This is so hard for me to write about. I wanted to like this. I started off skeptical like everyone else and then as more trailers were released and more interviews were done with the cast and more fan theories went viral, I was all in. I even started out hating the idea of Ben Affleck playing Batman and all of that stuff turned me around. I was really looking forward to this. I thought, finally, finally DC got it right!
Oh how wrong I was! How foolish I had been to let all of that stuff sway me from my gut instincts!
They just tried too hard! They gave us too much! The film was 2 1/2 hours long and that time could have been better spent. The structure was off, the characters story lines were almost too developed in ways that left non-comic book readers scratching their heads and then they used story lines that were old and "so last year" that audiences sat there and thought, really? We're still going over this shit? I know it was suppose to take up right where the last Superman took off but after the first 10 minutes that was completely lost on the audience and it felt like a totally separate timeline and story.
The characters/actors had no chemistry. I hate to compare this to any of the Marvel films but when you watch those movies, the characters relationships are completely believable. If they hate each other-they really hate each other. If they're friends, you wish you were part of the squad. If they love each other, you were devastated if anything tore them apart.
In this film? I could give two shits about any of that. Personally, I hate this Lois Lane. I'm sick of her involvement and I want Superman to move on. Batman and Wonder Woman were written as if they're suppose to have some kind of sexual tension but they had as much chemistry on screen as Ben and Jen did in Gigli and they were actually together!
A lot of fans really dug Affleck's Batman and I have to give it up to him, he did the best he could with what he was given. Everyone for the most part really enjoyed Jeremy Irons' Alfred too. I wasn't as much of a fan of Alfred in this universe as he was written as a cynical grandpa, tired of his kids' shit and waiting for him to "grow the fuck up already". I much preferred the sweet, model-train-building grandpa-type Alfred we've become accustomed to in the past. Again, I know we're going for something much different here, but that's just what I would've liked.
This was suppose to be more film noir than the campy Batman/Superman films of yesteryear but Jesus, this was so dark! To compensate for this, the writers thought making Lex Luther a combination of the Joker, the Riddler and Scarecrow would be a good idea. Let's talk about Jesse Eisenberg for a moment, shall we? What the shit?? His Lex Luther was positively God-awful and I still can't figure out if he was written and directed that way on purpose or if that character was of his own design and they just went with it because they were too focused on fucking up every other aspect of this thing. Either way, train wreck. I know he'll be a returning character but I really hope they have him shift directions in his delivery because I found myself begging someone to punch him every time he was on screen and that's not a compliment of his performance. Lex Luther isn't some babbling shut-in with ADHD, he's Donald Trump with an education. Why can't DC get any of this right??
And visually?! Can I just take a minute to talk about how much Zack Snyder's directing annoys me? Why does everything look like it's been shot inside a black hole? Even when things exploded, I could only make out the fire-I had no idea what just exploded or why I should care. That's how dark this fucker was. I was sitting in an IMAX theater and squinting because I genuinely could not figure out what the fuck was happening on the mammoth screen before me. That's some sad ass shit right there. As a patron, that's not okay, I paid to actually see something Zack....
I shouldn't be too surprised, all of his films are this way. The only time it worked was when he was filming 300 in black and white (more sepia tones really but let's not dwell on the specifics).
See it though, if you're a fan of the comics, see it. They tried, well, at least, most of them tried. And they do give us a taste of the movies yet to come in the franchise so that's pretty neat. Aquaman looks good but we've been fooled before and Zack is directing that one as well so enjoy squinting for two hours. Zack, we know it's dark in the bowels of the sea but come on dude, you could make out everything in the Abyss and that shit is hella old now. Get it together....
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