Suicide Squad Review

I honestly don't even know where to begin with this one. Normally I would bury the lead and run through about five paragraphs before giving a score. I'm not even going to waste time here, this movie is a one out of five for me. I've walked out of two movies in my entire life, Ultraviolet and Suicide Squad. Now before you get on my case about reviewing a movie I walked out of, We didn't leave until the last ten minutes and here's why. I'm pretty new to buying tickets online. I know it's the 21st century and what's wrong with me? I just never bothered before. Well now I'm all about it and we bought our tickets through Fandango for the 8:30 show. So about five minutes into the movie I was worried, and by the time the mission started I was ready to leave. However, I'm new to the whole online ticket business so I wasn't sure if I would be able to get my money back (I assumed we could but I'm a stickler for sticking around if I paid my money) so I decided to see it through as much as I could. As soon as the villain was dispatched we were out of there so we really only missed about ten minutes because I'm stubborn and love torture I guess.

My opinions on Man of Steel and Batman V Superman are well documented. I think so far the DC Universe films (DCEU for the remainder of this review) have all ranked from wildly disappointing to terrible and they seem to all suffer from the same problems. The scripts are just awful. Man of Steel and Batman V Superman are both actually well made movies from a directorial stand point, they just have terrible writing. Well Suicide Squad is no different but brings a whole new level of terribleness to the DCEU. This movie is just poorly made. Now there are a lot of behind the scenes stories floating around that make this movie sound like it went through Fantastic Four levels of studio interference. Not of the same variety mind you. Let's start from the beginning. Warner Bros. decides that they want their own movie universe like the one Marvel has created for themselves but they don't want to put in the work. They use Man of Steel as a jumping off point (first mistake) and they announced BVS and Suicide Squad along with some other films. Zack Snyder directed Man of Steel and since that was such a banger success (sarcastic much?) they decide to put him in charge of the universe, serving as executive producer (second mistake). He makes Batman V Superman and sets the tone that he sees the DCEU should embrace. A much darker more serious tone to differentiate from the fun light heartedness of Marvel. Fair enough, the DC comics are in nature darker so let's see how it goes. Well apparently not well. The darkness wasn't exactly my problem with Batman V Superman but I do think that Superman should be a more light hearted film, but that was a Batman movie all the way. Well Warner Bros. is now freaking out because Snyder has executive produced all of these movies into a pit of darkness. Now Suicide Squad is already done filming, Wonder Woman is well on it's way, and Justice League is in pre-production. Warner Bros. makes quick decisions. Add re-shoots and tone changes to Suicide Squad, make Ben Affleck executive producer on Justice League, and make Geoff Johns the new head of the DCEU (a smart decision). My fear however is that the damage was already done and after seeing this movie I believe that I was right.

I had the utmost hope and interest in this film. It was the first non Zack Snyder, David Goyer handeled DC movie. It featured a very popular, and one of my favorite DC characters that fans have been waiting to see on the big screen forever, AND featured an all star cast to boot. Let's not forget the trailers either. Amazing marketing for this film. I want to take a look at the trailers though for a second. Think of the first teaser trailer from Comic-Con. Very serious, very creepy tone. A song treatment similar to the first Age of Ultron trailer. Honestly I was in from that trailer. Yeah it was very serious but it was different. They were going another direction and I was interested to see how it turned out. Then the next two trailers came out and were (and still are) some of the best edited trailers I've ever seen. Taking a very light hearted tone and basically playing like music videos with Bohemian Rhapsody and Ballroom Blitz. I think these trailers really hurt the expectations for this movie because the final product doesn't resemble the trailers at all. What we got instead is a film where the trailer editing company was given the whole movie to edit to try and match the tone and instead the two halves of the movie clash so hard it gives you whiplash. David Ayer is a fine director. He's made some great movies, but he was out there defending the movie he made, yelling "Fuck Marvel!" at the premiere, and claiming the re-shoots weren't a reaction to Batman V Superman or to change the tone of the film. I'm sorry Ayer but this is in no way your movie. I 100% believe that at most this is 50% of the movie Ayer originally made. I think the original cut of the film matched that first trailer and the studio interfered. I would give all of the money in the world to see all of the footage shot for this movie (and a chance to make my own edit) or to see the original cut of the movie. There were reportedly three different cuts for three different test screenings and I want to see it all. There are even scenes in the trailers that aren't in the film like the bar scene where they choose their drinks.

