JUSTICE LEAGUE: a superhero all-star movie held back by low ambitions

Man of Steel Review
Batman v. Superman Theatrical Review (spoiler free) (spoiler discussion)
Batman v. Superman Ultimate Edition Review
Suicide Squad Review
Wonder Woman Review

JUSTICE LEAGUE represents the fifth film in the effort to mount a unified DC Universe on film, and as far as going forward, probably the most crucial piece of the puzzle. This isn't just another super-hero film - it's the all-star team of ANY superhero universe. Superman and Batman as individuals are more popular than anything Marvel has to offer and after this year, Wonder Woman is like right on their heels.

(Spider-Man has been consistently more popular than her throughout their publication history, and most of the former Marvel B-list has gotten a boost from the Marvel Studios films.)

The point is, WB if JUSTICE LEAGUE laid a major egg, it would have cemented the DC Cinematic Universe as a failure. As I compose this review, the final box office isn't in, and the financials of the film have very little to do with how good it is, so for now, let's exclude that from the definition of success. The real question that matters: is the movie any good?

Answer: Kinda? It's... okay?

Two weeks ago, I picked on THOR: RAGNAROK a bit for playing fast and loose with its structure and plot progression, but ultimately came down with the judgement that it was fun enough to still be a good movie. I won't be surprised if I see takes on JUSTICE LEAGUE that follow a similar path, but I think this film falls short in ways that undermine it more than THOR.

A failing of the film is a lack of attempt to reach for any higher theme. There are moments where the film seems to be TELLING us that it's about hope, but I never felt that emotion coming through on screen via the plot or the action. It's a very surface-level film. Though BATMAN V. SUPERMAN stumbled over its own themes, there was a very clear ambition to deal with how earth-shattering the existence of a being like Superman would be in political, social and religious issues. It's even the foundation of the Batman/Superman conflict in a way. I don't think it fully succeeded, and I won't even award points for trying but it shot for more depth than JUSTICE LEAGUE. It's a shame because finding those connections among the characters could have elevated the film. THOR: RAGNAROK might have had messy plotting at times, but the themes and characterization smoothed over those bumps.

The "plot" of JUSTICE LEAGUE is the most basic of any DCU movie so far. There are three "Mother Boxes" scattered across Earth and an evil villain named Steppenwolf has returned from  beyond with the goal of recapturing all three and assembling them, for doing so will unleash power that will destroy the world. Awakened to the threat, Batman and Wonder Woman go looking for other beings with enough power to fight Steppenwolf and his army of Parademons. This leads them to recruit The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg, who've all been operating under the rader until this point.

That's basically the plot - stop bad guy from getting boxes. Boxes end world. You might think this means we're getting a quest movie inside the film, but nope. Steppenwolf already knows where two of the boxes are and he easily reclaims him. Meanwhile Cyborg figures out where the third box is as soon as he's told about it, and the heroes almost gift-wrap that one for Steppenwolf to take.

Steppenwolf's plan is lacking in any sort of complexity, which is fitting because he's the thinnest comic book movie villain of anyone since the guy from THOR: THE DARK WORLD whose name I can't remember. Ultron might have been trapped in a weak movie, but at least he had a personality, a recognizable motive, and an ideology that made for interesting dramatic confrontations with our heroes. At this point, it's inexcusable for these movies to have paper-thin villains who are only able of challenging our heroes physically. They might as well have had Doomsday be the headlining villain for all the difference it makes.

There are three plots in play here:

1) Gather the heroes
2) Resurrect Superman
3) Beat up Steppenwolf.

They're not integrated especially cohesively. THE AVENGERS bent over backwards to not only make each team member's inclusion feel organic and necessary, it used their interpersonal dynamics to drive the plot forward, as when Loki starts messing with them. (For instance: Banner's included not because he's the Hulk, but because of his gamma radiation experience. The Hulk is what Loki uses against the other members.) Yes, AVENGERS also has an end-of-the-world plot, but Loki's a magnetic enough character to make the route there interesting. JUSTICE LEAGUE has a pretty decent handle on how our heroes interact with each other, but there's no meat to their dynamic with Steppenwolf.

The fly-by-night nature of the film is fairly evident in the gathering of the heroes. Batman is hunting powerful people (though really it's Lex who did the legwork. Bruce is just benefiting from it) rather than those characters emerging naturally from the story. Bruce goes looking for Aquaman and ends up running right into a huge clue about the Mother Box. I almost wish it had been the other way around, with Batman's Mother Box quest revealing Aquaman, and the result of that being Aquaman INSISTING on joining the team. It would have driven the story with more urgency and made Aquaman more proactive. I also feel like Cyborg could have been brought in via similar means, instead of Batman seeking him and him just happening to have a Mother Box connection.

That said, I like The Flash a lot in this film. He's the nervous comic relief, but he's played well as a contrast to Batman's stoicism and Wonder Woman's. Unlike Aquaman and Cyborg, I think this film works well as his introduction and there's a very charming scene just before the end credits that made me want to see this character on-screen again more than anything else. Weirdly, I think he's the only character to get anything resembling an actual arc, going from a guy who just "push[s] people and runs fast" to an actual hero who risks his life in battle.

The weird thing about Batman and Wonder Woman is that I enjoyed their screen time a lot, but they left me with very little to say about them. There's an interesting moment where the two clash and Batman points out that she spent a century in hiding. Of course, he immediately goes over the line in invoking Steve Trevor's name, but for a moment there I couldn't help but think, "He's... got a point, actually." I wish this movie gave us more understanding of why Diana went so public again and what it means for her to do that now. Maybe that's something being saved for WONDER WOMAN 2.

Now to talk about Superman. And to do that, we have to wade deep into spoiler territory. I don't want to get into half-assed autopsies about what was a changed, what was a reshoot and so on. There's a time for that talk, but the fact remains that this is the movie we've been presented with.

Learning about the power that the Mother Box has, Batman makes an INCREDIBLE leap to suppose that its power could be used to resurrect Superman. It's a jump that could have used more of an A-to-B thought process linking it. (Maybe the bad guys try to claim Superman's body for the same purpose and Batman figures it out?)

Batman's plan works... sort of. Superman is revived, but clearly not in his right mind. This facilitates a fight between the other heroes and Superman, including a really well-done moment where the Flash takes him on and realizes with horror that Superman can perceive him at super-speed. There's also an attempt at playing off of Batman's hate of Superman in BvS and how Superman might hold a grudge. It doesn't totally land because Superman's not in his right mind (and was allied with Bruce by the end of BvS) and Batman's turnaround from mistrusting Superman to embracing him as a symbol of inspiration and hope has never been all that clear.

The resurrection itself is a prime example of JL's low-stakes approach to things. Batman decides they need to use the Mother Box to jump-start Superman's dead body. To that end, they recover Superman's body and head to a gestation chamber in the crashed Kryptonian ship last seen in BvS. Flash activates the Mother Box, the energy hits Superman and instantly brings him back to life. See the problem? No obstacles.

I couldn't help but think of a similar resurrection sequence in the comic LEGION OF 3 WORLDS #4. In that issue, Superboy's dead body has been regenerating in a pod in Superman's Fortress. The Legion has gone there to complete the last stages of the process, which involves them choosing a very precise sequence of crystals. At the same time, the villain of the story, Superboy-Prime, has been told that if he and his team don't destroy the Fortress before the Legion is successful, Prime will lose.

So at that point there's an entire team of super villains bearing down on the Fortress, with the attack knocking out the one Legionnaire who knows how to use the crystals. Also, if the right sequence isn't activated before the countdown ends, the entire procedure will fail. So we've got two ticking clocks - a literal one and a "how long can the bad guys be kept at bay" one. The sequence is squeezed for maximum tension with the pressure from the battle forcing a decision inside without much contemplation.

None of that tension is present in the Superman resurrection sequence. There's a world-ending scenario going on and none of that urgency is brought to bear as they try this extremely unproven Hail Mary that forms one of the story's major turning points.

With that said, JUSTICE LEAGUE improves on BvS in at least one necessary aspect: it gets Superman VERY right. Cavill is finally allowed to be charming and relatively angst free. Superman is a friendly, heroic presence and the "boy scout" warmth that Reeve delivered so well is finally present in this Superman. His costume is even in the correct brighter shades of red and blue!

Superman gets too little to do, and it's a mark against the film that it fails to supply one truly iconic and heroic Superman image. (There's a moment that feels like it's aiming to be the equivalent of Reeve's "General, would you care to step outside?" but it falls short due to staging and score.) Even so, between the way he's handled here and the end narration, there's a clear message sent: "Okay, we get it. We know how to do Superman now. He's fixed." I left BATMAN V. SUPERMAN bummed that they had gotten Superman so wrong. Leaving this film, my attitude was: Bring on MAN OF STEEL 2.

While I'm on this kick, I think it's total bullshit that JUSTICE LEAGUE gives no resolution to Clark's "death." From the moment BvS showed that Clark Kent was as confirmed dead as Superman, I felt it was a mistake and could only be justified if there was an incredibly clever "out" that would explain Clark's resurrection to the world. JUSTICE LEAGUE instead kicks this can down the road for the next Superman to deal with, which feels incredibly unfair to a movie that should have gotten a clean slate.

