This is a review from someone who liked Man of Steel, and sounds like she was wanting to like Batman v Superman, but thinks that it failed, and she breaks down how it failed. I don’t think the critics are rating it badly because of their expectations being wrong, it sounds like the movie is trying to do a lot of things but didn’t map out well how to get them all done, and the story and movie suffered because of it.
And really if it was a dramatic, philosophical movie aiming for the Oscars and did that well, I would think that a lot of critics would be rating it highly, though the box office would be terrible.
Angry Joe YouTube review if anyone is interested. Pretty much what I’ve heard about the movie, though it might actually be better than I feared it would be. Sounds like DC missed an opportunity, but it’s not as horrible, perhaps, as Man of Steel was. First half of the video is mostly spoiler free, second half is with spoilers.
There is no interpretation for the time travel scene that makes sense. What we see is:
The earth spins the correct way.
Superman flies around it really fast and the earth switches its direction of rotation.
Superman stops orbiting the earth and it keeps spinning the wrong way.
Superman then flies around the earth the opposite direction from which he did before and the earth begins spinning the correct way again.
So what’s shown is definitely not that he flew faster than light and went back in time.
That would be a valid point, I guess, if we were talking about a movie about…I don’t know…Sgt. Rock let’s say…where Superman showed up at the end and solved Rock’s problems through time travel.
Seems a bit over the top, to be honest. Until I see it I’ll stick with Angry Joe’s take on it, as he and I generally align on most of this stuff. I’ll be going in, assuming I actually go see it at the theater instead of waiting until it comes out on BluRay or cable, thinking ‘bad, but not as bad as Man of Steel’. If it’s worse than THAT…well, that will really, really be bad.
I’m betting Civil War will still be killer though.
Thanks for posting that review. I liked Man of Steel, too, it was my idea of what a comic book movie should be … lots of super-powered individuals knocking each other’s asses through buildings and so forth. And it did feel more like an SF movie than the other Superman movies … I thought it was by far the best of the Superman movies. Plus, Amy Adams looked about as good as she ever did.
For that reason, I did not worry about the reviewers and fans badmouthing Batman vs. Superman: they didn’t like Man of Steel either, and they were oh, so wrong about that, AFAIC.
That said, I’m not at all interested in B vs. S, because I simply cannot buy its premise. Given what we know about Superman’s powers, there is no possible outcome in a battle between the two that does not end in Superman defeating Batman in some micro-fraction of a second. It is a sublimely silly premise, as someone else said, proof positive that the writers have totally exhausted themselves creatively and are scrounging around in the mess at the bottom of the barrel. Not gonna spend a nickel on this movie.
The worse part is that there’s nothing about the characters that cry out for them to fight each other. The motivation for it has to be painstakingly pushed together.
This part I am not really on board with—Batman fighting Superman has been for some reason a story that the comic book writers have been in love with for decades. I don’t think it’s that they are out of ideas, but for some reason they are convinced that it’s something everyone is clamoring to see.
I normally get excited when a new Superman movie comes out, but reading the reviews of this one, I don’t think I can ever be assed to go see it or watch it at home.
And it was done. 30 years ago. With much painstaking push leading in, borrowing from much of both canon and off-canon. (Including that Bruce knew Clark would “fight fair” to the end, which is something you would only be sure of if you really knew him well already.)
Of course, because of the way it was set up that time, this one would itself be at best in a “parallel universe” canon. Some people seem unsatisfied with that.
There have neen also other instances of B v. S “initial tense encounter” scenarios, like John Byrne’s version in 1986’s Man Of Steel, which are necessarily much much less dramatic, since as you correctly point out, there’s no real cause to have a dragdown battle.
Contrary to my own expectations, I went ahead and saw Batman vs. Superman. I don’t know whether my opinion means anything, but it’s not terrible. I won’t go into details in this thread, but even though it had major flaws, I enjoyed it more than the Nolan movies (which put me to sleep in stretches), and Ben Affleck is really good as Batman.
Saw a note about how Eisenberg was actually Snyder’s choice to show up early on as Jimmy Olsen and then pfft for the rest of the movie, to mess with expectations.
Saw BvS last night. I don’t understand the hate for it, not at all. It’s not “The Godfather” or anything, but it was a perfectly serviceable movie and certainly as good or better than most Marvel films. Ben Affleck was excellent as Batman.
Honestly, I’m baffled by the “worst movie ever” buzz. It’s like I saw a different picture.
I hope that Civil War is better - saw its trailer big screen, and its just not exciting me - MCU has a fantastic track record, so I hold out hope.
As for BvS - I’ve seen it - its not ‘terrible’ but like MoS - I have zero desire to see it a second time. Long, Dark, Brooding - no hint of joy, no apparent fun - and I can’t think of a single thing that I would want to watch it to see ‘again’.
I’m not precisely sure why it is Marvel films are so adored and DC ones (with the exception of The Dark Knight, which was, admittedly, WAY above the norm) are ripped, but so it goes. I mean, I thought “The Avengers” was a messy, loud film that was… well, was kind of like Batman v Superman, actually. But people hailed it as a great masterpiece. I don’t get it, though I fully admit I am a minority in this regard.
It may be that as a person who didn’t read comic books I go into these things without any preconceptions as to how the story should or should not abide by the comics.
Don’t get me wrong; I can think of ten ways BvS could have been better. But it was generally pretty good.
Both true. Much of the early hand wringing was about Affleck, and like many have said he was a strength of the film. Yeah, it wasn’t as good as The Avengers but it wasn’t as bad as either Iron Man 2 or 3.
At least with the Marvel movies, they are all part of a big ecosystem of movies and plotlines. Without having seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers would simply be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
I think DC’s problem is that they aren’t showing the inclination to do all of the footwork to build that ecosystem. Man of Steel was what it was and them BOOM big crossover film!