So before I get too deep into my complaining I should mention some things I did like. It will be quick because their aren't many. First and foremost, Will Smith. Will Smith hasn't made a movie that had me this interested in him in a long time. I thought this was his movie and he stole the show. My only complaint on Deadshot is the shoehorned storyline with his daughter which just comes off extremely cliche. Everyone has been praising him and Margot Robbie and honestly I think he did a much better job. A lot of their lines come off cheesy but it's easier to believe Smith in the role. Robbie was at 80% (sorry for so much math) for me. She looked the part, she mostly acted the part, but it was hard to believe the character was the one we all love, especially since she was just turned into walking sex. Some of other characters were great too but just got short changed with the story. Katana seemed great but we get little of her story. Captain Boomerang was fun but could have been given more to do. The same goes for El Diablo who maybe gets the most character developments out of the B roster but the ending of his character just made me groan. Turning into a big CG fire monster to battle another CG monster was just dull and boring. The last thing that I would point out as a positive was the Flash cameo. It was fun but very quick (no pun intended) but did a good job of world building. The inclusion of Ben Affleck Batman was also kind of nice but there's not much to his cameos. He seems to be changed somewhat from BVS, showing some sympathy for Deadshot but he's quickly in and out of the movie.

Alright I've rambled enough. It's time to get into some details. Let's look at the plot of the film. First we get a half hour introduction of all of the characters and how most of them were captured. There are some fun scenes here for sure but it's so haphazardly edited together that it feels like a last minute addition. It's just Viola Davis talking over different musical themes and just jumps from one scene to the next and feels like it goes on forever. The character introductions make the plot seems so convoluted but it ends up not even mattering when it comes to the main mission. A mission that takes about half of the run time to get going and then it's another ten or twenty minutes before the action kicks in. By the time the movie actually kicks into gear I was already almost bored to sleep. My fiance who saw the movie with me was already nodding off but granted, these movies aren't for her. She was excited for Harley Quinn but other than that she was uninterested. Viola Davis was one who I thought nailed her character because Amanda Waller is a giant bitch and Viola Davis felt like a giant bitch in the movie so mission accomplished. I also feel like I liked Joel Kinnaman more than most. I thought his Rick Flag was fine he just wasn't given a lot to work with. His forced love story also just did nothing for the movie. Now before we move on from the characters I have to talk about Jared Leto's Joker. He was by far the worst Joker. His mannerisms and the way he talks is just so off, and the way he talks about this role with great reverence, I just don't know what he was channeling. It definitely feels like a bad Heath Ledger impression, so it's probably a good thing that he gets such little screen time. They also never justified Hot Topic tattooed Joker. It looked dumb on the reveal and looks just as dumb in the movie. The Joker is barely in the movie and when he is he feels forced and some people seem upset about that but for me the less the better.

Now back to the plot. It barely exists. The movie spends half the time introducing Task Force X and then the Enchantress escapes to Midway City with her poorly CGI'd brother and then chaos ensues. A major problem I have with the plot is that we, the viewers, know what's going on because we see what goes down. However Rick Flag brings in Task Force X and just tells them it's a terrorist attack and keeps them in the dark for what seems like no reason. Then it's revealed later as if it's supposed to be a huge shocking surprise and I was just left confused as to why they treated it that way. We also don't really find out what their mission is until they enter the building where the objective is located. The real mission is to rescue Amanda Waller who SURPRISE was in the city when shit when down. It was actually a decent twist that she would be there. I wasn't expecting it when they walked into the control room that we saw Waller in which seemed to be in Washington. The Enchantresses plan is also flimsy at best. She breaks free and decides to build a machine to destroy the worlds armies for . . . reasons. Okay she says she wants to destroy our machine because we worship machines instead of gods so shes going to build a machine. Huh? Either way all it turns into is a giant blue light flying into the sky. I'm pretty sure this movie and the Ghostbusters reboot have the same ending and it's all bad. This movie made Batman V Superman look like Citizen Kane in my eyes. The biggest offense of this movie is that it's boring. It takes so long before we get into some serious action scenes and the first one is the best. Overall the action is pretty forgettable. There are gun fights, the camera obscures most of the action by being too close, and again the first gun fight is where Deadshot shines and is the only memorable action sequence of the film. The rest kind of blur together for me. It doesn't help that there is actually a lot of bad CG in this movie. For such a big tent pole movie you'd think they'd hire a better effects studio or maybe give them more money and time.

