I’ve never really been a fan of Synder but I have to say I think that DAWN OF JUSTICE was one of the only stylistically, tonally and thematically interesting superhero films I’ve seen in the last ten years. It’s baffling how everybody eat up Nolan’s grim and gritty Batman films, even while they pushed regressive, right wing propaganda (THE DARK KNIGHT was a straight apologia for the Patriot Act, and DARK KNIGHT RISES basically told the peasants to know their place circa the beginnings of the Occupy movement), and while their narratives were if anything vastly more nonsensical than DAWN OF JUSTICE (the people of Gotham couldn’t be told about Harvey Dent? like they really weren’t mature enough to accept that a guy might go a bit crazy after having the love of his life killed and his face grotesquely disfigured by a homicidal clown IN THE SAME NIGHT? Seriously?). There’s more real cinematic panache in the first three minutes of DAWN OF JUSTICE than in the entirety of the DARK KNIGHT, to say nothing of whatever jokey, washed-out television sitcom-looking thing Marvel has coming down the conveyor belt next.
If you’re going to do “dark & gritty realism” for a superhero movie then Batman is the way to go. He’s a rich vigilante with no superpowers and unlimited financial resources who beats up people in alleyways. The dark, the grit, and (a degree of) realism are all a good fit for the character.
Superman, on the other hand, is basically a boy scout with godlike powers who flies around in brightly colored long-johns fighting a series of equally implausible and ridiculous threats. He’s usually the tonal opposite of Batman, and that’s what makes their relationship so interesting.
Myths don’t have to remain static, and anyway, MAN OF STEEL destroyed the traditional Superman, if anything DAWN OF JUSTICE serves to resurrect him. At the end of the movie, he believes in heroism and sacrifice again, and his example inspires and redeems Batman.
I’m with you there.
It also messed up some of the supporting characters pretty bad. Pa Kent was traditionally the moral center of Clark Kent’s life, the human who imbued him with the values that would eventually lead him to become a superhero in the first place. Now he’s the guy who chastises young Clark for not letting a busload of children drown? What the hey, Pa??
My #1 disliked directorial choice for the movie was to give Rorschach a growly gruff voice, as I always imagined him to have a soft detached monotone voice as if he were going through an extremely long and vivid fugue state. More like Kevin Spacey in Se7en than Batman in a different costume and no car.
By traditional Superman, are you referring to the character who gives humanity hope and optimism by expecting the best out of all of us because he gives us his own personal best while trying to save as many of us as he can while trying to be human? Because I totally didn’t get that from Man of Steel. I got someone who was afraid to do good for a very long time and then was forced into it for reasons and then destroyed half of a very large city killing thousands instead of taking the fight elsewhere.
Look, I’m not going to say that Richard Donner didn’t take liberties with the Kiss of Forgetfulness or other BS, but it was at least done in “Superman is the quintessential good guy.” I don’t think Snyder sees him like that.
He described an incoherent hot mess by a writer/director that clear hates both Superman and Batman or at least has no insight into why they are lasting and popular characters. He also described a story that didn’t flow with scenes that made little sense.
I can post links to four or five reviews that basically make the same point.
You’re literally the third person I’ve talked to that liked this movie out of dozens of people in social networks, forums, and twitter.
Exactly and Snyder’s Superman isn’t Superman. Superman doesn’t brood and isn’t dark. That’s Batman.
Superman, like Captain America, is an embodiment of good and virtues that knows he’s out of step with much of the world but does it anyway because he knows it is right. He’s a self-aware boy scout.
I’d also point out that Batman-with-guns isn’t Batman either (not since the first few years of Batman). Frank Miller even goes so far in The Dark Knight Returns to show Batman destroying guns, saying he won’t use them because they are the weapon of the enemy (and what killed his parents).
I will point out that Miller’s “older” Batman is supposed to be the model for Snyder’s Batman too.
Exactly. Snyder either doesn’t understand why Superman works or just hates the traditional Superman character, trying to turn him into grimdark BatSuperman.