(I should mention that basically NONE of the JUSTICE LEAGUE foreshadowing in BvS pays off, bolstering my contention that Bruce's two nightmares and the sequence of videos that Luthor compiled could have easily been cut out and kept the movie moving more efficiently.)

By the end of the movie we're left with a brighter DCU in general and a world that feels worth returning to. The only locked-in follow-ups at this point are AQUAMAN in 2018 and WONDER WOMAN 2 and SHAZAM in 2019. The fate of FLASHPOINT will apparently be decided soon. CYBORG and GREEN LANTERN CORPS have been said to be on tap for 2020, but no production has begun.

Jason Momoa was okay as Aquaman, in a very different interpretation from the comics. I'm not itching for an AQUAMAN film, but I'll check it out. I'd line up today for WONDER WOMAN 2, though, and Ezra Miller was enough of a delight as Flash that I'll be happy to have him back in either a lead or supporting capacity. Cyborg, I could take or leave, though.

In the end, I didn't get everything I wanted from this film, but I feel reassured that the people behind the scenes at last get what they should be making. Hopefully the future of DC films is fewer SUICIDE SQUADS and more movies like WONDER WOMAN.

Farewell, Adam West

This weekend saw the passing of Adam West, famed actor known for his starring role on the cult TV series Lookwell.

(Okay, I know very few people know Adam West from Lookwell. I just wanted to give him ONE obituary that didn't start the way he knew it always would: "Holy Tragedy Batman! TV's Caped Crusader hangs up his cape for the final time!")

I summed up my history with Adam West's Batman just a few months ago in this Film School Rejects review of the recent animated movie BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS:

My first encounter with the 1966 Adam West Batman TV series came at the age of either six or seven. A local low-power station was running twice-nightly reruns and as my family did not have cable, I recall the frustration of having to orient the rabbit ears just so in an effort to reduce the “snow” obscuring the weakly-transmitted picture.

It occurs to me that a good chunk of that paragraph is completely unrelatable to anyone under the age of 25. And this was just two years or so before the Tim Burton Batman came onto the scene.

As a first-grader, the “camp” of the show completely flew over my head. A kid accepts Batman for what he is, so there’s nothing ridiculous about a man running around in tights with an underage boy sidekick. When a villain threatened to turn them into snow cones, or trapped them with a giant man-eating clam, a 7 year-old’s reaction is not “What were the writers smoking when they came up with this?” but rather “Oh man, how are Batman and Robin going to escape this serious peril!”

The genius of the ’66 Batman is that the creators knew they were always aiming for two audiences – the youths who saw it as an adventure series, and the adults, who understood the deliberate humor that turned this semi-faithful adaptation of Batman into a parody. It’s an incredibly difficult needle to thread – the kids shouldn’t be able to perceive any mocking of their cherished characters, while the adults need to be able to tell the show isn’t accidentally “so bad it’s good.”

Virtually every adult I've had a conversation with about BATMAN '66 - whether they saw it first-run or discovered it in reruns. Loved it as a young kid, embarrassed by it as a teen and pre-teen, rediscovered it sometime in our twenties and found it hilarious. The first part of that cycle is pretty common for most shows we watched at the ages of 5-9. Have you ever tried to rewatch Transformers? That shit does NOT hold up.

But West's BATMAN does, and that's because it was always smart enough to play on two levels. Both the adventure seeking preteen and the savvy adult were being catered to. The series wasn't a hit with older viewers because it was "so bad it's good." It was legitimately funny, and it's not easy to write something that straddles two different worlds without collapsing on itself. And while the writing is a huge part of the equation, it's merely the tightrope. The actor is the one who has to walk it.

Adam West was brilliant at being in on the joke while playing it like he was oblivious to the same. In the pilot, he visits a restaurant. The Maitre'd offers to seat him, but he declines saying "I'll just take a seat at the bar. I shouldn't wish to attract attention." In a cape and cowl. Right. West plays the line dead series, with zero awareness on Batman's part that he's being absurd.

Alas, West's perfect characterization was mistaken for bad acting and he spent much of the next two decades trying to escape typecasting. It seems he needed to wait for his audience to grow up, so that the kids who were thrilled by his Batman could become the TV showrunners and writers who were eager to work with their Batman. When West's renaissance came, it was at the hands of Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane and The Simpsons's Conan O'Brien.

Just last year I was remarking how wonderful it was that Adam lived long enough to see BATMAN '66 reach its fiftieth anniversary, just one year after the series finally was released for the first time on beautifully restored bluray. (I have the set - it's stunning and you should make every effort to view these colorful and gorgeous episodes.) Complicated rights issues had blocked an official release of the show for decades, but I'm certain that an aggravating issue was that the show's humor and silliness made it a red-headed step-child in the "grim and gritty era."

Even at the time I discovered the show, it didn't reflect the Batman I was reading in the comics. This was the era of The Killing Joke and A Lonely Place of Dying, a dark tale of how losing one Robin sends Batman over the edge, and how a young man named Tim Drake tries to get the original Robin, Dick Grayson, to save Batman from himself by becoming Robin again - a task made more complicated by the strained relationship between Bruce and Dick. There was no room for camp and silliness in these stories, and BATMAN '66 became something to reject if you wanted to be taken seriously as a comic reader.

BATMAN '66 cast a long shadow at a time when comics as an art form in general and Batman specifically struggled to be taken seriously. When I was growing up, readers resented that this over-the-top relic made them look immature for liking Batman. But as time moved on and other, more serious interpretations from Tim Burton, Bruce Timm and Christopher Nolan showcased the full depth of the character, West's Batman was less of a threat. It was acceptable to enjoy it on its own merits again and not burden it with representing 75+ years of mythology.

The blurays coincided with a marketing effort that gave BATMAN '66 a second life in comic books, action figures, and merchandising. The animated BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS soon followed and another animated film, featuring West, Burt Ward and William Shatner as Two-Face is set for release later this year.

I'm glad Adam West lived to see his Batman's resurgence, and I'm glad his late career gave him so many opportunities beyond Batman. He left this world at the age of 88 and no one can say he didn't live a full life. His work made a lot of people happy and he continued to delight fans on the convention circuit for years. By all accounts he was a kind and gracious man, witty and fun until the end.

We should all be so lucky to have a life like Adam West's. Tonight, this is how I think I'll choose to remember him.


So long, old chum.

Film School Rejects: The Flash and Supergirl as my wife's gateway drug to geekdom. Plus MORE articles!

I know my posting has been sporadic the last few months. There are reasons for that and I'm hoping to redress that as we head into 2017. If time permits I'll do a couple belated reviews for some recent films, and with luck, I'll have seen enough of the major 2016 releases to do a Top 10 or Top 20 post. One factor in my absence here is that I've been writing a bit more for Film School Rejects. This has been going on for a few months, and I've neglected to cross-post those over here.

Yesterday, FSR published my most recent essay: How The Flash and Supergirl became my wife's gateway drug to superhero fandom. It's a reflection on how the Greg Berlanti shows are making an incredibly complex mythology accessible to people who never would have considered reading a comic book. You can also learn how the most intense fight of my marriage was over the time travel logic of The Flash.

My other recent articles are:

Gilmore Girls "Final Four Words" Leave the Most Important Conversation Unsaid - An exploration of the abrupt conclusion of the recent series revival by contrasting it with one of the best-received series finales: Angel.

Reclaiming the Fun Side of Batman - I take a look at the recent animated film Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, starring Adam West and Burt Ward, to push back against the idea that Batman always has to be serious and gritty.

An Appreciation of That Thing You Do on its 20th Anniversary - A loving tribute to one of my favorite films, and a deep-dive into how the Extended Cut of the movie can show how critical the right edits can be in taking an okay film to the next level. The longer cut of the film has so many unnecessary moments that were (rightly) removed for pace and repetition. It's a wonderful opportunity to extrapolate how Tom Hanks learned from and corrected his mistakes.

6 Films That Are Still Waiting for Their Legacy Sequels - In a film culture that's brought us the re-quels like Creed and The Force Awakens, what other library titles might be ripe for a reboot with new protagonists treading familiar paths while being mentored by their predecessors?

A Look Ahead to What the Next 15 Years Holds for the Lights Out Franchise - Using other horror franchises as a template, how much the other slots in the inevitable Lights Out box set be filled?


As FSR publishes through Medium, you can follow me on Medium here.  I'm going to try to be better about flagging these over here, but that's a good way to see articles as soon as they post.

Also, with the holiday season approaching, I'd like to again remind everyone that my book Michael F-ing Bay: The Unheralded Genius in Michael Bay's Films is a great stocking stuffer for the film geek in your life. It's only $5 on Kindle!

I always feel like a self-promoting whore when I do this, but any time I plug the book on Twitter, I get replies from people who say they had no idea it existed. The extra cash would definitely come in handy this holiday season, so if you've enjoyed my posts and would like to leave me a tip for the holidays, please consider buying the book.