I thought this would be the movie to correct the DCEU but I was dead wrong. At this point my assumption is Wonder Woman will also be a dark brooding experience and I can only hope for at least a entertaining film but these films just have Zack Snyder's interpretation all over them. Suicide Squad has some moments, 90% of which come from Will Smith in my eyes, but over all feels like a movie DESTROYED by it's editing and re-shoots and massive tonal shifts between acts. I feel like there's been a lot of cagey comments out there trying to save the movie which still opened to 267 million worldwide because we don't apparently care if movies are good. As a comic fan I will be forever grateful that these movies even exist, but as a fan we deserve better than this and we need to take off our fan boy shades and let our voices be heard. If you're going to make the movies this bad, just don't make them, especially not with a script written in only six weeks. This is a one out of five and I give that one star to the cast that carried me through this disaster. Warner Bros., shame on you.

Independence Day Resurgence Review

WARNING THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I don't know if there's a 90's movie I love more than the original Independence Day. I remember like it was yesterday the first time I saw it in theaters. I was very young at the time but have always been a sci-fi junkie, but I wasn't at the age where I was really following movies enough to know it even existed. My mother saw it ahead of time with some friends and came home raving about this alien movie. She took me and my best friend to see it one afternoon and sat and watched us soak it in with a smile. She told me she especially enjoyed watching the whole theater jump at the operation scene that she knew was coming. Needless to say I was immediately hooked. I bought all of the toys I could, which game with computer games that I would play every day, when the VHS came out I binged watched it on the regular. I was an ID4 fan! I always yearned for a sequel because one thing I am a sucker for, especially with alien invasion concepts, is how a world changed once an even like that occurs. There were always rumblings of a sequel and occasionally you'd hear some whispers of story details, but as years passed I kind of gave up hope. Alas, twenty years later, Independence Day Resurgence happens. I was ecstatic. How could anything mess this up for me? The first movie had amazing characters, and some of the best sci-fi designs I've ever seen. At the time they did some amazing things technologically, with 2016 tech they should be able to do something even crazier. Then we start to hear production talk, and the only thing really put out there to cause concern was that Will Smith was not returning. I'll be honest that this didn't bother me at all. Yeah it's unfortunate that one of the biggest stars didn't return, even more unfortunate that they killed off his character in kind of a lame way, but what are you going to do when the savior of Earth isn't present. I was all for killing off his character to let the movie happen, but just give him a more spectacular death. So how was a film twenty years in the making? Well this is probably the only time that Independence Day will be compared with Star Wars, but the anticipation and payoff for this film for me was the equivalent of The Phantom Menace.

Keeping on the Star Wars comparison shortly before writing this review I read a quote that said an executive at Fox was hoping that this movie could become their new sci-fi franchise to replace Star Wars, which everyone knows they lost to Disney. I feel like that explains a lot about this film. Things feel crammed into the plot for sequel and world building sake, and these things drastically alter the tone of the series. I would love to see the original draft of this script and compare it to the shooting draft because I bet there are a lot of additions. While Roland Emmerich is the king of excessive, this movie suffers from an excess of a different kind. An excess of story, which I know is a very odd thing to complain about. Simply said Roland Emmerich is known for disaster movies where everything blows up in a super awesome way. Well IDR is at it's best when things are blowing up. The action scenes are great and the scenes from the trailer live up to their spectacle. The problem is they don't really do much beyond those scenes. There's really only one worldwide destruction scene, where they are picking up and dropping down the cities which is awesome, and the rest of the action is reserved for dog fighting and (laser)gun fights. These scenes are really fun but honestly can be kind of a jumbled mess. You wonder how anyone could actually not just shoot all of their allies out of the air with how many lasers are flying around. All of the action culminates in what is a ridiculous battle with a five story tall queen alien that is just, for lack of a better word, bonkers.

Now while the action is fine the story that it is serving is less so. It might not be so much the actual story beats that are the problem but rather the way everything is written. Honestly what happens in the story is fine. Aliens return stronger than before, pushes humanity to it's last stand, humanity pushes back, fights giant alien queen. It's pretty standard stuff. It's the way we get to all of these scenes that bother me. First of all let's talk about the reappearance of the aliens. The War of 1996 as it's called in the movie was the most fantastical, and terrifying thing to ever happen to the whole planet Earth. The humans then spent 20 years dissecting the technology of the aliens and rebuilding, preparing for their eventual return. When they finally do show up again you would think it would be an almost traumatic experience. It's played off way more calm and collected than you would ever think. Especially after seeing their returning arsenal which involves a ship large enough to cover the entire Atlantic ocean. A major problem I have with all of the characters in this movie (of which there are many but we will get there) is that there seems to be little emotion of the situation coming from any of them. The movie doesn't let you dwell on any one situation because the story is moving too quickly and somehow this makes a two hour movie feel way longer because it's hard to invest in any one scene because you are quickly onto the next. A large part of this falls onto the large volume of characters and the feeling that they all need their own story. 

