Batman vs Superman (2016)

I would like to be hopeful about this project, but I find myself just dreading it. Batman and Superman when written well are both great comics, but, can the writers actually pull the level of subtelty required for this.

The avengers worked due to good writing, a strong cast and most importantly, a sense of the ridiculousness of grown men running around in skin tight costumes! Can Batman and Superman pull this off? Its going to take a good writing team to do this.

The cast is the least of my worries, Aflek is a good actor, he can in my opnion pull the necessary depth of performance for Bruce Wayne. All in all will be interested to see what they come up. But not going to hold my breath for a mind blowing film.
 
Actually, I didn't mind Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern. I thought he did a really good Hal Jordan version of the Lantern.


I blame the writers and WB for its failure at the box office. They didn't build up the movie the way they could have.


WB has failed in a lot of things in the DC universe actually. The Smallville tv show was good but there were noticeable things that were left out. Many of the DC heroes and villains appeared but the two that would have made the most difference were Batman and Wonder Woman. If they had introduced a young Bruce Wayne towards the end of the series they could have set the stage for a spinoff about the young Batman.


Just my 2 cents
 
Ha, I'd love a return to the original series of Batman, with Adam West.

We should leave... inconspicuously. Out of the window.
 
Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb...

Saw the big BvS yesterday. Liked it, think I need another viewing to get more out of it. There's so much going on.

Take's a lot from Miller's work, not talking much about story but more themes and imagery. Everyone did a good enough job. Something's (won't mention here as spoilers) felt like they were shoe horned in and disrupted the pace a bit. Zims and Junkie did a good job, but everyone else I went with thought they'd done a paint by numbers action soundtrack.

There's some funny lines that come later in the film, which aren't intentionally funny but feel like they're there just because of Man of Steel.

I'm happy because DC aren't churning out Marvel clones. I'd like to see some studio rivalry in the films to come... They've jumped into deeper themes which Marvel are getting round to be tackling with Civil War.

And it's packed full of Easter Eggs, possibly because it is Easter.
 
I saw this today. I was hoping for more, to be honest, but it was good. It was an incredible task to even attempt this movie, given the weight of expectation over these two characters finally meeting on screen. Parts of it were a mess, parts of it were well done. After it was over, both my friend and I couldn't exactly articulate how we felt about it. To me, it paradoxically felt like it could have been shorter (and punchier, dropping a few of the more convoluted plot lines) or it could have been longer (developing some of those plot lines better, and easing some confusion created by glossing over parts), and it instead sat a little uncomfortably in the middle. I hear there will be a director's cut on DVD with a half hour or so more footage - I will be interested to see that cut.

I thought Affleck was great as Batman - maybe my favourite since Keaton. Jesse Eisenberg was a little odd as Luthor, though. I don't know if they quite succeeded in doing whatever the hell they meant to do with that character.

I thought the soundtrack was mostly good, @the_evil_ted, but then I liked it first time around in Man of Steel, as well. Not much of a departure, I thought. Except for the final battle, which I thought was poorly scored - the sudden introduction of guitars was weird.
 
Oh dear. This film was worse than Batman and Robin.

Well, I'm exaggerating. But only a bit. It is competently put together and the performances are generally well done (props to Affleck as Batman) but it's a dour, joyless affair that lacks the campy charm of Schumacher's cinematic clown car pileup.

The characters are all a bunch of dour, interchangeable violent psychopaths. As a Scotsman I should relate to this but the whole premise of the film falls apart as it rests on a conflict between two over grown weans who really have no difference between each other. Superman gets the worse of it. The film goes out of its way to show that his reckless battle with Zod killed God knows how many people in Metropolis. Despite this he never shows any remorse or regret over it. Not only does this make him extremely unsympathetic but makes his disdain for Batman’s rough methods nonsensical. He’s happy to topple a sky scraper full of innocent people but doesn’t like Batman being a bit rough with child molesters?

However the experience was almost worth it for the spectacle of Batman walloping Superman over the head with a sink without the slightest hint of irony on the part of the filmmakers.
 
I was not expecting this to be good, then, the family went to see it and I had to go.
And I end up finding it pretty good and fun film. Could not avoid seeing the credits thanking many great comics artists/writers that have worked with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
 
I think I would rather watch repeats of "Housewives of Beverly Hills" over and over again until I start barfing up razor blades than sit through another horrendous movie such as this.

No. Just no. Someone needs to ban Zach Snyder from making anymore movies. Forever.

