Before we get started, there’s something that’s
been on my mind.
(But don’t worry.
There won’t be any spoilers in this post…beyond what’s technically
already been spoiled by the trailers, but whatever.)
I’m willing to bet that if you’re reading this
post and/or have an internet connection, you’ve come across reviews for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Many of them have been unkind. When I first checked Rotten Tomatoes, the
percentage on the Tomatometer hovered at somewhere around 41. At one point, it dropped as low as 29%. As of this writing, it’s holding the line
(such as it is) at 30%. Granted there’s
no ironclad rule that the percentage is something to take as the gospel; with
that said, it’s important to note that A) Rotten Tomatoes will link back to the
actual reviews, B) there are still -- as of writing -- double the amount of
negative reviews to positive ones, and C) even a number of positive reviews
have pointed out problems.
Okay, sure.
Reviews are a suggestion of quality, not a confirmation of it; if they
truly were the be-all and end-all, then a pretty large number of AAA games
would be true masterpieces…and they’re definitely not. And ultimately, it’s still a good idea to
come to your own conclusions rather than let someone else decide for you. But reviews exist for a reason. Two of them, arguably; they’ll tell you if a
product is good or bad, and -- maybe more importantly -- they’ll become a work
of art unto themselves. How well can a
critic argue a point? What do they bring
to the table? It depends, but they’re
professionals for a reason. They know
what they’re doing.
So why do people act like reviewers, critics, and
everything in between is the enemy?
Some of the reactions to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice have been incredibly
volatile. There’s been some hate thrown
the critics’ way, particularly if it leads to insults flung like a
fastball. And it tends to end with a
common train of thought “I don’t care what the critics think” or its partner in
crime “I’ll judge for myself”. The
latter point is important, but let’s be real here: when 178 out of 253 critics
are willing to imply that a movie is bad -- and that might be an even higher
number, what with reviews via YouTube, blogs, and other unlisted critics --
then that’s what I’d call a warning sign. Don’t ignore it.
As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of Bob
“MovieBob” Chipman -- and as expected, he
did his own review of Batman v. Superman:
Dawn of Justice. He didn’t care for
it, and that’s putting it lightly. I
would’ve thought that would be the end of the story, but a quick hop over to
The Escapist -- the site where MovieBob once produced tons of content -- shows
a lot of people taking issue. Not so
much with his opinion (though that’s in there), but with his style…and soon
enough, the man himself.
I’ll be fair.
A good number of MovieBob’s recent reviews -- the video ones especially
-- have been pretty vitriolic. He’ll
still give praise, and he’ll still speak volumes about movies he likes, but a
movie that crosses him brings out the bile.
It’s reflected in his style (and his speech, on occasion), but to
me? It’s an extension of him expressing
his opinion. As he should. But there are a lot of people that don’t like
that style, and it’s mingled with people not liking the man. The best-case scenario is that people devalue
his opinion. The worst-case scenario is
that there
are video thumbnails of someone punching him in the face.
I won’t pretend like MovieBob is a saint who’s
never, ever done something worth regretting.
And I won’t say that those who take issue with him -- his style, his
opinions, or even his general beliefs on life -- do so just because he didn’t
like a movie. But when he has a point,
he has a point. He argues with the
evidence to back it up. And he puts a
part of himself, whether it’s his ideologies, his tastes, his insights, or
simply his persona, into his reviews.
Then again, that doesn’t make him any different from other critics. They do the same thing. Game journalists do it. Film critics do it. It’s as much about doing discussing the
quality of a product as it is sharing a part of your heart with willing
listeners and readers.
So you know what?
I sympathize with critics. I
trust them. I may not agree with them
100% of the time, but I can still respect what they do (provided they do it
well). Everyone should -- but not
everyone does. Response bias may make
comments flood with insults and intents to ignore their words, but there are still people out
there that
aren’t willing to take even
the most well-reasoned, well-meaning
piece of text seriously. But let’s
be fair here; even those that say “screw the haters” -- or even those who
enjoy/dislike a product -- end up taking heat.
So it’s not as if the spiral down the toilet doesn’t go both ways.
There’s a nexus of hatred that grows stronger with
every day -- wars being fought with no reason or reward. But that’s a topic too big to get into now,
especially since I’m already 900 words into this post. What do I
think of Batman v. Superman: Dawn
Justice? Do I think that there’s
some glimmer of hope, some gem of quality that reviews have overlooked?
The answer is no.
This is a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad movie,
where the most interesting thing that happened is that the lights came on in
the theater halfway through. BUT I must
stress: there is a “but” to all of this.
The idea behind it wasn’t wrong. Man of
Steel notoriously ended with Superman destroying Metropolis and costing
untold numbers of civilians their lives.
The studio behind it pretty much had no choice but to address that, and
they did in this movie. It’s the
backbone of everything. People have to
figure out where they stand on Superman, from the average citizen to the
officials in Washington. Superman
himself has to figure out where he stands -- and that’s not helped by the fact
that Batman’s got a major grudge against him, partially spurned by the big blue
Boy Scout’s failure to prevent Bruce’s employees from biting it. In the hands of a competent team, this movie
could have been incredible, and wash out the bitter taste of Man of Steel.
But it didn’t.
And there’s a part of me that wishes they didn’t even try.
BvS is a
disjointed mess of a movie -- a film that somehow manages to feel much too long
and much too short at the same time. The
sheer quantity of scenes can’t even begin to compensate for the quality of
them; things in the first half or so happen at an almost random order, with
durations that range from mere seconds to oh
my god what is even the point of this scene minutes. It would help if there was some substance to
what happened, but there isn’t. The idea
is almost always there, but the execution is not.