This movie has so many characters that it's almost impossible to care about anyone who isn't returning from the previous movie. Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and Brent Spiner are the returning actors who get the best screen time and really steal the show. The only new character I cared about was Liam Hemsworth's character and it wasn't because of the actual written character, but because I felt like he was one of the better performers in the movie. Among the new characters we get a President that we are given no reason to care about, a general who becomes President that doesn't show a lot of leadership skill, the children of the original heroes, and a plethora of children that really serve no purpose to the plot. A good part of the plot is dedicated to the Legacy Squad which is a fighter squadron made of the offspring of the previous war heroes from all around the world, the leader of which is Will Smith's kid in the first film. Being treated like royalty and having to live up to his father's legacy could have been an interesting character path for Jessie Usher's character but they don't do enough with it. Again you aren't given any time to really dwell on how any character feels. They don't care so why should we? This also applies to the deaths of some characters. We watch Dylan Hiller fail at saving his mom and I felt nothing as we watched her fall to her death from the top of a collapsing building. Now I like to think that's because the movie did a poor job of making me care and not because I'm a heartless bastard but maybe that 's on me. Honestly I cared more when I thought Julius Levinson died on his boat, but alas he survived to only team with a team of children and he treks them across the country to Area 51 because he needed something to do. This story thread does nothing but add some needless stakes to the final battle when they show up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would rather have seen this entire storyline ripped from the movie and either find a way to tie Julius into what's going on at Area 51 or just follow through on his death which to me actually would have been a sad moment. There's just no intimacy to any moment of this film. Remember in the first film when the President had to go to the hospital and say goodbye to his dying wife. You won't find a soul crushing moment like that anywhere in this film. Just a lot of characters saying their parents (who we've never seen) are probably dead and they are really really sad about it.

So as I said before I felt the original film had some the best and most inspired alien designs I had ever seen. They way they expand on that feels cheapened in this film. The ships and fighters are all still really cool, but what was an awesome alien creature in the first film now looks like a bad CG monster. The CG in this film is not particularly great. The movement and appearance of the aliens makes them not scary at all. I still love the design and how they have their bio-organic suits but they lose a lot of appeal when they are digitally rendered. Once you see them walking down hallways shooting laser guns they kind of lose any serious feelings you might have about them.I think the aliens also suffer from just over exposure. In the first movie you can count on one hand how many aliens you actually see. Otherwise you only see faceless space ships and fighters that feel menacing. This film aliens are crawling out of the woodwork to mow down humans with extreme prejudice and any fear they might carries is flattened when on numerous occasions killing them is a scene of comic relief. Jumping back to our plethora of characters again we have an accountant and a warlord from the Congo who get teamed up to kill aliens with accountant as the comic relief against the straight laced warlord and hijinks ensue. There's also another storyline that I almost forgot to mention. As if there weren't enough stories happening in this movie. The aliens are trying to drill to the planet core because that's how they power their ships so out in the ocean we have some treasure hunters that are tasked with tracking the aliens progress. However at this point in the movie there was already so much going on that when they cut back to these guys, which was only a couple times, I actually forgot who they were or what they were doing. This script needed about twenty minutes cut out of it. there is just too much going on.