You can find all my Michael F-ing Bay posts here. This one in particular is a good all-purpose primer on it.

The Ultimate Edition of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN is more movie, but definitely not a better movie

About four months ago, I came away from the theatrical cut of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN with a lot of disappointment tempered by appreciation for some elements like Wonder Woman's cameo and Ben Affleck's Batman. This ended up being posted in a climate where battlelines were drawn - a lot of critics really hated it and it provoked the wrath of fanboys who loved it unconditionally (and who were sending the critics death threats before they themselves had actually seen the film.)

An interesting part about the reaction to my review was that I saw it being shared by the pro-BVS partisans, often with the caveat that it was a "fair" review. I was proud of that observation, as I always strive for intellectual honesty. However, it was weird to see it being use as an apparent brickbat against the "biased" critics because my post was fairly critical. Perhaps that was obscured by the fact that I didn't assign a grade of any kind. One friend told me he thought my review was "pretty damning," likely because it came from a Superman fan whose biggest issue was that it wasn't a very good Superman movie. If I had rated it from one star to four stars, as Roger Ebert used to, it probably would have been a two-star affair.

Even before the film was released, there were rumblings that an Ultimate Cut would be arriving. Not only would this version be rated R, but it would add an entire half-hour onto a movie that was already two and a half hours long. With so many scenes to be reincorporated, I was willing to keep an open mind. It was not unlikely that many of my issues with the theatrical cut could be resolved with the additions. Indeed, about a month ago, there were special screenings of the Ultimate Cut to hype its digital release, and a good deal of the advanced word seemed positive. However, upon closer examination, you might notice that the fans screaming "This is SO much better!" and "This is the version WB should have released" were often the same people who were way in the tank for the theatrical cut.

Last week I finally got a chance to watch it. The succinct reaction is that I'm baffled by anyone who thinks this cut is significantly better than the theatrical cut. Virtually all the cuts were smart cuts on the part of the studio. There's precious little in the new half-hour that shifts your perception of anything on screen. The vast majority of the restored material merely underlines beats that were already present. The additions make the film a longer movie, but not a better one. I'm stunned that the Ultimate Cut moved the needle for viewers in either direction.

The Africa subplot benefits most from the new scenes. In the Ultimate Cut the mechanics of how Superman was framed for the deaths in the village are made clearer. Bodies are burned so it looks like the work of his heat vision, key witnesses against Superman are coerced into giving false testimony. The bad news for the film is that the additions make the plot just clear enough that it's plain as day that this is a TERRIBLE subplot.

All of this nonsense in Africa is totally irrelevant to the core conflict between Batman and Superman. It adds nothing to why either of these two hates the other. Batman's distrust of Superman is perfectly laid out during the sequence that leaps back to the day of Zod's attack. That's probably the best sequence in the film and it lays out right there why Bruce sees Superman as a threat - AND it's thematically on point in terms of the question of if Superman is a good thing for the world.

The Africa storyline never intersects with Batman. At best, it's a device to make Superman mopey and question himself, which is one of the film's worst creative decisions. There needs to be a bigger contrast between Batman and Superman's worlds. Superman's world should be as bright as Batman's is dark. With Batman making the anti-Superman case, we don't need to see Superman the target of a PR attack until he's hauled into the Senate to testify. This is especially true since that plot comes to a dead stop when the Senate blows up. There's no need to burn so much screentime on this shaggy dog story.

I understand there's a case to be made that the Africa/Senate thread lays the groundwork for Lex's plan. He sets up the entire Africa scenario to convince a Senator played by Holly Hunter to let him import some kryptonite he's discovered, and give him access to both Zod's body and the crashed Kryptonian ship. It feels like there's a lot of unnecessary shoe leather here, particularly since Lex's "deterrent" cover story probably wouldn't even need the Africa incident to provoke things. If someone as powerful as Superman showed up, the U.S. government would immediately be figuring out what kinds of weapons they'd need against him.

So all of this is a long way of saying that adding more running time to the Africa/Senate deceit is not a positive in any sense. You might get clarity, but it's the kind of clarity where you clean your glasses and realize the dirty room you're in is actually a large septic tank.

The other big addition comes in the form of scenes showing Clark investigating the Gotham Bat. All this does is hit the same points that were already made in the theatrical cut. At least twice, perhaps three times, in the theatrical cut, we saw Clark being chewed out by Perry for chasing this story when he's been assigned other work. We get it - Clark doesn't like Batman's vigilante tactics. In particular, he holds Batman responsible for the deaths of criminals who get killed in prison because they've been branded with Batman's symbol. In fact, we even see one of those murders.

So let me get this straight - a criminal is sent to a secure facility with scars from the vigilante who put him there, and when the guy gets shanked by other prisoners, the crusading social justice reporter's issue is with... the vigilante? Not the incredibly lax prison security that facilitated those deaths? I mean, if it's happened enough to be an established pattern of what the brand means, why on earth hasn't the prison taken strong measures to protect those who've been branded? How are so many people being killed on the guards' watch and there's been no outcry? Clark, the story's not the vigilante - it's the incredibly poor administration at the prison!

Hitting these beats harder means I find it even less believable when Superman interrupts Batman's chase scene to let him off with a warning. Seriously? Several scenes communicate that Clark thinks this guy's a criminal and the best he does is wreck his car and give a stern finger wag? That's not even getting into the fact that Superman is entirely unconcerned by the devastation in that chase, or in stopping the actual bad guys who Batman was pursuing.

Don't get me wrong - I like that the UC has a little more balance between Clark scenes and Bruce scenes, but I wish Clark's screentime was more substantive and less mopey.

The same film, only more of it. That's my assessment of the Ultimate Cut. I've seen a few editorials that take WB to task for not trusting in the longer version, but I think they made the right call here. I don't think the UC would have been any better received critically had it been released to theatres. Virtually all of the elements that people took issue with in the TC are present in the UC. Chopping 30 minutes out merely reduced the agony.

They probably could have gone even further. Losing the dream scenes might have saved 10-15 minutes, and slicing out Wonder Woman watching Quicktime videos of the future Justice League would have saved another few. I'm sure the dystopian nightmare scene didn't come cheap, but it's unnecessary and is borderline incomprehensible to non-comic book fans. Neither it, nor the Flash's appearance to Bruce are germane to Batman v. Superman.

I'd like to be optimistic about future installments, and while there are things I liked in BVS, I'm perplexed at any reactions that this film is significantly better or worse than what we saw in theaters last March.

A spoiler-filled discussion of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

Because at least one person demanded* it! My spoiler discussion of Batman v. Superman!

*asked politely

I don't want to repeat too many points from my original review, so if there's something here you're disappointed I didn't touch on, you might want to check the older post out. You've been warned - venture beyond here and you're gonna get spoiled.

The Senate explosion - I already talked about how confusing the whole Africa subplot was, and that storyline comes to an abrupt halt with the explosion in the Senate chamber. It felt completely false that there was zero fallout in the rest of the story. It feels like there's not any urgency at all to finding out who blew up the legislative branch of the government. At a minimum, a dozen Senators and a whole mess of spectators had to have been killed there. You mean to tell me no one cares? Why isn't Batman trying to piece together what happened? Why isn't Clark Kent, investigative reporter on the trail?

Superman's inaction after the blast really bugs me too. I can accept him being caught flatfooted by the bomb, but why isn't he zooming through the wreckage, rushing to help survivors? Or maybe he could at least put out the fire? Check to make sure there's not another bomb?

"Martha" - This is already becoming a much-mocked point in the film. Batman is about to kill Superman with a kryptonite spear when Superman starts begging him to save his mother, Martha. This gives Bruce pause, and several critics have mocked the idea that Batman can't kill him just because their mothers share the same name. I'm a little torn on this point. It does feel a little like the writer is impressed with their own cleverness in noting that the characters have mothers of the same name.

But stepping back, I think the real intent here is that Batman is surprised that this alien has a mother with a human name. It's the first real indication he has that this all-powerful being has some kind of genuine tie to humanity. It's a beat that would have worked better if we sensed real conflict in him about taking another life. Batman's moral code is usually against killing. In this film, he's faced with a threat that he believes MUST be killed or else the entire human race is at stake. (Really, it parallels the same dilemma that Superman was faced with in the earlier film when it came to stopping Zod.) But if he really believes there's no other way to save mankind, what else can he do?

If we believe he can only rationalize this by seeing Superman as some kind of otherworldly being, then the moment that humanizes Superman would complicate that. It might even make him see Superman for what he really is rather than what he fears him to be. All the pieces are there for this, but the execution is only about 50% successful.

The Justice League files - This didn't bug me as much as it did some viewers, but it's still annoying that the film stops dead for three minutes so that Wonder Woman can watch video files that amount to being short teasers for other DC films. Within the context of the film, the idea that Luthor has been gathering intel on other super beings isn't a bad idea, it's the execution that's lacking. I don't think this ties enough back into the main plot, but the greater sin is that none of these teasers are especially interesting.