It’s the same problem that Man of Steel -- and similarly, some of the Christopher Nolan movies
-- had back in 2013: there’s a lot of pontification, but it never goes anywhere. It’s all surface-level stuff that adds
nothing (which I’m starting to suspect is definitely
the fault of David S. Goyer, who returns once more as a lead writer). Subtlety and nuance don’t exist in this
universe. The religious symbolism
is front and center within every 15-minute block.
The brooding levels are as high as ever, if not
even more so; Batman glowers his way through most of his scenes, while Supes
stays indecisive until it’s time to smash something or save Lois. Speaking of Lois, she continues to be
shoehorned into a plot where she doesn’t belong -- and despite putting on airs
of being a strong independent woman, she still has to be saved by Supes
repeatedly, often thanks to what borders on stupidity.
If and when they do a Justice League movie, I hope there’s more time given to the
superheroes than the embodiment of dead weight.
Good news, Jurassic World fans! There are even MORE improbably-high heels in this movie!
At the very least, the actors are all giving it
their very best. I didn’t get swept up
in The Great Batfleck Panic of…Whatever Year That Was, but I didn’t have a
problem with him in terms of his performance.
Same goes for Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, and the rest. Well, I say that, but the one who sticks out
like a sore thumb on a broken foot is Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. I have no idea if it’s the acting or the
directing, but the character on-screen is absurd. He’s basically a low-rent version of The
Joker, or at least a drunk guy at a party doing a Joker impression; it’s
embarrassing to watch, and even if it was pitch-perfect, his mere presence is
so tonally inconsistent with BvS that
I wonder if notes from Suicide Squad got
thrown into the mix.
Still, I’m not one to focus on performances
(though Jeremy Irons, Laurence Fishburne, and Holly Hunter do some good work). A core problem with the movie is that these
competent, well-established professionals aren’t given anything to work
with. And when they are, it’s almost
shameful. Character motivations don’t
make sense, dialogue can hit some serious lows, nobody has anything even
remotely resembling an arc, and the themes are completely butchered on every
conceivable scale. Want to know where
people stand on caped vigilantes when all’s said and done? So would I!
Want to know what Lex’s deal is in this brand-new universe? Too bad!
The ideas are there, and the scenes are there --
but again and again, the movie deflates itself before it can capitalize on the
potential. Since I’m avoiding spoilers
here, I won’t go into grave detail -- but
what could and should have been a pivotal scene in the movie, and maybe the
entire universe WB is trying to set up, ends so abruptly that I pretty much
gave up on anything worthwhile happening.
Like I said, it’s the same problem as Man of Steel; none of the action beats matter, because it’s
happening with characters that you don’t care about in a world you don’t care
about. Why? Because the movie doesn’t give you a reason
to. White noise contemplation begets
white noise conflict.
I’d comment more on those action scenes, but what
is there to say? There are punches, and
gunshots, and explosions, and energy blasts, and CG, and goons getting beat up,
but to what end? Most of that action
happens in the back half of the movie -- when it’s far too little, too late --
and done in dim environments with dreary palettes and a hundred CG layers. Also, I actually managed to keep track of the
time; if you’re going into this movie expecting to see a big brawl between
Batman and Superman, DON’T. It takes about an hour and a half, at least,
for them to even think about throwing down.
So you’d think that the rest of the movie would be
an ideological struggle between two comic book titans. To which I say:
There’s a lot more that I can say about this movie
-- and I will, don’t you worry -- but that ventures into spoiler
territory. So I’ll leave with a couple
of thoughts. For starters? The question at hand remains: is BvS worthy of its 30-ish percent rating
on Rotten Tomatoes? Yes and no. I don’t think it’s as quite as apocalyptically bad as that score would suggest. It didn’t fill me with searing rage or a
sense of betrayal. (Boy, would that make for a good promo quote.) And once more, I have to stress that Zack
Snyder and his crew had the right idea; at the very least, they stared the
problems and criticisms in the face instead of playing dumb. They
just went about it in the worst possible way.
So here’s the bigger issue -- not only why I think
this movie is bad, but why it is arguably deserving of such low scores. BvS came
out on March 25th, 2016.
That’s almost a full three years from the release of Man of Steel (June 14th,
2013). I won’t even pretend like I’m
impartial, because I hate that movie with a passion -- but the issue here is
that this new movie has the same problems, magnified problems, new problems, or a mix of the
three. What this movie tells me is that
Snyder and crew either didn’t learn anything from the last movie, or they
flat-out ignored everything. They had
three years to reflect and improve, and this
is what they come up with?
You know what?
I feel really, really bad for DC fans.
BvS is a
movie that fills me with disappointment and disdain -- and with it, a sense of
apathy that makes me so numb I almost feel like it’s pointless to even talk
about the movie. But I say that as a guy
with minimal exposure to the DC universe.
I don’t know Batman very well. I
don’t know Superman very well. I sure as
hell don’t know Wonder Woman very well.
What does this movie mean to people that have waited their whole lives
to see this conflict happen on the big screen?
How are they reacting, given some of the grisly, disheartening, and even
baffling events that transpire here?
For the most part, I’ve made my peace with this
movie. So don’t worry about me. Send your prayers to those that need
them. Send them to those that truly felt
burned or betrayed by this movie -- to those who may as well have watched their
heroes set aflame before their eyes.
So. More to
come from me in the future. Until
then? I don’t know. Go track down some Wonder Woman comics;
something tells me you won’t go wrong.
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