Okay so I think it's time to talk about the third act because it is, as I said before, bonkers. So we are introduced to a deus ex-machina of a ridiculous nature. The attempts to expand the world of this movie is fascinating to say the least. So all of the humans that have come in contact with the aliens are all experiencing visions of a circle that they can't stop drawing. Everyone believes these to be drawings of a an alien ship, signaling their return, until we actually learn that it's another alien race that is a living digital spheroid and the last of it's kind. This thing actually shows up floating in front of the moon before the aliens return and the humans respond in the only way they know how. By blowing it out of the sky and celebrating. Oops. So turns out these spheroid aliens have been battling the locust like aliens for centuries and recruiting other alien survivors from their war campaigns and hiding them all on a secret planet to develop weapons to finally fight back. This movie ends on the biggest set up for a sequel that I'm not convinced is going to happen. Oh don't be wrong if they make a third one I will gladly go see it and hope that this one was only a bump in the road but all of this set up just interrupts the story telling of this film. This is something I've believed that's been happening to a lot of movies since the Marvel machine became so successful. Even Marvel properties owned by other companies fell into this same trap. Looking at you Amazing Spider-Man 2. Well when this all knowing sphere shows up that triggers the queen to come after it and leading us to another final battle over Area 51, only this time instead of trying to take down a big ship they are shooting at a 50 foot tall alien ravager queen as it chases a school bus full of kids. This happens in a big Hollywood blockbuster. 

Independence Day Resurgence leans too heavily into the wrong parts of the original. How the original played up how great America is, this film tries to do with the whole human race. While moments of the first movie are cheesy they are done in complete earnest and that's something the sequel totally loses. No part of this movie takes itself serious and you shouldn't either. I would recommend that if you're interested you should still see the movie as there are parts to enjoy, but this would be better served as a rental or a Netflix watch. It's a muddled mess of story and characters that do little to try to justify a purpose in the movie. As much as I wanted to love this movie I can only give a two out of five. I was hoping for an experience of a lifetime but it turned out to be pretty forgettable. I'd still like to see them course correct for a third movie but given the current box office (143 million worldwide at the time of this writing) I don't think they will make a third film.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

***WARNING THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Okay I saw this movie three weeks ago and I have never had to sit back and think about a movie more before I reviewed it. Not because the movie is a thinker, but because I had to sort out my emotions and thoughts before really committing to sitting at my keyboard to type this review. This movie was decisive to say the least. This movie was getting ripped apart by critics, on social media, and by everyone I knew personally who saw the film. There's been a lot of things said in the press by those involved with the film, and there's even been talk of releasing the extended R rated cut into theaters early. This has been a strange film to talk about but I'll give it a shot nonetheless. I should probably start from the beginning and share my opinion of the DC Cinematic Universe. This movie was opening behind an already questionable legacy. Marvel had created their cinematic universe that was raking in billions of dollars and warming the hearts of comic fans across the world. Finally the characters we grew up loving on the pages were coming to life in front of us. DC naturally wanted a piece of that. Well the rights for Superman were almost up and it was time to rush out a new Superman film. Enter Man of Steel. Directed by the visionary director Zack Snyder and written by David Goyer, we were introduced to a modern, more dark and surreal take on Superman. There wasn't a lot shown before the movie came out, not a lot of trailers and the teaser didn't even give us a good look at Superman. So the movie finally comes out aaaaaaand people HATED it. Okay not everyone, but when this movie comes up in conversation, it's usually to tear it apart. Now the film has it's defenders. I personally think these people are in denial and are just die hard Superman fans that are trying to grasp onto the fact that "Well this is the only Superman movie we have right now." Guaranteed if a better Superman reboot happens in the future then Man of Steel will become more forgotten than Superman Returns.

Now my personal experience with Man of Steel is that I just hated the film overall. Not to say I hate every part of it, there are some good moments, but overall I thought the movie was just very poorly written. That's something to remember because Zack Snyder takes a lot of blame for these movies, and some of that definitely comes from what he says to the press about the decisions made, but my blame lays directly on Goyer. Honestly Man of Steel is a film that from a technical stand point is made very well. Yeah the film is very gray looking and there's some stale acting but the direction is fine. It's the writing that makes me cringe at the very mention of Man of Steel. I understand that this was a rushed film because of the rights situation but the story is just bad. The opening segment on Krypton is easily my favorite part of the movie, and then the rest of the movie is downhill. The killing of Zod, which seems to be the biggest point of contention with this film next to the mass destruction, is honestly the part of the movie I have the least amount of problems with. The conflicting messages from his two dads, the hamfisted way he gets his suit (it just happens to be on Earth already and why does a space suit have a freaking cape?!), and just the utter seriousness of the film drag me out of the experience screaming for my money back. This isn't a review for Man of Steel however (I might do a retro review on that at a different time) this is a review for it's sequel. So was Batman V Superman a better film?