Too many dreams! - I struggle to see what purpose was served by the nightmare Bruce has inside his parents tomb. Was someone afraid we'd forget his parents were murdered.

That Flash scene -  You know that guy who appears to Bruce in the Bat Cave in what appears to be a dream? That's the Flash. I know he doesn't look much like any version who's appeared before, but the scene itself is a riff on a similar moment in Crisis on Infinite Earths. That moment was a case where Flash - in his final moments of life - is running so fast that he starts popping in and out of the timeline. He appears to Batman at a point just before the crisis starts and offers a warning of what's to come.

So why would they cast this moment as a dream inside the film? It might have been more straight-forward to make it clear to the audience that we're dealing with some kind of time travel. Of course, there's also the problem that this beat doesn't have any relevance beyond teasing JUSTICE LEAGUE. At the very least, Flash's warning should have had some bearing on Batman's actions within this film. As it stands now, it's completely gratuitous and it has the benefit of being incomprehensible to any of the audience not familiar with the comics.

Batman's nightmare - Here's the big one. At first blush, it seems to just be a paranoid nightmare about what Bruce fears Superman could become unchecked. That's a point that's made so many places elsewhere that we don't really need to burn valuable screentime on it here. However, there are indications something MUCH more is going on with this dream. The Omega symbol Batman sees is an icon often used to represent the villainous New God Darkseid, and the flying creatures that attack Bruce bear a not inconsiderable resemblance to Darkseid's parademons. All of this relies on information Bruce doesn't have, so it's likely some kind of premonition.

I don't like the concept of giving Batman psychic dreams, no matter how artfully shot. It seems like an easy way to give him information he couldn't get otherwise. It's even more annoying since this thread isn't really resolved in this film. It's the "Thor takes a bath" sequence from AGE OF ULTRON. It looks great on screen, but it's also kind of a momentum killer.

This is also the sequence that gives me serious misgivings about JUSTICE LEAGUE. One of the very first Darkseid stories I read involved him capturing Superman and attempting to brainwash him into being one of his minions. It's a storyline that's been revisited a number of times, including a storyline on the animated series where Darkseid actually succeeded and a mind-controlled Superman led his conquest of Earth. I really, really hope that we're not teed up to get a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie where Superman is the bad guy. BvS already gives Superman short-shrift, and turning him evil, even temporarily would be an even more gross mishandling of the character.

The Death of Superman - *sigh* Ever since the comic book storyline of Superman's death and return broke sales records, WB has had an itch to retell it onscreen somehow. The death and return of Superman was central to the aborted SUPERMAN LIVES (the 90s project that had Tim Burton, Nicholas Cage and Kevin Smith attached), it was an element in the J.J. Abrams script that was killed to make room for Superman Returns, and it was the first DC Animated film.

The comic book storyline is actually a trilogy and it's pretty great. "Doomsday" is mostly a slugfest that culminates in Superman's death, but the next chapter, "Funeral for a Friend" is a well-crafted, emotional series of stories about how the world copes with Superman's death. It's a high point of that era of comics and it leads into "Reign of the Superman," where four Supermen show up, each one claiming to be the real deal.

Those are some my favorite Superman stories, but they're virtually unadaptable. The animated movie makes the problems abundantly clear. Killing Superman is a major climax. If you put it at the end of a film, with the intent to follow up in the next chapter, your movie ends on a major downer. But if you place it earlier in the story, you run the risk of creating an anticlimax. On top of that, for his death to have ANY weight at all, you're now stuck with a story where your lead character has to be inert for a decent amount of time so you can build up to his return. And if you want to give his return the same kind of triumphant buildup as in the comic storyline, you'll have to jam a lot of story into a two-hour period.

But this is the situation that JUSTICE LEAGUE now has to deal with. We open with a dead Superman, probably who will be resurrected by Darkseid to act as his herald on Earth. Batman v. Superman closes with a funeral (and a small hint of resurrection), thereby killing any feel-good buzz that might have drawn audiences back to theatres for a second viewing.

Worse, they don't just kill Superman - they kill Clark Kent. In the comics, Clark was merely missing and presumed dead during the period Superman was deceased. It forced Clark to be creative in explaining his absence once he was revived, but ultimately it was no real problem for him to resume his life. Right now, the world not only knows Clark is dead, but they've seen the body! It completely screws over any solo Superman stories in the franchise later.

Reporter Clark Kent didn't emerge until the final scene of MAN OF STEEL, and even in BVS, it feels like the script doesn't have much to give Clark to do in his day job. The scenes of him at the Daily Planet feel perfunctory, and Cavill seems robbed of the chance to create a true alter ego in the way that Christopher Reeve did. Clark Kent is a vital part of the mythos and I can't imagine a Superman film where he's a full-time Superhero, with no day job for Kent.

If we're being brutally honest here, even if I focus on the positive elements in Batman v. Superman, almost every moment that was there to set up later films made me actively dread what awaits us down the line. The sole exception to this is Wonder Woman. I don't think that's the reaction WB was trying to foster with all the franchise foreshadowing.

What kind of ignorant fool thinks Batman HAS to be R-rated?

A few weeks back it was announced that when Batman v. Superman hits bluray, it will be with a special R-rated cut that's 30 minutes longer. On the surface, there's optimism that the additional 30 minutes of footage could restore some coherence to story threads I found flawed in my original review. But as a matter of principle, I find it troubling that we've reached the point of an R-rated Superman & Batman film.

I expressed that perspective on Twitter and among the responses was someone who said, "Have you ever read a Batman comic? They're dark! Batman NEEDS to be R-Rated!"

You, sir, are an idiot.

If it was one isolated ignoramus spouting this, I'd be inclined to let it roll off of my back, but in the last week or so, I've seen this attitude displayed with more frequency. Couple that with the rather angry defensiveness of fans defending this film from its detractors, and we have symptoms of a much larger problem within the audience for comic book films.

One of my earliest exposures to Batman comics was a hardcover collection available in my library: Batman from the 30s to the 70s. The volume collected representative tales from the character's first forty years in print, the noir-ish stories of the 30s, the capers of the 40s, the goofy sci-fi of the 50s and 60s, and the more serious takes of the 70s. Shockingly, all of them were all-ages appropriate, even the more maturely written entries from the Denny O'Neil era that concluded the compilation. Concurrent with this, I discovered reruns of the Adam West Batman TV series, which takes a far campier approach to its subject. At the time, my interests veered towards the goofier and light-hearted stories, but there was nothing that made the more mature era off-limits for me, even at the age of seven or eight.

And then came 1989. I watched the Joker savagely beat Robin with a crowbar in a sequence that felt excessively violent for its time, but today feels practically quaint.

This was also the year that Tim Burton's BATMAN film came out. Post-Nolan, the film feels infused with a fair amount of goofiness, but at the time, this felt like a dark, grim interpretation of the Caped Crusader. For every silly Joker antic that threatened to pull the film towards camp, there was a brutal act of violence. The Batmobile is equipped with machine guns, and there are several instances of Batman committing murder - or at least attempted murder. There's nastiness like the Joker frying a guy alive on-screen, the facial scars he gives to his girlfriend, and the intensity of the moment where the Joker (but not us) becomes aware of his transformation.

Somehow my brother and I convinced our parents to take us to see it in the theater. I was nine. He was seven. That was probably just up against the age of being appropriate for the film, but the tone still felt mostly within bounds of what you'd expect in a Batman comic. It wasn't until after that I read Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Up to that point, it was possibly the most violent and most grim Batman story told. Owing to my age, I really didn't "get" the story. In fact, I'm sure I "read" it six or seven times as a kid and I'd still struggle to come up with a coherent synopsis. I just liked the art. The stuff I wasn't ready to get, I just ignored. And by the time I was old enough to "get" it, I decided I really didn't like Frank Miller's take on the character. (YEAR ONE notwithstanding.)

And you know what? Still not R-rated.

My biggest period of collecting Batman comics was a five year range from 1989-1994. A Death in the Family. Year Three. A Lonely Place of Dying. Robin, The Joker's Wild, Cry of the Huntress, Knightfall, KnightQuest, KnightsEnd, Prodigal. All of these were defining Batman tales of that era, and in their worst moments they're probably a tame PG-13.

The Knight saga even ends up being a criticism of those who wanted their Batman to be a brutal take-no-prisoners type. In short, Batman's back is broken and he ends up yielding the mantle of the Bat to Azrael. Eventually Azrael goes further and further over the edge, culminating in a moment where he leaves a criminal to die and indirectly results in the death of an innocent. By that point, the fans were ready for Bruce Wayne to regain his title, and the third act of that storyline saw that indeed happen. It was a clever move during an era where comics seemed to be becoming more bloodthirsty and unrelentingly violent. The creators answered the call for a more brutal Batman by giving the fans exactly what they wanted... and showed them how much they'd hate it.

