BvS Batman versus Superman
BvS movie review
I’m glad I saw it so I can say “I saw the worst movie ever made!”!! I realize that this movie does show some understanding of the craft and history of storytelling and movies, and I try not to belittle the hard work of people who spent more than a year of their lives on a project … but this is completely worthless as film or entertainment.
Seriously, someone explain how to take this thing seriously at all, when the big battle is King Kong!! Seriously, complete with ripping off the antenna and everything!!! I love homage to the canon as much as anyone, maybe I could have gone for the Kong rip but the monster is the EXACT orc from LOTR Return of the King, including running it’s claw through the good guy!!!! Seriously, it’s the EXACT CGI monster, only scaled-up. Did the studio save on the budget by re-using the software?
Someone explain the dream sequences, did they exist only to introduce Flash and Aquaman (and so Kevin Costner can play American Gothic Grandpa)? They added to the already horrendous running time, completely unnecessarily, and I heard at least three people in the theater say “What? What’s going on? I don’t get it!?” during the dream sequences, and even I was confused by them. Not well framed at all.
What was the cinematography? I only remember one shot, okay two, the memorable one was the last frame (before the coda), three standing over a fallen friend, taken from the graphic novels. The other shot was at the beginning, bat dagger stuck in the doorframe, should have been backlit better, I understand they were saving the Batman logo for later but if you’re gonna go there, go there.
The score is one of the worst, most bombastic scores I’ve heard. There was exactly one cue which did not make me want to hurl. Seriously, I know what Hans Zimmer sounds like, but this was bad even for him. Maybe it was his name on the credits but other composers doing the writing; I hope he got a really big check, he lost all credibility.
For a movie that is supposed to set up a franchise of at least five movies there were surprisingly few Easter Eggs, and stunningly few laughs. From reading other reviews the most common word seems to be “joyless”, and that’s exactly what sitting through this movie was for me, and the restless people around me. I wish I had seen it with a loud, snarky audience, that’s the only way it would have been fun, if the audience came up with zingers to mock the ludicrousness of it all.
I will pay someone to write a movie which is not post- September 11th terror attacks Dark and Apocalyptic. Please, for the sanity of all of us, stop with the violence, and terrorism, and faux War on Terror dialogs. Please. Superhero movies aren’t supposed to be more serious than Holocaust movies. Are you trying to take the fun out of EVERYTHING? Graphic novels can be dark, but comic book movies are supposed to be fun. Movies are supposed to be escapism, especially a movie like this one. So why is it dark and depressing and sounds like news reports on television right now? If you want to change the world with your filmmaking, how about a few non-white people in the lead roles? The Fast and the Furious movies are fun, and have non-white people in the lead roles. I didn’t see Furious 7, but I’m gonna say it’s a LOT more fun than this one.
I should say I appreciated the lines of dialogue which discussed important philosophical issues. Normally I would praise that in this kind of movie, but here there are so many that it seems like Star Trek Gibberish, a line of dialogue thrown in to explain something and never mentioned again. All the Deep Philosophical Issues are given a line, but no more than one, and not revisited. I’ve heard reviewers complain about the lack of motivation for the characters; and it’s not that there isn’t any motivation, is that there is absolutely zero character development; it’s the old bad writing of characters whose actions hit certain plot points, instead of a person’s actions driving the plot. If it’s a mindless action movie then shorten the running time by cutting out all that dialogue! Two and a half hours and I have to sit through talking, I’m not here to watch a romcom!!
From reading other reviews, I can agree “at least they got the suck out of the way so the other movies can be better” but there’s no way you can get me to watch the others unless the reviews are 100% worshipful. Seriously, I don’t know how the reviews have been as positive as I’ve seen, there is nothing in this movie that I would show to film students even as a What Not To Do lesson. It was so horrible I couldn’t even figure out if it was camera placement or editiing or shot selection / coverage that ruined the visuals (or all of the above).
Another in the “sory, I don’t get it” file: if it’s called BvS, why is that dynamic such a tiny part of the movie? It was basically one line from Alfred, and a quick setpiece fight which was shorter than the fight with a monster which I don’t think exists in any of the comics.
While I ususally quote “acting is usually the last thing to go bad in a movie” in this case it’s so bad I have to throw the actors under the bus too. Jesse Eisenberg makes a strong choice to play his character like Heath Leger played The Joker, a nice homage, but completely wrong. It’s wrong because it doesn’t work, because he outplays both superhero stars, and because it is wrong for the character. The Joker is Chaotic Evil, Lex Luthor is Lawful Evil (yes, I threw down a Dungeons and Dragons reference to explain Character. Top that.). The Joker is a cackling maniac, Lex Luthor is a cerebral planner. The point of writing different villains is there are different kinds of villains, and acting them the same way misses that point. The movie further confuses itself and the audience by littering red graffiti and scrawled text which looks like The Joker’s handwriting. Talk about missing the point and confusing characters, and confusing the audience. Heath Ledger’s performance was stunningly brilliant, leave it be.
I am sooooo tired of the Furrowed Brow School of Acting; at least in two scenes Superman died and relaxed his face. Oh wait that was a spoiler; spoiler alert: I bet you don’t dislike the movie as much as I did because at least you’ll know what to expect. It would be an interesting acting theory thesis to compare/contrast BvS and Civil War America/IronMan, whatever those two do for acting and however that movie turns out … it CAN’T be this bad can it??!!
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