I almost agree with Callum, except I found Batman and Robin to at least be mildly entertaining.
 
the_evil_ted said:
Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb...

Saw the big BvS yesterday. Liked it, think I need another viewing to get more out of it. There's so much going on.

Take's a lot from Miller's work, not talking much about story but more themes and imagery. Everyone did a good enough job. Something's (won't mention here as spoilers) felt like they were shoe horned in and disrupted the pace a bit. Zims and Junkie did a good job, but everyone else I went with thought they'd done a paint by numbers action soundtrack.

There's some funny lines that come later in the film, which aren't intentionally funny but feel like they're there just because of Man of Steel.

I'm happy because DC aren't churning out Marvel clones. I'd like to see some studio rivalry in the films to come... They've jumped into deeper themes which Marvel are getting round to be tackling with Civil War.

And it's packed full of Easter Eggs, possibly because it is Easter.
Click to expand...

I walked out of this film (I don't mean that I left early, I only mean I left when it was over, ok?) a month ago, reflecting to myself that it was just about the darkest (both literally and figuratively) film of a comic book that I've even seen. But it kept itching inside my head, and a couple of weeks later I found myself buying another ticket; and came out feeling much better about it -- I felt as if the second viewing helped me see more deeply into it.
So I went to see it a third time...and now I have an itch to go yet again.

I get that way about films now and again, but it's a surprise to me that it seems to be happening for this particular film...says something about the film, probably; but certainly says something about me!

Dave Wixon
 
Well, B v S is now pretty much out of the theaters; but while it was available, I believe I saw it five times.
I did that because each time I went, I found something new to admire about the filmmaking -- things I had missed on the earlier viewing(s).
I'm close to calling this the best movie of the year. I did not expect that at all!
 
Culhwch said:
I thought Affleck was great as Batman - maybe my favourite since Keaton. Jesse Eisenberg was a little odd as Luthor, though. I don't know if they quite succeeded in doing whatever the hell they meant to do with that character.
Click to expand...

I agree that Eisenberg seems an odd casting for Lex Luthor -- but then, I suggest that the revision of that character for this movie required a -- ah -- unusual sort of acting...in this case, insanity. Best example, to my mind: in the scene in which Luthor gets to go into the crashed Kryptonian ship, after he rides the elevator up -- looking almost wistfully out the window -- he strides down a passageway to meet his destiny -- and, genius: his stride is an unusual, loose-jointed walk that to my mind screamed "insane!"

And that was only one of the things I loved in this movie!
 
2DaveWixon said:
I agree that Eisenberg seems an odd casting for Lex Luthor -- but then, I suggest that the revision of that character for this movie required a -- ah -- unusual sort of acting...in this case, insanity. Best example, to my mind: in the scene in which Luthor gets to go into the crashed Kryptonian ship, after he rides the elevator up -- looking almost wistfully out the window -- he strides down a passageway to meet his destiny -- and, genius: his stride is an unusual, loose-jointed walk that to my mind screamed "insane!"

And that was only one of the things I loved in this movie!
Click to expand...

Eisenberg's performance was phenomenal in this. I like him in most of the things he has done, but he's a little nutty in real life. So maybe it was an easy casting choice. Every time I saw Eisenberg on the screen, I just thought of what it must have been like for him inside the audition waiting area. A bunch of hunky bald dudes (Maybe even some WWE guys) and there he is a little nerdy kid with a full head of dangly hair!!! Eisenberg goes in there and tells Zack snyder, "Look you know I'm already crazy in real life. This script isn't even acting for me, man!" He essentially plays an already similar character to this in the Now You See Me franchise. It wasn't quite Heath Ledger's Joker, but he was closer to Adam Driver's Kylo Ren. It was obvious that he was probably the only person who was allow to enjoy his role on screen in this whole thing!
 
Having just seen the extended edition. I have to say I really thoroughly enjoyed it! I am firmly in the Marvel camp when it comes to these sorts of shared universes and though I do not care much for superman or batman, they are about the only DC characters I actually know well enough without getting invested in a whole new thing like arrow-verse. So, I expected nothing out of this movie, and when I go into a film expecting nothing out of them I do end up appreciating them more. Other times that happened was with Battleship, Jupiter Ascending, and the Lone Ranger. Critics destroyed these movies as did everyone I know who has seen them, but I liked them simply because I wasn't expecting anything.