Holy fucking shit (pardon my language) this may have been the worst movie I've ever seen. Sorry I can't even bury the lead on this. Now just bear with me because I know this movie has betting getting a lot of hate (and whether deserved or not) and I just ask for you to let me defend my point. Going in I was so hopeful. Ben Affleck seemed like a great Batman, the movie looked exciting, and while I questioned the casting of Luthor I was trying to remain hopeful. Now let's be clear. To me this is a Batman movie that happens to feature Superman (and Wonder Woman but we will get to that). The main character of the movie is Bruce Wayne and he's the one that does everything to move the plot forward. I would say even more so than the villain of the film. To me this is a positive because honestly Batman is the best part of the movie. Ben Affleck does a great job, this Batman looks great, and the action scenes where he is beating up goons are the best action moments of the whole film. The biggest problem here is the way the character is written. Let's just get it out of the way. Batman straight up murders multiple people in this movie. Now I heard this going in so I was ready for it, and I counted. Excluding the dream sequence (because that doesn't count and lets face it, it's a different world and during war time things change.) Batman kills at least five people. That's being very generous. He blows up two cars that each have at least a driver and shooter, and then he shoots the gas tank of a flamethrower strapped to someones back who for sure burned to death. This doesn't even include the criminals that he brands before they get sent to jail which the news says is basically a death sentence from the other inmates. This Batman is basically the Punisher and a sociopath. To be honest I was on board with the whole branding idea. It's different and not that bad of an idea but the fact that they say prisoners with these are murdered by the other inmates, why would Batman continue to do it? Wouldn't it just martyr the criminals?

Now I've seen arguments out there saying "Hey man, this is just a harder Batman and at the end of the movie when he decides not to brand Luthor that means he's changed." That would be all well and good if the very idea didn't go against every single ideal that Batman has ever stood for. Remember that little boy who saw his parents murdered in front of him and swore not to ever let it happen to anyone again? Yeah that character is nowhere to be seen in this movie. I mean they already ruined Superman in Man of Steel so they might as well ruin Batman too. And this is an older Batman we are seeing which means he's been killing for a lot longer than he wasn't. They even establish that a Robin has died on his watch so what kind of Batman goes on killing after losing his partner. A maniac that's who. I honestly don't understand any real comic book fan who can defend the killing. As a fan I am completely offended by that. It's a shame Affleck was so good and then saddled with being the murderous Batman (just like Michael Keaton). I hope they can move past this and we get a real Batman in the announced stand alone movie because I think he's great and want to see what he can do if they do the character right.

Now let's look at the rest of the characters and start with Superman himself. Now I've always thought Henry Cavil has the perfect look for Superman and that carries over here. His acting however is kind of flat. There's no distinction between his Superman and Clark Kent (which has very little screen time anyway) and it's amazing how in the first movie when he was in hiding from the world Lois Lane is able to find him and deduce his identity yet people seeing him on a regular basis can't put two and two together. It's honestly more ridiculous than it ever was in the books. Cavil is fine here but just isn't going to stand out. Amy Adams is however completely useless. She serves to be Superman's second weakness and nothing else. She has way too much screen time in this film  and her sub-plot is maybe the most pointless thing in the movie next to Wonder Woman. Again we will get there bear with me. I didn't particularly love Amy Adams as Lois Lane in MoS and my feelings carry over here. If she was given something more interesting to do I might have cared more but tracing a bullet back to Lex Luthor doesn't really matter in the end and serves no purpose to move the plot since it really just ends up focusing on Batman and Superman. Looking to some of the more minor characters now, I have to talk about Alfred. For one the casting of this whole DC film franchise has left me scratching my head. We have a 30's Superman and then we cast a late 40's Batman, a seemingly 20 something year old Luthor, and then in Suicide Squad all of the villains seem about in their thirties (except for an older looking Deadshot) and then we jump back to Batman v Superman and The Flash seems like another 20 something kid. Now we go to Alfred. Alfred honestly looks the same age as Bruce Wayne but if he grew up a heavy drinker and smoker. Not only that but the writing for this character is just awful. We are coming off a great and emotional Alfred with Michael Cane and while I in no way claim that Jeremy Irons is a poor actor because he's doing the best with what he's given. However all he's given are unfunny quips about how Batman has been on a suicidal mission for years and is too old. They look the same age! It just boggles my brain.