From that point on, I checked in on Batman sporadically, enough to know that as late as just before the 2011 relaunch New 52, Batman was not a book where you'd regularly find disturbing, lurid violence. Violent things would happen, but only in rare cases would they be depicted in a fashion that went beyond good taste. I can only think of

I'm aware of a few instances in the New 52 storyline where good taste has taken a holiday. But even if everything since that relaunch was drenched in blood and guts, we'd be talking about less than a five-year span in a 77 year history.

I read and purchased comics regularly from 1986 up to 2011 and I can count on one hand the number of moments that demanded to be translated to screen in an R-rated fashion. I completely reject the notion that even if we're limiting our range to the "modern" era of Batman where most current readers grew up, the only good Batman story is an R-rated one.

A good Batman/Superman story is the sort of thing that REALLY doesn't need to be ultra-violent. It just needs to understand the characters. One of the more regrettable failings of Batman v. Superman is that for all the time they spend in conflict, the resolution of that conflict is lacking and without real resonance.  I went in expecting the movie might adapt one of my favorite moments involving those two.

In the Post-Crisis continuity, there was tension early on between the two heroes, most of it coming from Superman, who disliked Batman's methods of operating outside the law. That soon turned to a grudging respect of each other, even if there was an undercurrent of mistrust. The storyline "Dark Knight Over Metropolis" resolved that as the two of them worked a case together and Superman gained a new respect for Batman's abilities.

The MacGuffin that brought Batman to Metropolis was a kryptonite ring, though Batman kept that detail private while he and Superman worked to bring down an evil organization called Intergang. At the end of the case, Batman gave the ring to Superman, revealing he had it the entire time. Impressed, Superman later pays a call to Batman in the Batcave in this wonderfully written moment by Roger Stern, art by Bob McLeod.

By entrusting Batman with the ring, all the tension between the two was put aside. It established there was no one more than the Dark Knight whom Superman trusted to get the job done in the name of justice. It also showed Batman that Superman was wise enough to understand his own power could not go unchecked, and that he saw the pragmatic need for countermeasures. This moment would be called back to in stories over the next several years.

That's the moment that Batman v. Superman should have built towards, the connection and resolution between these opposing forces. It even plays into the themes of power and accountability that already permeate the film. And you know what? It doesn't require a single bullet to the head, or snapped neck or barrage of bullets. It doesn't even require a thrown punch.

I'm sure a great many Batman fans would agree with me. No matter how vocal the contingent of the uninformed is, I'd like to think they represent a minority. And yet, there's this weird notion that the more violent something is, the more mature it is. Is it strange to root for the fact that a film is R-rated when you haven't even seen it to know if the PG-13 cut feels neutered?

Even at PG-13, there are moments that feel like they have more of a nasty edge than Nolan's trilogy. An early scene shows terrorists executing a man. Even though the killshot isn't shown, the moment feels ugly in a way that, say, a similar execution of a bank robber in The Dark Knight doesn't.

An audience that cheers an R-rated cut, sight unseen, is the sort of bloodthirsty arrested adolescent that I don't want my entertainment pandering to. I want you to understand I'm not decrying the very concept of graphic violence. I shudder to think of what a PG-13 cut of Saving Private Ryan would look like. Reducing Pulp Fiction to a PG-13 would distort and eviscerate Tarantino's voice. That material demands a certain willingness to push boundaries.

But if you're coming to me with the argument that the only good Batman story can be R-rated, you're an idiot. Seriously, go fuck yourself and educate yourself about the topic. Those glorious blood-soaked violence fests that you DEMAND be reproduced in all their gratuitous fashion? They're aberrations. Just because they're aggressive doesn't make them mature.

In fact, the same goes for you.

My spoiler-free review of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

Note: I've taken pains not to directly spoil anything that hasn't been exposed in the trailers. Even when discussing the ending, I've done so in terms that shouldn't blow any of the many, many surprises for viewers. I suspect the comments will be rife with spoilers and if you want, you can find spoiler-heavy follow-up post here.

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN is a complicated film to review for a lot of reasons. There are incredible moments that land with strong visual impact, coupled with some decisions that I struggle to justify. It's not as simple as it being a rip-roaring crowdpleaser or a total off-the-rails mess. Director Zack Snyder and credited screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer clearly mounted this film with a lot of ambition. There are some weightier themes here than are usually dealt with in superhero films (though the comics have long covered similar ground.) The risk of flying so high is that now and then, you're gonna glide too close to the sun.

The casting of Ben Affleck was one of the earliest sources of fanboy rage on this project. As I suspected then, the results seem poised to make those detractors eat their words. Affleck's Batman owes a lot to the Frank Miller Batman - for both better and worse - but he's very recognizably Bruce Wayne. His outfit might be the best Bat-costume on film and Affleck looks equally at home in a tux and beating the ever-loving snot out of gun wielding nutcases. There will be rioting from the "Batman doesn't kill" crowd as the Batmobile's machine guns are decidedly not non-lethal, but anyone who rationalized Burton's Batman won't have to reach any further than that here.

Continuing the tradition of casting announcements setting of fanboy rage, Gal Gadot got her share of attacks, and again, Snyder knew what he was doing. Gadot's role is small, but when she unleashes the lasso and bracelets, the result is nothing short of crowd-pleasing. There's a glorious moment mid-battle where she's battered back by her opponent and for a moment, almost seems to relish being able to cut loose. Owing to the film's more mature target audience, we'll probably still see more little girls dressed as Rey than Wonder Woman this Halloween, but her solo film next year is going to open HUGE. Seeding her in here was smart, despite the flak the filmmakers got for not jumping straight to a solo film. Most audiences are going to walk out of this movie hungry for more, and a great victory of BVS is how it is an excellent springboard for solo films featuring Batman and Wonder Woman.

I wish I could say that it does the same for future standalone Superman films.

Longtime readers of this site know that I've been a lifelong Superman fan, and so I'm accustomed to vastly different interpretations of the mythos. Generally even if there's an interpretation I don't like, I find it pretty easy to ignore. I'm less concerned with 100% fidelity to the comics I loved than I am in just getting a good story revolving around the character. You can poke around all my old Superman posts for evidence of that, but the fact that I loved both SUPERMAN RETURNS and MAN OF STEEL for very different reasons probably speaks to the diversity of incarnations I can enjoy.

Three years on, the destruction of Metropolis and the killing of Zod is still very much a sore point for a segment of Superman fans. In this film, they find an ally - Batman. Bruce Wayne's been stoking a deep mistrust of the all-powerful being ever since that day in Metropolis. In one of the film's most effective scenes, we experience the Battle of Metropolis from a street-level perspective through Bruce Wayne's eyes. Some see a savior in their visitor from the stars, he sees only a destructive alien who we need a countermeasure against.

Lex Luthor shares that view, though he's decidedly less motivated by the greater good, than by his own power-hungry nature. (And possibly... something else, as the ending suggests.) Jesse Eisenberg proves to be the right man for the job of embodying this interpretation of Lex. He's brilliant, he's dangerous and is possibly insane. There are a couple holes in the logic of his plan. (He claims credit for having masterminded a long-game clash of these titans, but some of that isn't entirely borne out on screen. Also, when he unleashes Doomsday, one wonders how in the world he planned to stop the beast from destroying Metropolis after it took out Superman.)

I like that the film attempts to grapple with the impact a powerful being like Superman would have on the world. When you've got a demi-god who can act unilaterally, there's understandably going to be a concern about whose interests he represents. Superman's entrance into the film comes rescuing Lois Lane from an African terrorist camp. Inexplicably, he's blamed for a loss of life there. The culprit might be either unclear writing or the result of editing, but this plot is unfurled so confusingly it's hard to understand how he's considered culpable. (I'm not even sure exactly who was killed by the actual bad guys in that scene, and considering the only innocent is the reporter ON SCENE who's saved by Superman, I don't get at all how this incident ends up a black mark against Superman.) There's also a big turn in this story about midway through that gets amazing little follow up.

As we see in montage, Superman has done a lot of good for the world too. Most of these gorgeous shots have been revealed in trailers, and I had assumed some of these incidents - like Superman aiding flood victims, Superman intervening in a rocket explosion - would have been awesome set piece sequences. Instead they're a montage and it puts us at a remove from Superman's own internal perspective.

The first half of the film makes a deliberate decision to stage most of Superman's heroics from a street-level vantage point. The flood moment is a good example. We see the victims looking up to their savior, and while Snyder's shot composition is gorgeous, it projects Superman as a god hovering above the peasants. He's not rushing to the rescue, he's floating above them, observing. There's an emotional distance between him and us.

Contrast that with the best sequence in MAN OF STEEL, the moment when Clark first takes flight. There's genuine elation and joy in that moment. We see Clark's face at every step. We feel his exhilaration at being finally able to cut loose. It's a WOW moment that invites the audience to experience that own power fantasy and wish fulfillment. We relate to the guy who feels the wind in his hair. It's harder to feel anything for the cold demi-god who's seemingly staging his own Messiah imagery.

And that's why despite the presence of a lot of a lot of elements of the Superman mythos - Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Perry White, the Daily Planet, Ma Kent - this feels very much like a Batman story with special guest stars from another franchise. The movie doesn't give Clark Kent's perspective quite the same emotional identification as it does Bruce Wayne's. This is not to say that we don't get scenes that try to let us in to Superman's thought process, but the overall tone and imagery tips the balance to the Bat agenda.

