl\u201d on television. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, they threw \u201cBatman vs. Superman\u201d our way.<\/p>\n
I saw \u201cBatman vs. Superman\u201d last night. I will probably see it again, if for no other reason than I saw it with only one of my two sons, and I\u2019m pretty sure the other one wants to see it too. I\u2019ll start by saying that any movie that has me looking at my watch has not sufficiently grabbed my attention. There were several glances in the first 90 minutes. We apparently are in the universe established by the \u201cMan Of Steel\u201d movie. We have no real background on the Batman of this universe beyond the very basics: His parents were killed when he was a kid, he discovered a cave full of bats and made it his lair, and his family mansion is now a ruin. (I can\u2019t remember if that last detail happened in one of the most recent Batman flicks\u2014I was probably asleep. That franchise has been rebooted\/revisited so many times I\u2019ve lost track. (Batman was never my favorite, remember?)) I don\u2019t remember the locations of Gotham City and Metropolis ever being specifically mentioned in the comics. It was always an \u201cunderstood\u201d elephant in the room that they were both analogs for New York City, which made it only slightly awkward when Batman would visit Superman or vice versa. We didn\u2019t know exactly \u201cwhere\u201d Gotham and Metropolis were, but we knew they weren\u2019t the same. Well, now we know they are \u201csister\u201d cities, across the harbor from one another. Sure. Whatever.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll start with Superman. I generally enjoy Henry Cavill as Clark Kent\/Superman. I think he has \u201cthe look,\u201d and while I wish the colors were a tad brighter, I like what they have chosen to do with his costume. He spends the movie struggling with the age-old question: \u201cCan I ever get close to anyone?\u201d, realizing, apparently for the first time, that if you care about someone (or some thing), then people who don\u2019t like you can use that person (or thing) as leverage against you. I was somewhat relieved when it was revealed that it was this moth-eaten plot device that was going to be the real reason for a fight between our two heroes. They spent a solid hour attempting\u2014poorly\u2014 to provide adequate background and character development, leading us to believe that they were going to come to blows simply over philosophical differences (a la the aforementioned \u201cCivil War\u201d). But when it came down to it, Superman simply had no choice. I think he did a piss-poor job of trying to explain that to Batman, but if he hadn\u2019t, there wouldn\u2019t have been much of a fight, and that\u2019s why we all bought our tickets, right?<\/p>\n
Batman. I said earlier I\u2019ve never been a big fan of Batman. This movie didn\u2019t make me any more of one. First of all, he kills. And shoots guns. When did that start? Is that a thing now? (Remember; I haven\u2019t bought a comic in 30 years!) One of the things to LIKE about Batman, even if you didn\u2019t like much else, was that he chose not to kill. He was all about justice. Catch the bad guys and deliver them to law enforcement and let the system do its job. No guns, unless they shot cables or mist or something else non-lethal. But in this movie there are several scenes in which he indiscriminately mows down bad guy after bad guy with spray from fully-automatic weapons, and when he\u2019s out of bullets or there\u2019s no gun handy, he doesn\u2019t seem to pull any punches. Several others are quite obviously dead in the aftermath of the sheer brutality of his physical attacks. This is not the Batman I used to know. I will, however, give serious props to Ben Affleck as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Affleck\u2019s one of those actors who for me is only as good as the material he\u2019s performing. I\u2019ve loved him in roles. I\u2019ve hated him in roles. I loved him in this role! He was suave and handsome enough to be believable as the \u201cbillionaire playboy\u201d Brice Wayne (though that aspect of the character is not at all played up in this flick) and brooding and angsty enough to pull off the \u201cDark Knight\u201d shtick that has become popular with the character over the last 40 years.<\/p>\n
Wonder Woman? *blink* What? Who invited her? Indeed, the movie asks this very question as the three heroes are set to face Doomsday (Its name is \u201cDoomsday, right? It\u2019s a post-Crisis character, so I\u2019ve never seen it before, but I\u2019ve gathered that\u2019s its name.): Superman: \u201cIs she with you?\u201d Batman: \u201cNo, I thought she was with you!\u201d Her presence is obviously a prelude to a sequel which will expand upon her backstory and her last hundred years, explaining what her contributions to World War I were and where she\u2019s been since then. And we see evidence that The Flash, Aquaman (ugh) and Cyborg will be seen in some future movie(s). But she came out of nowhere and just decided to show up for the big fight at the end.<\/p>\n
Superman\u2019s (apparent) death. At the end of the film we are led to believe that Superman (and, ipso facto, Clark Kent) is dead. They handled this all wrong. Superman\u2019s wake was closed (and empty) casket, while Clark\u2019s was open-casket; and Smallville is where the body was buried. That makes it very hard to explain his eventual resurrection. Had they done it the other way around, with Superman\u2019s body on display and Clark\u2019s apparently \u201cmissing,\u201d it would have been easy. Superman simply bursts forth, apparently finally healed from his wound; and Clark emerges from some as-yet-uncleared rubble that resulted from the big fight with Doomsday, barely alive, but able to come through his ordeal. I have no idea how they\u2019re going to explain Clark coming back they way they\u2019ve done things.<\/p>\n
Broadly, I don\u2019t know what Warner Brothers has been thinking for the past 10 years. Marvel has been trouncing them and it\u2019s like they\u2019ve been sitting around a board room table with blindfolds on and fingers in their ears. Now they\u2019re \u201cawake\u201d and playing catch-up and doing so very poorly. Box office receipts notwithstanding, this new Universe could have been\u2026and still could be\u2026so much better! They need to slow down and take their time and explain exactly WHO all these \u201cnew\u201d characters are and where they came from and why we should love them. Superman and Batman are easy. Unless you\u2019ve lived in a cave all your life, you at least know who they are. You know Superman can fly and has heat vision and is invulnerable. You know Batman has a cave and a Batmobile and a utility belt. You almost can\u2019t not know these things! Wonder Woman is on the fringe of this level of popularity. Amazon, bracelets, lariat\u2026check. But Cyborg? Flash? Aquaman? Who?? DC has a LOT of work ahead of itself. In many ways, this film is a knock-off of Marvel\u2019s recent work. Superman = Captain America. Batman = Iron Man. Wonder Woman = Thor. Doomsday = Hulk. *yawn* I\u2019ve seen all of this already!<\/p>\n
Give me something NEW and reasons to once again love the characters that consumed my imagination for most of my teen years. Please?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[SPOILERS\u2014If you haven\u2019t seen this movie and are bothered by knowing serious plot points in advance of doing so, then you probably shouldn\u2019t read this.] Before I get to the movie, I should first give a little background on my history with and love (and then hatred) of DC Comics. I\u2019ve been a fan of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}