I can only say that I had no trouble understanding the film, and that it was chock-full of little touches, in every scene, that would’ve only been there thanks to someone deeply familiar with the source material. That said, you’re right, it’s very much in the vein of Frank Miller’s Batman, and also owes a debt to the Alex Ross versions of the characters, visually. [quote=“enso, post:67, topic:76428”]
I can post links to four or five reviews that basically make the same point.
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That’s okay, I’ve actually seen the film, rather than get my opinions second-hand.
My #1 gripe with Snyder’s Watchmen wasn’t the costumes or the casting or even excising the whole silly space-squid subplot. It was getting rid of Nite Owl’s beer gut.
Hey Zack: The character didn’t look that way because Dave Gibbons didn’t know how to draw a six-pack. He looked that way because he was a depressed loner who had let himself get out of shape since his forced retirement.
Please don’t ever do a live-action adaptation of The Incredibles.
Well, that shuts down conversation with folks that aren’t going to see the film because of the almost overwhelmingly negative reviews then, right?
Like I said, my friend’s response was not “I didn’t like this.” It was “I hated this and you should not see it.” He unsolicitedly brought it up to our gaming group last night. “I warned you all not to go see it, right? Don’t waste your money.”
I’ve known this guy 15 years and he’s never had that reaction to anything ever. He and I have seen many geek/superhero movies together too and we’ve had nuanced conversations about what we liked, didn’t like.
Snyder is poison to everything he touches, in my opinion. I hated Man of Steel as a shitty bad copy of a Superman movie too.
To be honest though, the previous one where Superman courts a married lady and turns out he left her with a bastard kid wasn’t much better understanding the guy either. DC just seems like they’re grasping at anything for Superman and can’t figure out why people liked Nolan’s Batman series.
Supes is totally a better man from another time, I think you’re dead on talking about how Captain America has been used much better with the same issues.
He’s our hopes and ideals from a progressive and future oriented era, not our fears.
Someone needs to print out this post and run it over to DC.
You almost make it sound like he’s some kind of “Man of Tomorrow.”
I guess I just don’t understand the concept of arguing vehemently about how poor a movie is that you haven’t actually seen. It’s great that you have a friend who’s opinion you trust! They can vet movies for you, knowing that you share opinions. Now you don’t have to see it, and that’s fine. So why rail on, at length, against it – not having seen it? Especially given that you’re predisposed to loathe anything Snyder does beforehand anyhow.
It’s a film with flaws, but I most certainly enjoyed it. I went with a large group of people with a wide range of familiarity with comics, and we talked for hours about how much we all appreciated it, while also discussing things that could’ve been done better.
It was not terrible, I agree. There were some glaring plot holes (as pointed out previously in this thread), and much like the last Superman movie it needed about 40 minutes trimmed judiciously including some of the fight scenes. Zack Snyder runs the risk of fight scenes dragging on so long that they lose all meaning (really the case with Dawn of Justice).
But, I enjoyed this version of Lex Luthor, as a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur looking guy, with the sportcoat over t-shirt and jeans. This is a believable villain from 2016.
The actual BvS fights were fun to watch, and about half of the Doomsday fight.
The funny thing is DC never really had this problem with their animated offerings. Most of the Batman/Superman/Justice League stuff they’ve produced for TV since the 1990s has been considerably better than the cartoons based on Marvel comics. Even the Justice League cameos in the LEGO Movie felt like a breath of fresh air.
For me, that would be “anytime Wonder Woman was on screen” 
Very much agreed with over-long fights, but then again, I get bored with CG-on-CG superhero punch-fests whenever they happen, really.
Because I’d rather DC made no movies rather than yet another shitty movie?
Because I’d hoped for a good DC universe movie and I wait, year after year, for one?
I mean, great, you loved it. Strange that few others did but whatever.
If we’re lucky, Snyder will never be allowed near a superhero movie again though.