Particularly in the first half, it's troubling how alienated the film is from Superman's inner arc. The angst mined here doesn't land as successfully as it did in MAN OF STEEL, and even though Superman's arc eventually comes around to a place where I felt more positively towards him, that's not without its own problems. This isn't entirely the sacrilege committed upon the character within Frank Miller's work, but the film misses an opportunity to make the clash of champions more effective by playing Superman in the same tone as Batman.

There's a brutality to some of the violence here that exceeds even the Nolan Batman films - and I'm not talking about the superhero feats. Snyder doesn't quite drag things all the way into WATCHMAN levels of bleakness, but he gets a little too close for my comfort. Surely that's Snyder's prerogative but it would have been great to walk out of this movie with a little more of an uplifting sense. A film need not be as weightless as some of the weaker Marvel installments to achieve this.

As I exited the theater, I found myself wishing that Snyder and his collaborators had attended one of The Black List's talks with renowned "script whisperer" Lindsay Doran. I hope I don't mangle her point, but the focus of her talk is how positive psychology can help craft a more satisfying viewing experience. One example she uses is ROCKY. The hero loses the big fight there, but few remember that because the emotion of that moment is still uplifting. Rocky "goes the distance" and he shares that achievement with Adrian.

Not to get too far afield, but I encourage anyone interested in writing to check out this NYT article focusing on Ms. Doran.


"Ms. Doran’s second 'aha!' moment came when she consulted a veteran market researcher who oversees hundreds of previews annually. 'I listed the five elements of well-being, and he said, 'I can already tell you one thing: Audiences don’t care about accomplishments.'' She was thunderstruck. Wasn’t the Hollywood ending about accomplishment?

"No, he said, adding: 'Audiences don’t care about an accomplishment unless it’s shared with someone else. What makes an audience happy is not the moment of victory but the moment afterwards when the winners shares that victory with someone they love.' So she mentally rewound the concluding scenes of these 'accomplishment' films. Ms. Grey leaps into the arms of Patrick Swayze at the end of 'Dirty Dancing,' and after that she reconciles with her father. Jaden Smith performs that impossible kick at the end of 'The Karate Kid,' but afterward makes peace with his opponent and shares the moment with his mother and trainer. Colin Firth conquers his stammer at the end of 'The King’s Speech,' and then shares his victory with his wife, daughters and the crowds cheering outside the palace. The film closes with a title card that reads that the king and his speech therapist remained friends for the rest of their lives."

That element is missing in BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. The film very deftly sets up other pieces of WB/DC's cinematic universe, including a completely surprising dream sequence/vision that appears to homage a major storyline familiar to longtime fans. (This is NOT the dream that has been teased in the trailers, by the way.) But any anticipation for future installments comes from those, not the ending, which left me more emotionally unengaged than I wanted to be.

It's also an ending that complicates any future solo Superman films, as some key elements to the mythos have been taken off the table in a way that will be hard to reverse without massive contrivance. Doors are opened for Batman and Wonder Woman, but I'm left with the concern that no one will walk out of this movie craving a return of the Henry Cavill Superman. Candidly, that might even be acceptable if I felt this film dealt with Superman in a way that satisfied at least within the constraints of this installment. Alas, I don't.

The R-Rated cut is supposedly 30 minutes longer, so perhaps there are sequences that restore the balance to Superman's story there. I can only judge the movie in release. Despite the presence of a lot of awesome, the big miss on Superman mars it. I don't think it's a bad movie, and I respect its ambition. When I'm hungry for superhero battles, I'll probably turn to it before THE AVENGERS, but when I'm hungry for a great Superman film... it won't be my first choice.

This is not a film that invites passive viewing. More than likely viewers will walk out with plenty to process and certainly elements to argue about. I wish I looked forward to that conversation, but after three years of seeing fighting about MAN OF STEEL, I lack faith in substantive discourse.

Film School Rejects post: BATMAN & ROBIN isn't as bad as you remember it

It's become a rather common occurrence for film and pop culture sites to celebrate the anniversary of some film that carries a great deal of nostalgia for members of a particular generation.  Last month, Ain't It Cool News celebrated the 30th anniversary of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with a seemingly endless series of articles revisiting this "underrated" film.

Permit me a small digression. I think what turned me off from the Temple of Doom love-fest a bit was that every writer singing the praises of the film seemed to be coming from a place of defensiveness. It was as if they grew up in a world where Temple of Doom was as derided as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was upon release.  The result were a lot of testimonials that seemed determined to defend the film from an attack it never really faced, and then exaggerating the virtues of the film to prove the "haters" wrong.

Honestly, there was a whiff of the disingenuous to this celebration.  Temple of Doom is a perfectly adequate film.  It's got some great action set pieces and a number of moments that stand with the best of the series.  It also has some really awful ethnic stereotyping, some wretched moments that are comedically tone-deaf, and love interest that's the Jar Jar Binks of the first three films.  There's plenty of stuff to love, but it's got plenty of flaws too.  Maybe the ridiculous dinner scene doesn't bother you.  Perhaps you are inclined to argue that Willie Scott is exactly what Lucas and Spielberg were going for by evoking a specific sort of 1930s archtype.  I don't necessarily agree that authorial intent trumps the effectiveness of those intentions.  Just because Lucas and Spielberg got exactly what they wanted at the time doesn't mean it wasn't a bad idea on its face.

(Don't get me wrong. Temple of Doom gets more right than it gets wrong, but it's not without demerits.  When I throw the movie in for fun, I usually watch the amazing opening sequence up until the raft drifts into the village.  Then I skip to just before the mine car chase.)

It was interesting to contrast some reactions to the Temple of Doom nostalgia to some muted appreciation for Ghostbusters II that arose a few weeks later.  While most people sharing and commenting on the Indy articles were clearly in the pro-movie camp, the Ghostbusters II reactions were more mixed, with a lot of assertions that the people who loved that film did so only because they saw it as kids before they knew any better.

There's a grain of truth to that.  There's plenty in the Ghostbusters sequel that amused me, but I won't pretend for a minute that it's as accomplished as its predecessor. It DOES bemuse me that some people hate it so much though, so passionately that I think they would be the ones most in need of revisiting the film with objective eyes.

Which brings me to a piece I wrote for Film School Rejects.  Rather than revisit a film that was generally considered pretty good and try to upgrade it to "flawless timeless classic," I resolved to examine a truly derided film, one who's name is so synonymous with "worst movie" lists that you can count on it ending up somewhere on the general "Worst Movies Ever" lists and almost always at the top of "Worst Comic Book/Superhero Movies Ever Made" articles.

That's right. I attempted an objective re-examination of Batman & Robin.

I hadn't watched the film in about a decade or so.  Before I revisited it, I had a few theories.  It occurred to me that since this movie no longer carried the burden of being the torchbearer for an entire franchise (or for that matter, the entire genre of superhero films) a lot of baggage became irrelevant.  It was similar to how as a major Superman fan, I rejected Smallville for many years until I learned to just accept it as an alternate universe type version of the characters I loved.

So my mission statement for this viewing - to find out if it was possible to accept Batman & Robin on its own terms and evaluate how well it executes its own ambitions. It clearly wasn't trying to be Tim Burton's Batman, nor was it trying to be in the same vein as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.  Beating it up just because it doesn't conform to a Bat-fan's particular preferred incarnation of the character is unfair.

So if one accepts that Batman & Robin is actively trying to be a big-budget version of the 1960's campy TV show, is it possible to appreciate it the same way that most fans have now accepted Adam West's incarnation as a valid interpretation?

Check out my Film School Rejects post for the answer in "Bombs Away: Enjoying BATMAN & ROBIN On Its Own Campy Terms."

A Tale of Two BATMANS

One of the highlights of THE LEGO MOVIE has to be Will Arnett's wonderful vocal performance as Batman.  As a longtime fan of the character, I felt the parody was pitch perfect, pretty much taking everything familiar about the character and tweaking it just a bit.  In the comics, Batman is often pretty insufferable and arrogant when dealing with his fellow heroes and one of the sheer delights of THE LEGO MOVIE is how it takes that persona and exaggerates it ever so slightly so that what seems "badass" in one context becomes fodder for humor in another.

And so as I reflected on Arnett's performance, I found myself thinking of the previous silver screen Batmans.  Interestingly, the more I thought about the disparate takes on the character, the more I realized there might be a blog post in this.

It feels like often when we try to discuss films in the superhero genre here, there's always some idiot in the comments who pops up to say, "It's stupid to take such dumb films seriously."  I think that's a pretty close-minded view. Not only is it ignorant to dismiss an entire genre of films just because some films in it have been bad, but the superhero genre is currently one of the hotter genres.  It would probably behoove you to understand WHY some of these movies work.

