Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6857563" data-attributes="member: 37579">Saw it. It was terrible. There was so much messiness. So much that just appeared and didn't go anywhere. The pacing was erratic. It was just constant drama with no break or release of tension. No levity. It was exhausting. Oppressive. The definition of grimdark. I think the appearance of Jimmy Olsen at the beginning with Lane is probably a really good summary of how this movie views the source material. Yes, that was Jimmy Olsen. And you can just imagine what that scene will be like in the R-rated director's cut DVD.Amy Adams was wasted as Lois Lane. She does nothing in this film of note beyond being rescued and have an emotional scene in a bath for no good reason. And she throws away the Kryptonite spear in possibly the least secure way imaginable. "This small hole two meters away from the fight is the perfect place to dispose of this radioactive weapon. Seems totally secure." And then, of course, she somehow magically realizes she needs it again. Funny how this movie has Martha Kent, Wonder Woman, Mercy Graves (killed pretty much off camera by Lex for... reasons), Senator Finch, and Lois freakin' Lane and still manages to fail the Bechdel Test.The manic Jesse Eisenberg just didn't work. He was more Joker than mad industrial genius. Had they had him stop for a second and show Luthor was playing up the insanity to throw people off and make them underestimate him, that would have worked. A little bit like the Doctor, who plays the madman as a distraction, but grows serious when alone. But without that display of rationality, the sign than it was all part of the plan, Luthor was just a poor Joker. Who was, of course, thrown in jail for no good reason (Lane's word against his word and the best paid lawyers in the world). And then they shaved his head... why?His motives for wanting Superman dead are a little weak. His father beat him, now he hates people with power? But at least we got a half-assed reason there, unlike with Batman. I imagine Darkseid (as foreshadowed by the actually cool Flash induced vision) was pulling some strings, but that just makes Luthor the flunkie. Luthor's plan also made no sense. He hired goons with untracable weapons (special bullets... why??) to kill people in the desert so people would blame Superman. Because, of course, when a whole bunch of people get shot and Superman was there he expects everyone to react with "Gee, Superman must have been involved, since he'd totally shoot people."He made a big deal about trying to get permission to ship the Kryptonite in from overseas, but he was already smuggling it over. So... why?And then he turned Zod into a monster... why? He had no reason to know that was possible. And no reason to believe monster Zod would kill Superman, let alone that monster Zod not rip apart Luthor followed by the entire world. What was his end game there?The Africa attack prompts the whole Senate hearings and the actually rather interesting questions of "should Superman save people worldwide without permission?" That's... that's actually a pretty good question and a realistic Superman movie really did need to ask that. It should go into the ramifications of Superman's actions and the effects his presence has worldwide. The unintended consequences of a Superman breaking international laws. But the movie just gives this pretty huge topic a casual glance and then moves on. Of course, the movie just asks the questions and just drops the whole issue. Movie ends and everyone just loves Superman. Despite the fact the last people really saw of him, he was flying into a giant crashed spaceship in Metropolis minutes before a giant monster flew out. Everyone was blaming him for a shooting and a bombing, why not an alien monster?That's a whole lot of convoluted plans when Luthor has a crap tonne of Kyptonite, which Superman isn't aware of yet and doesn't know will harm him. He could have filled the bomb wheelchair with green K shrapnel and reduced Superman to pulp.The movie follows the standard sequel formula of "hero questions if they should be a hero after deciding to be a hero in the first movie." Like Spiderman II, The Dark Knight, Superman II, etc. But Superman quits for 30 seconds. Superman has the standard Michael Bay character arc, where the protagonist starts of thinking they're awesome, doubts themselves, and then comes full circle to thinking they're awesome again. There's no growth. Batman's plan isn't much better than Luthor's. He spends the first half of the movie trying to track down the ship Luthor is using to bring in Kryptonite and then steal it off a truck. But then he just breaks into LexCorp and steals it. So that whole half of the movie could have been condensed into the (non)scene where Batman steals the Kryptonite. Add small MacGuffin explanation for how Batman knows Luthor has Kryptonite (also explaining how Wayne knows the K exists and what it does) and start there. Dump a lot of the extraneous Senate stuff. Bam! The movie is a svelte and tight 90-minutes. And there are just sooooo many reasons given for why Batman wants to fight Superman. Too many. It was almost cluttered. Understated is that he received notes from an amputee (Wallace Keefe) suggesting Wayne let his "family" die. Which were eventually revealed were sent by Lex. This mean:a) Luthor had been intercepting Keefe's mail for a year in the hopes he'd get angry enough to publicly blame Superman (and not Wayne for not providing any compensation) b) Luthor knows Wayne is Batman since the mail was directed at him. There was also the Jason Todd costume that got a lot of traction in the trailers. But that was pretty much its only scene. Yup, the big potential motivation that Batman lost a foster son also didn't play in. Just some background decoration. You can add that to the unexplored backstory, like what happened to the Wayne manor. Batman also flips from thinking of Superman from an enemy to a friend really fast. It really comes down to "You mom was named Martha too? Dude, let's be besties!" So much so that Batman decides to devote the rest of his life to living like how Superman lived, despite having been convinced Superman was going to kill everyone on the planet a couple days earlier. And how many people does Batman brutally murder in this film? Ten? Twenty? The secret to being Batman: used tires!The scene where Wonder Woman looks at the footage of other metahumans really feels out of place in the action. It breaks the plot and adds nothing to this movies. And then she's getting on a plane, seemingly minutes later. This feels like a scene the wanted earlier but didn't fit. Or a scene that should have been a stinger after the credits. Also darn convenient how Luthor identified Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg by their logos despite them not being heroes yet.</blockquote>

Verification