Saturday, March 26, 2016

Batman V Superman V What the Actual Fuck?: The Battle for Cohesion

Arrgh! Thar be spoilers here!

When reviewing a gargantuan, tent pole, superhero epic extravaganza like Batman V Superman one cannot simply describe it as a good or bad movie. It seems pointless. Whether it has enough merit to find a spot in the canon of great American movies no longer matters. It's too big to fail. It's now a huge, hefty slice of pop culture pie. Whether that pie comes with a warm, steamy mound of shit piled on top of it is irrelevant. Eat around it. BVS is not a good movie. It's not necessarily a bad movie either. It spends most of its time being an entertaining mess, another huge chunk of time being a slow-trotting bore, and a very, very small amount of time as an actual affecting and exciting superhero epic. It all amounts to complete chaos. The chaos stems from many things, but at its core the movie's biggest problems seem to be a clear lack of character motive and complete lack of focus. What is the point of this movie? Basically it's to see Batman beat the hell out of Superman. It's the fan service of the decade. We've all heard the Batman vs. Superman debate before: "Superman would wipe the floor with Batman." "No way. Batman's a strategist. He'd never go into a fight without a way to blah blah blah." But why though? Why are the good guys fighting each other? The movie would have you believe that Batman has a grudge against Superman. Superman, having destroyed Wayne Tower in Metropolis during his fight with Zod, cannot be trusted with the power he wields. He's careless and impartial and how long before he turns on us mere mortals. If memory serves me, these are the reasons Lex Luthor, Superman's arch-enemy doesn't trust him. And while this seems rational to someone who saw the destruction of Metropolis firsthand, or viewers who watched Man of Steel for that matter, the movie shows Batman taking on Superman with the same carelessness and impartiality. Seriously, Batman kills so many people in this movie, and while not on the same scale, he destroys a large part of his city. It seems this movie got the "show don't tell" adage completely backwards. It's told us Batman is a compassionate hero worried for the safety of the planet and then shown us that he's just a cruel, jealous man who doesn't like knowing there's a face he can't punch into submission out breaking his things. Has The Dark Knight taught us nothing about the heroes we deserve? And then we have Superman who's all "Batman, stop helping people. Only I can do that." Broody face. Come on. Again the movie tells us that Superman is this hero taught the goodness of man by his parents who is striving to achieve that goodness by saving kittens from trees and all that, but it only shows us a lame, scowling hypocrite who apparently likes to jump into baths fully clothed (why do movies continue to do this?). And why must Superman be so dark? Batman's got broodiness covered in spades. And when the two finally throw down I have to say it really is impressive. Snyder actually visualizes some solid fight sequences in this movie. And while I'm not sure I agree with the culmination of the fight (Batman about to impale Superman with a kryptonite spear), the preceding slugfest was quite enjoyable. So now that the fanboy's and fangirl's wet dream of Batman standing over Superman in complete victory is realized why does Batman rescind the killing blow and decide not to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight bathed in Superman's blood? Well essentially because "Dude? Your mom's names Martha!? My mom's names Martha! Let's be bros!" And then they team up with a hot chick and beat up the biggest and baddest dude on the playground. It seems no one making this movie was aware of how ridiculous it all is. Maybe they were all too busy jacking off to the script to notice, but with a movie this absurd perhaps the tone should've been a lot lighter. Instead it's a lesson in let’s see how serious we can be.

Batman V Superman's problem isn't that it has no heart; the problem is it has three. The movie is splitting it's time between three different movies. That's the real war here: The Batman movie vs. the Superman movie vs. the Justice League origins movie. First we have the Batman movie: a dark and gritty movie that follows the psychological trauma of a man who's spent the majority of his life waging a one man war on crime. This is the movie we needed, but I guess not the one we deserved. The Batman fight scenes are incredible. Still focusing on close quarter combat and theatrics, but now with some added wall-crawling which was both strange and fascinating. Basically, if you loved the fights in the Batman: Arkham series you'll at least get some enjoyment out of these scenes. The Superman movie focuses on a Metropolis dealing with the aftermath of the alien attack and Superman's omniscient presence. It tries to be an inspirational and elevating movie that deals with the goodness of man and the price of heroism but ultimately ends up falling flat in the dirt from boredom. Superman and Lois Lane's relationship is tedious and strained. And Henry Cavill's Superman seems to be lacking in the qualities I've come to expect in a Superman/Clark Kent. I know, I know. This is biased, but he's an all-powerful savior figure from humble beginnings who just wants humanity to get along (no, not that guy). Where's the folksy, aw-shucksisms of Clark Kent? Where's the calm, gracious, and accommodating Superman, always giving humanity something to strive for? Henry Cavill's Superman always just seems so troubled by his role as protector of mankind. Granted this would make for a very interesting take on the Superman mythology, but the movie doesn't go there. And then there's the Justice League origin movie that completely squanders the perfectly cast Gal Gadot and brings DC's trinity together in the most haphazard and convoluted way possible. And when they finally get together at the end, the movie suddenly becomes a video game complete with a final boss battle and brightly colored exploding energy bursts.

So how does one find redemption in a movie lacking a solid purpose and missing any kind of sound logic or focus? I guess we could begin with the performances. The most anticipated performance comes from the newest to don the bat tights: Ben Affleck. The one thing Ben Affleck brings to the party that I don't think has been portrayed in a Batman yet is a sense of weariness (Christian Bale gave it a shot in The Dark Knight Rises, but I don't think he quite pulled it off). At this point in Batman's career he's seen some things, and that really shines through in Affleck's performance. Plus he's super jacked. The second hotly anticipated performance and mentioned previously is Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman. Again, perfect. She's strong and elegant and wildly underused. Amy Adams phones it in. Henry Cavill is a scowling bore. Jeremy Irons is perfectly sarcastic as Alfred. And then there's Jesse Eisenberg. At first I wasn't quite sold on Eisenberg's portrayal of Lex Luthor. All of his twitches and mannerisms were a bit much at first, but there's a scene about a third or so through the movie that totally got me on board. The scene in question has Eisenberg delivering a speech in front of a crowd of people. He uses some of his acting quirks to deliver one of the best comedic scenes I've seen in a movie all year. Even as the performance is delegated to background noise as Bruce Wayne begins his very serious infiltration of LexCorp, you can still here bits and pieces, and it's hilarious. This may sound like an overstatement, but Eisenberg's Lex Luthor is both the saving grace of the film and the best performance of his career (sorry Zuckerberg). All hail Jesse Eisenber's Lex Luthor in all its cooing glory. Don't think I don't see the irony of the villain in a superhero movie being the savior of it. Perhaps interesting villains are what DC has, besides ultra grimdarkness, that separates them from Marvel and may one day edge them out into the lead of the superhero movie race. DC has had a rich history with portrayals of their rogues' gallery. I mean batman movies alone are a whole other article. DC's got a whole movie dedicated to them coming out in a few months. Marvel has Loki.

It's never too hard to find at least one thing to like or something halfway interesting about a big superhero movie release. With over 60 years of comic history to rifle through, it's hard not to at least get one thing right. How can you not marvel at these larger-than-life characters being brought to light in new and different ways. Even Green Lantern, which holds a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 39% on Metacritic and pretty much sank Ryan Reynolds career (say thank you, Deadpool), made 170 million dollars in profit. Sometimes you have to reconcile your own expectations and learn to love the one you got. Or you can always just talk shit about them online. Anyway here's sad Affleck:




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