With so much debate about what kind of Batman Ben Affleck will make, I keep finding myself comparing the Burton Batman film series to the Nolan series.  Between the two, I vastly prefer the Nolan series, largely because it feels like a better interpretation of the version of the character I grew up on.  But I'm open to other interpretations if they're done well.  There's no one RIGHT way to do Batman, which I think is something that gets lost in a lot of internet hand-wringing about any adaptation.

But in an objective sense, I think there's a lot that the Nolan series gets right that the creators that preceeded him got wrong.  I was watching the excellent documentary that's exclusive to The Dark Knight box set recently and screenwriter David Goyer made a really important observation.  I didn't write down the exact quote, but he says that earlier films always seemed to start with "Who's the villain going to be?" while the Nolan films always were conceived by thinking about "What's the story we want to tell?" and figuring out which villains best serve that story.

It also has the result of making each of the Nolan films a story about Bruce Wayne.  The story revolves around Bruce/Batman and what he's going through.  The Burton/Schumacher series tends to have Batman overshadowed by his colorful antagonists.  He's always reacting to them and trying to stop them, but there's no meat to the Batman part.

The first film in the Nolan series, Batman Begins, is an origin story.  By definition, that makes it a character-driven tale in a way that Burton's original film wasn't.  Sure, Burton showed us Bruce's parents being murdered and eventually revealed the Joker was the killer, but he doesn't delve into Bruce's psyche beyond that.  Burton might touch on the motivation to become Batman, but Nolan shows us the process of how he gets there.  Batman Begins is about a journey.

Batman '89 really isn't the same sort of film.  I rewatched it recently and realized it didn't age well for me.  I loved it as a kid, but far less about it resonates today.  Nicholson's Joker is a lot of fun, but there are large portions of the movie that feel inert.  As a kid, I didn't grasp much of what was going on in the mob plot and I just went with the flow.  Now that I'm older and can actually follow the story beat for beat, it definitely feels thin.

What's funny is that I remember upon its release and for years afterward, this was hailed as a more "realistic" Batman.  Technically that's true when your point of reference is the Adam West Batman, but with some distance, you realize Burton's Batman is often just as campy in it's own right.  For better or for worse, it became the template for many a comic book movie attempted in the next decade.  The villains were the stars of the film and the heroes were just someone to bounce off of.

And yet, that's why I suspect Nolan's films will endure longer than the series that came before it.  It boils down to this - at the end of each Nolan film, Bruce Wayne is not the same person he was when the story started.  Begins is an origin story, and then The Dark Knight becomes a story about Bruce dealing with the consequences of the life he's chosen.  He created Batman to be a symbol that would inspire people to stand up to crime, and yet now that's literally happened, he's disturbed by vigilante's appropriating that symbol and putting themselves in danger.

Worse, the escalation Gordon spoke of in the first film arrives in the form of The Joker.  All Bruce wants throughout the movie is to be able to walk away from his life as Batman.  He feels a duty to continue, but it's evident this was never a long-term plan for him.  He merely saw it as a corrective measure to help get Gotham back on the right path.  With Harvey Dent's rise to power, Batman sees the day when the city institutions will be strong enough to take over and he can step down and have a normal life with Rachel.

Bruce's entire arc in The Dark Knight stems from that desire.  It's the spine of the movie in a way that none of the Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney Batmans managed to achieve.  By the end of the movie, he's essentially succeeded on one front, but failed on another.  Batman comes out of The Dark Knight a changed man.  Name any of the films in the first series where Bruce Wayne is a significantly different person at the end of his journey.

That's pretty significant considering that Keaton's Batman confronts his parents' killer in the first film.  He finally faces the person responsible for the tragedy that drove him to this life of vigilantism and yet, it seems he gets no closure from it.  Hell, he KILLS the guy and there's not even an acknowledgement of any emotional fallout for him.  If Bruce had a moment of reflection where he realized that resolving his parents' death wasn't going to bring him peace, that would be one thing.

It's sort of curious.  In the final film, both the revelations that the Joker killed the Waynes and the fact that Bruce avenges them is kind of weightless.  Remove either of those points from the screenplay, and you really wouldn't feel any difference.  Some of this certainly is a reflection on how these movies where developed back then.  I don't know how fair it is to hold Burton's Batman to a standard that hadn't been set at that point.

However... it is totally valid to contrast the two in terms of examining why one approach makes for a higher level of film.  I don't begrudge anyone who enjoys the first Batman film but I definitely feel like Nolan and Goyer really had goals beyond making a fun popcorn blockbuster.  The result is a movie that would be compelling even if it wasn't built around Batman, but instead an original character.

The lesson here should be that good stories are about the transformation a character goes through.  It's why most origin stories end up as pretty good movies even when the main plot is so-so (looking in your direction, Iron Man and Spider-Man (2002). )  In your own work, never neglect this.

And yes, there are exceptions to this rule.  X2 and The Avengers both manage to be rather strong comic book movies without really pivoting around a central protagonist's character arc.  Those films are more about the relationships among the various characters.  They take some outsize personalities and have them interact in interesting ways.  But that's probably worth examination in another post.

The bottom line is - no matter what your story, it can't be hurt by building it around a solid character arc.  If I can't see where your protagonist changes via the events in the script, I'm more likely to throw it in the PASS pile.

Webshow: Flashbacks

So how true is the "rule" that writers should "never" use flashbacks.  In this week's video, we'll explore that question.

Post #997 - Some thoughts on Superman vs Batman vs Wonder Woman

Uh oh. The internet's being cranky. Someone must have announced some comic book movie news.

Yesterday Warner Bros announced that Gal Gadot will be playing Wonder Woman in the still-unnamed Man of Steel sequel which everyone has been referring to as Batman vs. Superman.  Right now it's starting to seem significant that WB has conspicuously not affixed that moniker officially.  At ComiCon, the announcement was made by way of a logo mash-up featuring the Bat symbol and the Superman crest.  Beyond that, we don't know much more except that David Goyer's writing, Zack Snyder's directing and Ben Affleck is joining the cast as Batman.

If Wonder Woman is now also a part of the cast, could this mean that the true title of the film will end up being JUSTICE LEAGUE?  It's kind of exciting to consider that possibility because I like the idea that the studio has been able to keep so many details out of the public eye and thus far is releasing information on their own terms.  As much as fanboys scream and cry that they want to know everything now (probably so they can begin their manifestos on how it's not what THEY would do and thus it's therefore wrong) there's something to be said for the joy of filmmakers completely surprising their audience.

My take: I think Gadot could have the right look for Wonder Woman.  Sure she's skinny now, but the right trainer could easily put her in Sarah Conner-in-T2 asskicker mode.  She's got the right kind of exotic beauty and she's enough of an unknown that she brings little baggage to the part.  I've already seen fanboys whining that her boobs aren't big enough, but I think we need to focus on what really matters - the fact she's got a butt that can pull off the tight and revealing Wonder Woman trunks.

I kid, I kid.  Though that cheap joke would be more out of line were it not for the fact that her character's biggest contribution to the Fast & Furious series was using that asset to get a criminal's fingerprints onto her bikini bottom.*


*This is why real spies don't wear thongs.

Bottom line: I'm rather bewildered by all the venom directed at Warners about this casting. Some people hate the actress. And some people are pissed that Wonder Woman is making her big screen debut as a supporting player in a male hero's film.  I guess I can't say I'm surprised - fanboy overreaction has been a tradition since back before the outrage over Michael Keaton's casting as Batman - but it feels like a real waste of energy to be this angry when we really still don't really know anything.

I'll admit, as someone who loved Man of Steel it does bother me a little that instead of getting a straight-up Superman sequel, the new movie is more of a stage-setter for JUSTICE LEAGUE (if not JUSTICE LEAGUE itself.)  My preference would have been a bit more world-building of the Superman mythos, especially considering the first film didn't do anything with the Clark Kent reporter disguise.  My immediate reaction is that it feels too soon to crowd the movie with other characters.

However, I'm open to the possibility that Snyder and Goyer have somehow found a way to tell a story that explores the Superman mythos while also integrating Batman and Wonder Woman.  As nothing has been released about the story, it's not worth getting worked up over what I presume they might be doing.

But I also don't want another Iron Man 2, which pretty much stands as one of the weakest Marvel movies - in large part because it was forced to give a lot of screentime over to connective tissue to the other films.  The vast majority of material involving S.H.I.E.L.D. and Black Widow was there mostly to lay pipe for The Avengers.  Hopefully Warners and DC Entertainment are capable of learning from Marvel's mistakes as well as their successes.

I also wonder (oh shit, pun TOTALLY not intended, but I'm too lazy to think of something better) if the fact that they're introducing Wonder Woman here means that the studio is further along in developing a Wonder Woman script than they've lead on.  For all we know, her role in Batman vs. Superman is little more than a cameo that sets up a solo feature that will go into production right after BvS wraps.  I'd feel a lot better about the state of DC films overall if something like that is in the works.

Or it could just be a trial balloon designed to see if it's even worth the effort to develop a Wonder Woman standalone.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  This might be a good time to revisit my old post at Film School Rejects, "The Biggest Challenges Facing a Wonder Woman Movie."

