I would just like to apologize beforehand. If you read the following review, and feel that my critique is in anyway cheapened by what you consider hyperbole, then the only explanation that I can give is that I am a very passionate individual, and this is just the way I express myself.
THAT
BEING
SAID
There's a Maya Angelou quote that I would like to bring up. "Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."
That's what I hope to do today NeoGaf. To use this public forum as an outlet for my anger. In doing so, I hope to cleanse myself of all this, to regain some measure of power over this unpleasant experience. The biggest regret I have in all this? That I am not a good enough writer to give everything I have to say the voice it deserves.
FUCK THIS MOVIE
What an absolute fucking disaster of a film. What an infuriating assault on both the sense and the senses and sensibility in general. Zack Snyder was handed the fire of creation, and has chosen to use it to burn the wheat fields down. I hesitate to call this a train wreck, because that implies there was some moment in time when this disaster was on the proverbial "right track". I'm not sure if I will even write a version of this review that includes spoilers, because I don't think I can be bothered to write a scene by scene break-down of this ENTIRE FUCKING MOVIE.
This isn't a film. This is Zack Snyder and company taking "The Dark Knight Rises" and another story that would be too spoiler-filled to name, stripping them of the context that made them important, slathered them in ultra-macho bullshit, and created some sort of unholy Frankenstein's monster that has captured me and is ordering me to help it reproduce, to justify its existence. And like Victor Frankenstein himself, I am horrified at the implications that may bring.
But you've heard enough of my opinions right? How about a film breakdown? That's what you want right?
This movie is a mess, it seems to want to rebel against the very notion of an establishing shot. We are dropped into scene after scene after scene after scene, with the flimsiest of narrative tissue to connect them. Scenes are scattered next to each other with no rhyme or reason. Each individual scene devolves into a very specific plot point, a sequence of audio-visual data, unrelated to the one before it, but without the strength to carry it on its own. The film cuts to black so often it feels like the work of an absolute rank amateur. And the dream sequences you may have heard about? They are illogical, intrusive, and laughable in their self-seriousness. Character agency? Drama? What's that? Why include those when you can hand wave everything with pure coincidence? I will not suffer any criticism of superhero film world-building without using this as rock bottom. If these are what passes as "easter eggs", then they are rotten to the core, and they are being flung straight at my face. It's so afraid to let a scene breath that it has to flash to an earlier scene to emphasize the point like an episode of CSI.
I don't know who to blame for this script. No one has an actual, believable conversation. All they do is spout big important ideas that I'm sure the screenwriter felt very proud in including. If Nolan's Batman films approached the genre with the depth of a lake, this film is as shallow as a murky puddle.
Let's get into our characters shall we? This film doesn't have the fucking time to flesh ANYONE out. First there's Batman, played by Ben Affleck. You may have heard praise for his portrayal of Batman and you know what? It was serviceable. Perfectly Fine. A handsome face to put in the cowl and nothing more. You know what is terrible about Affleck's Batman? That he is the vehicle for all of the films idiotic overuse of dream sequences. Have you felt worried about any rumors that Batman kills in this movie? He does, and the film treats that as something that is super awesome. He's not intelligent in the slightest, Alfred picks up most of the slack Jeremy Iron's Alfred? A decent job, even if his main job is delivering almost obligatory quotes from "The Dark Knight Returns".
Henry Cavill's Superman? Somehow even worse than his last outing. It's kind of ironic that his turn as Superman evokes the same feeling of the Golem of Jewish folklore, because he is a fucking BORE. If Man of Steel was a Superman film deathly afraid of showing Superman not fighting, then this movie is petrified of showing Superman doing ANYTHING competent, in the fear that the audience will see him as all powerful and untouchable. As such, Cavill's turn as Superman includes him looking pensive all of the time, eyebrows furrowed, and then occasionally looking to the left (or his right, whatever.)
Before I get to Wonder Woman, I just want to include this weird hyper-macho attitude that this film has. Hey ladies? Excited to see Wonder Woman? This film is the equivalent of that guy at the gym, who is all too happy to let you work in only to do bicep curls in front of you, darting his eyes occasionally to make sure you're watching. Every time Affleck does something Bruce Wayne related, it is with the caveat that he must be drowning in pussy. He knows Russian because (according to him), he fucked a Russian ballerina. After one of Bruce's most nonsensical of dream sequences, he wakes up with a naked woman next to him, who never wakes up. The rest of the supporting female cast is really just there to be taken hostage. Get Lois Lane in the Justice League, because apparently she has the power of teleportation and omnipresence.
Gadot's Wonder Woman is literally Anne Hathaway's Catwoman redux. A shoehorned Justice League tie-in with an obnoxious electric guitar soundtrack. All of her scenes could have and should have been excised completely.
Eisenberg's Luthor was not a performance. It was a series of mannerisms. The perfect foil to Superman has been reduced to wild gesticulations and squeaks. He's barely even a character, just a plot device. And in all the stupid bullshit included in this movie.
The action scenes? There are four. One is a Batmobile chase, composed almost entirely of CGI and lacking any of the narrative flourish of Nolan's tumbler segments. The titular fight? A nuisance to the film, just another scene. Instead of the culmination of two ideologies clashing together it has instead been reduced to a nonsensical gambit by Lex. It's maybe 8 minutes max of Batman doing slow martial arts moves to a kryptonite weakened Superman, who's only moments of strength have him acting like a roaring gorilla. And the climax is every bit as insipid and stupid as you might have heard. A throwaway piece of trivia blown into laughably operatic over importance. The Batman fight is fine, but it looks cool for the sake of being cool. It is stuffed into the narrative at the worst time. And the final fight against Doomsday? An excuse for Snyder to have his cake and eat it too, having large scale destruction with only the most obligatory mention that there are no civilians, to excuse the fact that we are watching rubber CGI models get punched back, fly back towards Doomsday, then get punched back. AT the end, no one in the theater cheered. They were shuffling in their seats, waiting to get out.
Fuck this movie. I despised every single second of it. I have never felt more powerless watching a movie then I was when this movie teased the Justice League. It felt like it was taunting me over the fact that it held the future of these characters. If you have any reservations about this film, then I assure there is no reason to see it anytime soon. Or do, I don't know you, do what you want with your money. I hated this movie. Every second of it.
TLDR: I didn't care for it.
One last thing.
This shot?
Fuck you.
You didn't earn it.