Okay, I've covered the minor characters and the two leads. Let's talk about the villain. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. This may be the worst interpretation of Luthor that has ever been put to film. I would have taken the Smallville Luthor over this. Now there seems to be a lot of hints that this is Luthor Jr. but does that mean we will see a Luthor Sr. in a future film? I honestly doubt it. This performance is unlike any Luthor that's ever existed before and while some might praise it for being different . . . look, I'm a comic book fan and when I see a comic book movie I want to see my favorite comic characters brought to life on the screen. Not some character that's completely original and only shares the name. I'm fine with the change of a character as long as it's done in an interesting way but this feels like Eisenberg was cast specifically because of his Zuckerberg interpretation in the Social Network and they just asked him to do the same thing but with more smiles. Eisenberg was just terribly miscast and the character was poorly constructed on the paper and these two things collided into the worst kind of train wreck. Now I think that's all of the characters right? Did I cover them all? Oh wait! We have the Justice League! How could I forget the memorable introduction to the Justice League through videos sent in an email?! Let's work our way from least to most significant. First I'll look at Aquaman. I don't really know what to think about him yet. I've never cared much for Aquaman, even when the character is done well, he's just not that interesting to me so his brief appearance here doesn't do a whole lot for me. Next I'll talk Cyborg. At least we got a little more context with this one. We see him strapped onto a table, and we see his father dictating what's going on. It's an alright scene, given how terrible the Leagues introduction is overall. Okay now with the Flash, he for some reason get's two scenes. We see him stop a robbery on a security camera, and then he time travels in the movie and appears in the Batcave to Bruce Wayne to give him a warning. We really only needed one of these scenes and personally I hate the time travel scene. There's no context at all for what's going on, the casual fan probably doesn't even get it unless they watch the CW TV show which these movies ignore, and it's just excessive. Not to mention it's all just set up for the further film universe which there is already too much of in this movie. So the League member that gets the most attention in this movie is Wonder Woman. I will say, Gal Gadot is a great Wonder Woman. She is beautiful, she is dangerous, and I even like her bit of action in the movie. However, she has no reason to be in this movie. She doesn't move the plot forward at all, she never once interacts with Superman until the end battle, and she exists only to hint at the formation of the League and to set up her own movie. My biggest problem with her role in the movie however is we see her first meet Bruce Wayne as he's stealing data from Lexcorp, which Diana (WW) then steals from Bruce, only to give it back to him later because she can't get past the security, which leads Bruce to discovering her picture which implies that she is seemingly ageless, which THEN leads to her showing up in the final battle in her full warrior garb to which we see the scene in the trailer. "I thought she was with you?" Huh? Superman is meeting her for the first time but Batman has already met her on multiple occasions and has seen that there is something strange with this woman. Why on Earth would he assume she's with Superman?! I don't think they are ever in the same screen until this moment.

Now multiple times in this review you've seen me mention how things in this movie just seem to happen with no context or reason at all. That is pretty much the flow of this script. There's no real reason for anything to happen. Batman hates Superman because of the destruction he caused during the Zod fight and being all powerful so he wants to kill him even though he's done nothing but try to help the human race? Seems like a pretty thin reasoning but sure why not. Superman hates Batman . . . why exactly? Because he's a vigilante? Maybe hes a little too rough around the edges? But isn't Superman a vigilante too? Okay okay what about Lex Luthor? He also hates Superman because . . . I mean in the comics he always claims it's because he's too dangerous because he's all powerful but it's never really stated in the film. It's okay though, because Lex has a plan. He's going to get Kryptonite to . . . kill Superman because . . . I'm totally lost. I have no idea why Lex does anything in this movie or what his ultimate goal is besides killing Superman for . . . reasons.  This story is just nothing. There's the thinnest motivations and the story beats feel so forced. For instance a major plot device is done through an e-mail with Wonder Woman just sitting at a computer and reading an e-mail from Bruce. This is also where we get our Justice League cameos crammed in where Lex has so nicely gone through the trouble to create their logos. How did anyone think that having a character read important information silently off of a computer possibly be interesting? I also have to make a point to talk about the dream sequences which there are many. The future desert scene is the most significant. Everyone knows it from the trailer and yes, it's a dream sequence where Batman envisions of a future where an evil Superman has taken over the world. It's an interesting moment of the movie and the sequence itself is good, but the way we get to this scene is utterly insane. Now I kind of hope the extended cut has an extra bridge scene here but as it is in the movie we see Bruce sitting at a computer watching a progress bar (riveting movie making) and then we just get a hard cut to black . . . and that's it. No context to show that this is a dream, for all we know this scene is a time jump, because why not go that crazy at this point. The only way we get to know that it's a dream sequence is that Bruce wakes up in the Batcave at the end, which leads us to my next complaint. We get the Flash cameo where Bruce is woken by the Flash traveling through time and appearing as a bright electrical blur in the Batcave, trying to give Bruce a future warning. This scene is useless. None of the information given adds to this film and does nothing but show the Flash to hint at the future Justice League movie. This movie is falling into the same problem that Amazing Spider-Man 2 had in which it was trying too hard to expand it's universe in one movie rather than tell it's story. We could have lost Wonder Woman and the other Justice League cameos and used that time for more story telling and it would have done wonders for this movie.