Can we at least agree that if Warners does develop Wonder Woman, we'll force Emily Blake to tell us her pitch if someone else lands the assignment?

Tuesday Talkback - What should (or shouldn't) we see in a Batman reboot?

At this point, the only thing more inevitable than death and taxes is the likelihood of seeing a Batman reboot sometime in the next decade.  Christopher Nolan may have brought his saga to an end, but the Caped Crusader is simply too valuable a property for Warner Bros to leave on the shelf for long.  Some kind of reboot is going to happen, and unlike virtually ever other rebooted series, the next film is going to be coming on the heels of a hit rather than an abject failure.

This presents a bit of a conundrum for the filmmaker eventually drafted for that task.  How does one satisfy an audience that's still hungry for what Nolan brought to the series while also putting their own stamp on it?  After the failure of the camp humor and tone in Batman & Robin, it was easy for WB to get behind a filmmaker who wanted to do something radically different.  This time, the problem will be, how does one mess with success?

As a long time Batman fan, I find myself more interested in someone taking a different approach rather than trying to cast their own movie in a Nolan-type universe.  As much as I liked that Bryan Singer's Superman Returns tried to tie itself to the Donner Superman, I don't want to see Nolan's successor take the same tactic.  I don't want camp, either.  Or the weirdness that defined Burton's turn at the helm.


Batman: The Animated Series is probably the best Bat-adaptation as far as capturing the spirit and depth of the comic without getting too gritty and realistic.  There's a heightened reality there without giving in to the excesses of Burton and Schumacher.  Emulating that might be the best way to satify Nolan fans without feeling like a retread of his saga.

What I don't want to see in a reboot is another long retelling of the origin.  Batman Begins worked because Bruce Wayne's origin had never been told in such depth before.  But why cover that ground again?  I'd start the film with Batman already active in Gotham, maybe even active for a year or two.  Maybe he's not chummy with the police, maybe some people even doubt he exists, but he's firmly established.

Second, I wouldn't use the Joker straight off the bat.  It would be hard to surpass Mark Hamill, Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger.  I'd probably use the Riddler, going off of comic writer Geoff Johns's notion that the Riddler is such an intellectual challenge that he's the logical villain to showcase Batman as a detective.  (Obviously, I'd go for a more serious take than Jim Carrey or Frank Gorshin.)

Third - and this one is going to be controversial for some - I'd make one of main plots about the introduction of Tim Drake.  For those not in the know, Tim was the third Robin in the comics continuity and was one of the few people to figure out that Bruce Wayne was Batman.  He earned is place as Batman's partner (not sidekick) and, frankly, is one of my favorite characters in comics.  I don't know if I'd make him Robin in the first film, but I'd like to see him as a POV character - show Gotham and Batman through his eyes to some extant.

So how about you?  The odds of any of us being drafted for the job are pretty low, so we probably don't have anything to fear by tossing out our wishlists.

The few blemishes in The Dark Knight Rises

Like most of you, I saw The Dark Knight Rises this weekend.  Fair warning, this blog post will contain a few spoilers, so if you don't want them blown for you, back out now.  Now I'm going to babble for a bit before getting to the point so you won't accidentally see any spoilers immediately below.

As a Batman fan, I came away very satisfied.  I'm not sure I can give enough praise to Christopher Nolan and the entire creative team (including writers Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer) for what they accomplished here.  This is the first time that any superhero film series managed to get three solid entries, let alone with the same filmmaker at the helm.  The Christopher Reeve Superman films have a 50-50 batting average, with most fans agreeing that the previous Batman series was about equally successful.  The X-Men films peaked with X2, though First Class was rather good.  Iron Man stumbled with its second entry, so even if Iron Man III is as good as the first, it still won't equal what Nolan achieved here.

The closes that any superhero series has come to this was when Sam Raimi directed three Spider-Man movies - but the consensus is that the third movie is best forgotten.

This might be the first time that a particular comic book adaptation was allowed to end on its own terms, rather than being brought to an end because of either shortcomings at the box office or an inability to get a project together in time to satisfy the deadline on an option on the rights. I really liked how Nolan's films all form one large story and aren't just a largely episodic series (like James Bond, for instance.) 

One of TDKR's strengths is how it pulls together threads from the previous films and weaves them into something that really feels like a conclusion.  Nolan truly tells a complete story here, and in a weird way that actually makes it easier to view this as a finished interpretation and welcome the inevitable rebooting of the Batman series.  Considering the wide range of interpretation that the Batman mythos have gone through over 70+ years, it probably would be smart for the next creative team to go in an entirely different direction.

So when I get into the issues that bugged me, it's important to remember that these are very small in the overal picture, so without any further ado...

What exactly did the Dent Act do?  As I understand it, the Dent Act is credited with allowing Gotham to clean up the streets, presumably by somehow giving the authorities the ability to lock up members of organized crime indefinitely.  The script is pretty vague on what the Dent Act is, but we do understand that it was ratified legally, presumably by the voters.  Martyring Dent was a big motivator, which is why no one is eager for the truth to come out that Dent went nuts and killed several people in the earlier film.

There's a lot with this that doesn't make sense.  First, the public was told that Batman was responsible for killing Harvey Dent - so I don't quite know how that translates to the voters drawing a straight line from Harvey's murder to tougher measures against organized crime.  Whatever those vague measures may be.

Second, from some dialogue at the beginning of the picture, we understand that the Dent Act is hugely popular.  People are thrilled that it's kept the streets safe.  If the truth about Harvey Dent were to come out now, it's not like the Dent Act immediately disappears.  Sure, people might be pissed at the deception, but since the law's on the books and has had a positive effect, I don't think Gotham City voters would decide, "Well, guess that's the end of that. Better dump this law just to remain morally consistent."

I could probably dig into this further, but the point has probably been made.  Bottom line: The Dent Act feels like a lot of hand-waving and half-explanations.


How does John Blake figure out Bruce is Batman?  So Blake recounts how he met Bruce Wayne years ago when Wayne made a visit to his orphanage.  He intuited that Bruce was hiding a big secret.  Blake says he'd learned to put on a false face to hid his own pain and he recognized that same mask on Bruce.  And THAT is how he knew Bruce was Batman.

Say what?

I don't see how Blake makes that leap.  At best, he should be able to figure out that Bruce hides a lot of pain at being an orphan, but he already knew Bruce was an orphan.  How does spotting someone else putting on a lot of bravado lead to "Ah-HA! This guy likes to put on body armor and beat criminals to a pulp!"

Blake figures out the truth only because the movie NEEDS him to know the truth, logic be damned.

Bane's origin misdirection - I'll be brief because this is one detail that I need to watch closely on a second viewing.  For a time, we're led to believe that Bane's movie origin correlates to his comic book one - that he was born in prison and never saw the sun until he escaped.  Late in the film, we learn that's not true.  There was a child born and raised in prison, but that's actually a different character.  Bane was merely the "protector" for that child.

So if Bane was just another prisoner, why does he claim "I was born in darkness."  Why does he seem to imply he didn't see light until he was an adult?  Yes, it's possible he's speaking metaphorically, but that feels like it bit too much of a writing cheat.

There are a couple other little moments, but to me, those were the most glaring.  As I said, I enjoyed the film, but it annoys me when there are these pieces that don't fit.

A great in-depth review of The Dark Knight

I'll level with you guys... I ran into post-production problems on the webseries and getting our footage into a Final Cut-friendly format turned into an issue that consumed far too much of my free time this weekend.

So I didn't have much time to compose my usual posts.  Never fear, I've found an alternative.

The Avengers opens this Friday and if you've been following my blog for a while, you probably expect that I'm pumped up for this.  I've never really be a Marvel Comics fan at all (save for Ultimate Spider-Man), but I've really enjoyed many of the movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

So as we anticipate what the hype would have us believe is the greatest Marvel movie ever made, why not take a look at a fantastic review of one of the most acclaimed and most successful comic book movies of all-time - The Dark Knight.  I recently came across a series of posts from some reviewers at Comics Alliance.  It was part of a series last year where they reviewed every Batman movie.

The Dark Knight review is a great discussion of the film's themes and structure.  They also do a fantastic job of breaking down the characters.  If you're a fan of the film, it's worth a look.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

One thing I really like about their series is that they attempt to put the lie to one of the popular perceptions about the Batman films - that Batman Returns is substantially better than either of the two Joel Schumacher films that followed it.  Both parts of the Batman Returns review are excellent at pointing out every last way in which the movie is terrible.

And in a move sure to infuriate most comic book fans, in both parts of another review, they assess that Batman & Robin is actually more coherent and consistent than either Burton film.  (I won't exactly say that they "defend" the film, but they make a good case for the notion that if you accept the film on its own campy terms, it holds together better than the incoherent mess that is the second film in the series.)

If you've got some time, check out my list of 10 Greatest Comic Book Movies Ever Made and its companion piece, The Worst Comic Book Movies Ever Made.  The posts are a couple of years old, but the recent entries haven't been good or bad enough to really merit displacing entries on either list.