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So as you know, I stopped writing lengthy reviews on this site this year, keeping the blog as more of a film diary of sorts.  Lo and behold,...

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Movie Review - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, and Tao Okamoto
Directed by Zack Snyder
***This film is currently streaming via HBO Now/HBO Go***

Questions I had while watching Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice:


  • Why does the voice of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) when in the Batsuit sound like he's speaking through some voice box that amplifies his voice, making it echoey and deeper than normal?  This amplification makes it utterly obvious that all the vocals were completed in post. (I guess technically there is amplification device in his mask, but considering that the lower half of his face isn't covered by the mask, it just makes Affleck's performance laughable...even moreso than his depressing melancholy already was...)
  • Why do all of the fight scenes look as if they were created by a video game manufacturer instead of looking like creative visual effects?  Zack Snyder isn't exactly known for realism, but it's utterly ridiculous-looking.
  • Why is this movie so long?  And considering how long the title already is, why not add the 's' after the 'v' in the abbreviation of the word 'versus?'
  • Why is Zack Snyder allowed to continue to reign his ugly directorial aesthetic over any films anymore?  His dark, dreary, heavy-handed nature creates an utterly depressing feel throughout, carrying nary a modicum of charm, hopefulness, or pleasantness that even the worst Marvel films contain even if just for a moment or two.
  • Amy Adams' red hair adds at least some color to the muted grays and blacks that permeate the screen.
  • Despite the criticism of Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, at least he's hamming it up in a amusingly crazy way as opposed to the dreary hamming of Affleck.
  • When one of your main characters -- Bruce Wayne, in this case -- gets his motivations because of scary dreams he has, that's just cheap storytelling.  
  • In my Man of Steel review from a few years ago, I mentioned that Henry Cavill carried some charm.  That's not present here at all as he's just an angry superhero the whole time.
  • I admittedly appreciated that they at least tried to explain away the ludicrousness of Man of Steel's destructive finale in which much of Metropolis was destroyed. 
  • And at least the finale of this one was a little less ludicrous.  The post-script of the plot after the final battle was actually oddly resonant and upped my grade below by a spot.
  • I should have stopped watching this at the fifty-minute mark when I first contemplated the idea.  
  • Why will I inevitably subject myself to Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman after this atrocity?  I should know better...
The RyMickey Rating:  D

2 comments:

  1. Nothing about the Martha situation?
    Also, Suicide Squad is worse somehow. Wonder Woman is significantly better. But it falls into the conventions of the genre towards the end.
    DC learned the wrong lessons from the success of The Dark Knight and has been floundering ever since. Not every one of their characters are dark and angsty. Superman isn't that. So when they make him angsty and grumpy, he's basically Batman. Which doesn't make for good drama when you have two like forces opposing one another until they realize their mothers have the same name. (???????)
    This might not be the best written thing in the world. (I'm a tired boy)

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    1. I really nearly zoned out in that scene where they're battling each other and the worn-out Superman mutters "Martha" and Batman is thrown into a tizzy.

      Your comment about Superman being dreary was my biggest problem with Man of Steel -- where was the fun? And that certainly carried over here. There were moments that worked -- I actually really liked the final moments (SPOILER: Supes' funeral) perhaps because they felt like the only "calm" and "meaningful" moment in the piece -- but they're too few and far between.

      And the whole thing just looks dreary and there's next to no momentum/drive/pulse going through this thing. I certainly could've written more, but I was aggravated after 150 minutes. (And people said Gal Gadot "saved" that film somehow -- I don't see that at all. I thought she was a little wooden at times, but not as much as her leading men so she fared well in comparison to them.)

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