So the name of the film is Batman V Superman so I guess it's time to talk about that aspect of the movie. The fight between the two is utterly forgettable. Batman spends a good amount of the run time trying to acquire Kryptonite which was created by the world machine in Man of Steel. He finally get's it by stealing it from Lex which leads to Lex using Superman's mother as a hostage and incentive for Superman to go fight Batman. Now if Batman wasn't such an asshole in this movie the whole fight could have been avoided. Literally they come face to face and Superman is trying to talk to Batman, to explain the situation, and Batman isn't hearing any of it and just attacks Superman aaaaand the fight begins, and boy is it lackluster. No part of the fight really stands in my memory except for how Batman's Kryptonite grenades look like fart bombs. I just don't understand the very idea of making this movie be about Batman fighting Superman. Actually I do understand. Zack Snyder probably read The Dark Knight Returns once and thought "Man I really like that one part where they fight." It just doesn't make sense in this movie at all. If you're going to name your movie after the fight of your two titular characters than that fight should be the best part of the movie. It is not even close. Not to mention the fight ends when Superman and Batman realize they both have a mother with the same name. Are you fucking kidding me?! Superman tells Batman to please save Martha and literally they are best friends two seconds later and it's team up time. It is the most ridiculous and hamfisted (second time I said this) way to make them allies. I knew it was coming because a friend spoiled it for me and I still wasn't prepared for how angry it would make me. How did this script ever get approved?! The one thing that amazing me is how me and a lot of my friends never thought about how their mothers had the same name before.

Well I feel like the only logical thing left to talk about is the end of the film. First we have Doomsday. This is a terrible interpretation of the character. They completely change his origin which is fine but he looks like a giant CG baby and no part of him seems like an all powerful threatening being that he was in the books. He never ends up looking how he's supposed to despite Zack Snyder assuring us that his appearance does evolve. Just barely Zack, nice try. The last fight just honestly feels like it's there and doesn't have one specific moment that stands out to me. The one thing that is something of a joke but is totally true is that Batman contributes almost not at all during the Doomsday fight until he hits him with a Kryptonite grenade. I walked out of the movie not remembering any one memorable moment from the Doomsday fight other than the camera work. You see it in the trailer when Wonder Woman jumps with the following zoom. Love that camera work in this scene but it's the only part of the film that has some interesting cinematography. The most daring thing I can say about this films ending (and really the whole film in general) is they actually kill Superman. They do the death of Superman as the ending which is was makes Bruce want to find these other heroes and build a team. That makes just as much sense as the rest of this movie. I give them credit for actually killing one of the titular characters (and leaving the hook telling us he's not actually dead) but by the time it happens it's just too little way too late.

I just can't believe this film exists in the form it does. It was no secret what the reaction was to Man of Steel so with so much riding on setting up the franchise it's just amazing that this was the movie we got. The fan reaction to this film honestly seems worse by comparison and I was really hoping that the way the handle the aftermath of Man of Steel would make me like that movie more. Well I do think Man of Steel was a better movie but not the way it was probably intended. This movie breaks concepts and logic so much I don't understand how any comic book fan doesn't walk away absolutely offended. Batman literally takes a knife and a point blank gun shot to the back of his mask, which react as if it's metal, but multiple times we see the mask pulled off and being 100% rubber and no amount of "Well it's just special Wayne tech" will convince me otherwise. I understood people defending Man of Steel from the sense of "Hey this is all we have right now" but there are too many good superhero movies at this point for me to accept this just for the spectacle of seeing Batman and Superman together in the same movie. They blew it. I have lost pretty much all faith in the DC film universe at this point and I have my fingers crossed so hard that they might break in hopes that Suicide Squad can bring me back. I can only give this movie a two out of five and point out that Batman fighting some goons is awesome, and the movie has a competent production. Everything else gets a massive thumbs down from me. I've never felt so disappointed in my life over a film.