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I really want to like the DC:EU. Really. The last few Marvel movies I’ve been bored as hell watching half of them, and I don’t think I was bored as hell during BvS, Man of Steel, Suicide Squad or Wonder Woman. There were times when I was filled with hatred for the dumb crap they’re doing, but rarely bored. Is that better?
Let me give an example.
In BvS there’s an extended scene that the whole movie hinges on. Superman shows up to fight Batman, the whole movie has been Lex Luthor sort of messing with them to get them to fight. The catalyst for the fight ending and them working together is that they realize that they both have a mom named Martha. If you’re a storyteller this is a risky play because on paper it’s kind of dumb. The worlds greatest detective didn’t notice this? Superman with X-Ray vision didn’t figure this crap out? C’mon boys you’re not even trying. But if it was handled well, and I mean really well, it could have been touching.
It was not handled well. As an action scene it was great. Batman has to poison Superman with kryptonite to even have a chance at fighting him, and the banter is good. Superman getting his powers back slowly and demolishing Batman whenever he does is great, but the moment, the knife edge, when Batman says “I bet your parents taught you something, my parents taught me a different lesson dying in the gutter for no reason at all.” he goes on. Just before stabbing Superman with a kryptonite spear Superman has this line “they were gonna kill Martha” and Batman suddenly has some sympathy and yay now they’re bros.
Cavill’s delivery was fine but the writing was clumsy. The whole denouement after is clumsy. Flashbacks to young Wayne get out of here.
In my head I see a scene where Batman has Alfred with a sniper rifle trained on Martha as a last line of defense. Give a nice scene at the start where Alfred is like “really? are you going to cross this line?” and Batman is like “he’s a monster I have to.” Superman wins the fight easily (as he pretty much should) and then it’s Batman who threatens her and Superman realizes that he can’t punch his way out of this one and he has to convince Batman a) not to kill her and b) that they’re on the same side. Batman’s been a wrecked psychological mess the whole film, and Superman’s heroism is what pulls him out. It reinforces Batman as a tortured soul and reinforces Superman’s image as the hero.
Anyway I’m not a Hollywood author but let’s say that that instead of forcing Jesse Eisenberg to poorly reprise Ledger’s sublime Joker they just let Eisenberg act (he can!), then they fix that Martha thing, and then they saved the Doomsday death of Superman for another movie, it could have been pretty good.
Perhaps I’ve become too generous in my old age, but really a terrible movie is still better than a boring one. I’m cautiously interested to see Justice League and I’m sure that Avengers 4 or whatever will be more of the same.
The bed music during our advertising is an old loop by Dan of Steel!
The bed music while we explain what the episode is about is Son of a Bit “Chased by a Running Chupacabra” used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Finally, the song we use in the intro is “Shiny Spaceship” by the 8-bit Ninjas. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