Now that's not to say it was amazing! The beginning was really well done and it rose a lot of great questions about the whole Good VS Evil thing. The tension actually made me feel for the first time for these characters. Because up til this point we are brainwashed into thinking that both Superman and Batman are these righteous immortal and indestructible beings. But as Lex Luthor rightly put it, "God can't be all powerful and all innocent." Which is probably why superheroes don't exist in real life. Similar to Cap 3 in the MCU. The end however, was a big bunch of mess. It was like they spent half the movie introducing the characters (which we all know right??), but then somehow they lost a better way to make them hate each other. I am still not sure why Batman had to resort to wanting to KILL Superman, especially when Lex Luthor was the one taunting Superman the whole time! It just didn't rise to a level where killing was needed for me. It's also unclear why Lex wanted Batman dead even though he and Superman have a well known and well recorded rivalry, not batman. It would have made more sense for Superman and Batman to switch spots in Lex's plan and even from the trailer I figured that was going to happen!

Overall, the tone and the music in the movie was really well done and it was really dark too. It did beg to go back to Batman's dark times in Batman begins but that suit was odd and bulky and I'm guessing Batman does not fly in this version. It seems that Wonder Woman wasn't specifically needed in there at all and DC just had to throw her in because she is the beginning of their next phase of movies. It wasn't as organic as Marvel introducing characters. Especially when the plot is already a mess.

If not for Jesse Eisenberg's performance, I think this would have been less enjoyable for me. Who doesn't love an insane villain from an underdog?
 
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A very nice summation, Cli-Fi.

I'll pick this up on BluRay soon.
 
I have to say, this is pretty much the worst batman (since the last reboot) and worst superman (since the last reboot) film. The story is weak, in fact it seems to just be a hashed together excuse to use the title batman vs superman. Maybe there was a comic of this title, I don't know, if there was, and it used this storyline, then.... Well. Rubbish. And I very much enjoyed the last reboots of batman and superman.
 
I have wanted to see this film for a while now, I didn't manage to get to the cinema, but picked up the extended cut to watch last week.
DC have an issue with the whole superhero movie franchise thing, they are playing catch up, so we all know that this film was a setup for the Justice League film, which when Marvel set up their Avengers films it didn't feel that way, it felt like they were doing great (or good) stand alone films with tiny nods to the larger whole, so when it did come we were all 'great wow!' DC have had to do this backwards, we all know they want a behemoth multi-hero mega film and so this is one of their steps to get there.
the other issue is tone, this film is trying to be dark and serious and broody, with its whole God/Alien allegory, and the lack of any jovial side to this. I know that Batman is a dark comic and after the Dark Knight trilogy (where Nolan managed to make it seem almost realistic) they have a tone to cling to, but it makes it too serious.
Kids want to see these movies, they want fights between heroes and villains, not heroes and heroes, and they want them in well lit bright daylight. They don't want to worry about collateral damage, innocents shouldn't die.
When you start a film with a random innocent man having his legs chopped off at the knee it kind of sets the tone doesn't it?
I'm not disappointed with it, I'm just a bit indifferent, I would have liked to like it more, but I am where I am.
 
Moonbat said:
Kids want to see these movies, they want fights between heroes and villains, not heroes and heroes, and they want them in well lit bright daylight. They don't want to worry about collateral damage, innocents shouldn't die.
When you start a film with a random innocent man having his legs chopped off at the knee it kind of sets the tone doesn't it?
I'm not disappointed with it, I'm just a bit indifferent, I would have liked to like it more, but I am where I am.
Click to expand...

Good review the only problem I have with it is when you say kids don't want to see heroes vs heroes. I think civil war disapproves that somewhat, but the perhaps the reason why they were fighting in civil war was made more clear and more realistic.
 
Yeah I agree civil war (which i haven't seen yet) introduced the fight better. Also

SPOILER

They aren't fighting to kill or for a bad guy that is manipulating them.

Spoiler over

It does seem like DC are rushing to catch up rather than taking their time like Marvel which is a shame. Still I'll go and see the neq films they bring out.
 
Well, what I can say? Just watched this. First hour was actually pretty decent. Then it hit a bizarre post-apocalyptic dream sequence and fell apart after that.

The longer it ran, the more ridiculous it became.

Laughed out loud when Batman decided to save Superman because their mothers had the same name.

40 minutes of random explosions fighting a generic monster at the end. Then the longest funeral I've seen in film.

This could have been a decent film, but it looks as though they had a ten-year old boy writing the script.

Lois Lane and Martha Kent existed only to be damsels in distress. Wonder Woman doesn't do anything except pose half-naked.

Absolutely terrible - couldn't wait for the film to finally end.

How did this franchise reboot go so terribly wrong?
 
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