I don't know what's wrong with Zach Snyder. This is probably unfair, but it's what I walk away from all his movies thinking. There's just a vital, human element completely absent from his latest blockbusters (see also Michael Bay). I appreciate the attempt to answer the glaring moral issues presented in Man of Steel, but the sequel still feels like a robot trying to figure out what human feelings are and why it's bad to kill; a conundrum it largely fails to compute.
I think most professional reviews have addressed the host of cinematic flaws, so I just have a few bullet points to add.
- It really does feel like a series of scenes stitched together. I didn't feel much about the characters or what was going on, it was just a bunch of stuff that happened.
- Eisenberg's Luthor is not a compelling villain. There's a scene where he's babbling, and it's nonsense, and he realizes it's nonsense, and he just stops and says, "thank you for coming." "Hi, I'm Lex Luthor, I play the villain, thanks for watching the movie this evening." more or less sums up his character. No deep exploration of his motivations, just some awkward guy who doesn't make sense.
- The best part was when the music changed like it was a WWE match and Wonder Woman showed up. "Mah God, I think that, is that, that's Wonder Woman's music. Yes, she's here! The amazon princess is here!" She was great, but wasn't really on screen long enough for Snyder to fold/spindle/mutilate her character.
- Affleck was good as Batman. With better writing and a director that understands the emotions different facial expressions indicate, he could be great.
- Cavill was sexy, but I still loathe the politics his parents taught his character, framed for some reason as "good" in the movie. "You don't owe those fuckers nothing." is the main philosophy of the Kents, which is why their son turned out to be a sad murder god (whoever said this was brilliant) who thinks consequences are for other people.
- Batman and Superman never resolve their taut erotic tension by making out. It might have saved the movie for me.
- I went out to get a second beer, because it was that kind of movie, and came back to a weird scene I didn't understand. "Wait, is that a apocalyptian fire pit? And, oh hey, parademons? Parademons!" Between that and Luthor's last unhinged rant at the end it's pretty clear the Justice League movie is going to be about Darkseid. On some level, Darkseid and his anti-life equation is probably the most appropriate villain for Snyder to handle, given that he seems to apply said equation to every one of his films. "Good, good, one last piece of editing motherbox, to suck all joy and vitality out of every second of it! Muahahaha!"
- Cyborg! Flash! Aquaman!
- I wish movies would stop interrupting themselves to set up the next movie. A movie should naturally flow into the sequels, not launch the sequel halfway through and finish the movie still playing as an afterthought. It's like reading a novel where every chapter the narrative stops abruptly to throw in heavy-handed previews of the next chapter. Before, going, "where was I again, oh yes, all this business needs to be wrapped up I guess." Maybe in the era of widespread ADD this is the new normal?
- It would be interesting to see the ideas explored here, which are genuinely interesting to me, explored by someone who doesn't seem entirely cynical about the source material.
- You know what happens when you take the idealism out of DC comics? NOTHING GOOD. Idealism is the only thing saving comics from macho violence porn.
This modern era of superhero films is everything I wanted as a kid. The tragedy is that I got it.
Part 1 (My comment exceeds the max length allowed)
ReplyDeleteI'll admit I'm not all that interested in seeing this movie. I'd see it, but no part of me would feel the slightest twinge of loss if I didn't. I couldn't exactly say how I came to the opinion. The reviews haven't been great. But that's not it. I say that because as I'm reading reviews I was aware that I was happy they weren't good. I'm looking for reasons not to like this movie.
I don't like the premise, which I think of as more of a set up in this case. That's a large part of it. So let me get this straight... Batman has a problem because Superman is too powerful. And by defeating Superman he has eliminated an unacceptable threat, except that in defeating Superman isn't it necessarily true that Batman is a greater threat than Superman ever was and so absolutely nothing has been accomplished? There is seemingly no way out of this of this. Who knows, maybe that's the point, but I doubt it.
You made the comparison to a WWE match. Everything about this movie has that vibe, from the title to every trailer and still I've seen. And yes the thing about that kind of entertainment is that there is no context. It's just a lot of action. It's not unlike watching a couple of people playing a fighting video game.
For me recent The Transformers movies really drove home just how bad these kind of big budget, ridiculously large scale movies can be. And superhero movies have started seeming very transformerish to me. I think it's all of the crossover nonsense. It ups the stakes to the point that the film makers have to put something absurdly massive on screen. Just thinking of those Thor movies, and Thor in the Avengers, ... It's hard for me to suspend disbelief with something so contrived that takes itself so seriously. It's just fucking dumb is what it is.
I realize I'm rambling now...
Jessie Eisenberg is definitely another reason I found myself rooting against this movie. I hate that guy. Literally I hate the guy, not just the characters he plays. I hate the actor. It probably has a lot to do with the characters he's played. I can't separate the actor from the characters with this guy. And no that's not a compliment. It's a reflection of the fact that he plays every character exactly the same way, Jessie Eisenberg. He is always, in every movie he is in, the least likeable guy on screen. Unlikeable is his sweet spot. I wonder why that is. Forget Lex Luther. They should have just had Eisenberg play himself. If I had super powers I'd use them to stop the Jessie Eisenbergs of the world not the Lex Luthers. Although I suppose there really is no distinction there. The Lex Luthers of our world are the Jesse Eisenbergs.
Part 2 (My comment exceeds the max length allowed)
ReplyDelete> I wish movies would stop interrupting themselves to set up the next movie.
I really do think this is the downfall of all of these movies. They're not movies at all. They're all, everyone of them, promotional features for the next movie. Someone noticed that model works – like controlling costs on the sequel and depending on the carry over from a first film to drive sales is a model that works – and so fans sit through 2 hours of nonsense that they were promised would be good by the teaser at the end of the last movie in order to get to the teaser at the end of the current movie, if only as a sort of restorative consulation prize. There is a psychological principle at work here. The part of any experience we tend to remember are the height of the action and the ending. There is no denying the truth of that. It's how we're wired. So when filmmakers and others treat our experiences as algorithms to be optimized in order to maximize the money they make from us, our experiences get increasingly awful and yet we pay more for them and more frequently.
You're absolutely right about idealism. These movies are about as idealistic as a Kanye West song. As I've already said, it works, but it's soulless and leaves us desperate for the next distraction.
> This modern era of superhero films is everything I wanted as a kid. The tragedy is that I got it.
I love that line. I read someplace recently that older generations always find fault with the younger generations. The suggestion was that it's perfectly normal. I can see that. I have no problem with that. The problem I have is that the older generations have started emulating younger generations. We're ignoring our hard won knowledge and experience to take our cues from people who don't know anything yet, turning the whole thing into a cycle of stupidity. Ask a kid what they want from a superhero movie and they'll say explosions and powers and action, etc. They won't once mention story and character development. It's not that kids don't need those things from their entertainment too. It's that they're too stupid to know that they do. And now so are we.
You will not like Jessie Eisenberg any more after this film. He's miscast, and his performance is weirdly off-putting even so. All of the choices involved in portraying his character feel wrong, from casting to writing to performance.
ReplyDeleteDon't try to analyze the why of why they fight, it makes little sense on it's own terms and the resolution is idiotic. It hinges on their mothers having the same name and it makes no real sense. I used to watch a lot of WWE as a young man, and the comparison is really apt the more I think about it. It has roughly the narrative coherence of a WWE grudge match.
This movie didn't feel quite as soul-crushing as the Transformers movies or MoS, but I have zero interest in watching it again. It just wasn't compelling, even from a bad movie perspective.