You see I'm tired of all the primary-coloured Marvel bullshit, the desaturated DC denizens and their respective cinematic univii. Yet there I was, buying my ticket like the rest of the helpless herd, willingly putting myself front and centre of the cinema auditorium to be attacked (and it is an attack) by a film I'm already aware is getting mauled by the critics. But I'm forever the optimist, especially where half-decent on-screen superheroes are concerned. And Batman and Superman pretty much sit at the top of that list (unless you're the weirdo who thinks The Phantom is a misunderstood classic). And anyway, how bad can a $250 million movie actually be?
Well as Spider-Man 3 ($258m), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($255m - what is it with Spider-Man sequels?) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($280m) have all proved, you can piss as much money into a film as you like and still fuck it up royally. Only with that much cash to hand, it's done on a grand scale - you can see where the money went. In the case of BvS, the Batcave in particular is a striking piece of set design. In fact there's no hiding it; the producers better see every dollar up on screen, no matter how much of a clusterfuck the finished product is. BvS throws so much costly post-production processing at the screen alone, it's at times akin to watching a dodgy thrice-copied VHS porno. Artificial grain permeates the image beyond all reason. At least in 300 (director Zack Snyder's sophomore feature) it was a justifiable stylistic choice; here it's just visual wankery, deployed because Snyder is trying to create something 'dark' and 'dramatic' (né 'not fun' and 'boring').
While BvS does contain a plot of sorts, I'm at pains to go into it without tearing the proverbial mask off and spoiling the whole show. But the film's rubbish, so I will. After a title sequence recap of why Bruce Wayne became Batman (seeing his parents get shot for a third time, after Burton and Nolan's versions) we're brought up to speed with the final scenes from Man of Steel, replayed from Wayne's point of view. As if you weren't aware of it the first time around, Supes and Zod's showdown definitely killed tens of thousands of people, not to mention toppling a Wayne skyscraper (though it was only their Metropolis branch so, you know, every cloud). Then they went and built a giant Superman statue in his honour, because he saved the world (whilst also killing a fair swathe of its inhabitants). Wayne's clearly furious, therefore SUPERMAN MUST DIE. He's a serious fella too, with serious stubble. He definitely isn't for turning on this one.
As if a Batman/Superman face-off wasn't enough to be excited about, we're then introduced to the rest of the main players - of which there's basically too many. Among them, Lex Luthor - a manchild arsehole of major proportions, portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg in what has to be one of the most dire 'psycho villain' performances in recent memory. It's one thing that his basketball-shooting kid billionaire routine makes you pine for the effortless scenery-chewing charisma of Hackman or Spacey; it's another that no-one else in the film acknowledges it. He's simply allowed to have a shit haircut (solely so he can have it shaved off later, it would seem), make demands for a crashed Krypton spaceship and General Zod's corpse, and casually get away with it. I forget what deal he struck to obtain them, and so will you. You simply won't care enough to remember.
Gal Gadot also shows up as Wonder Woman, though you won't necessarily know that until the end due to her complete lack of personality (not that the script helps in this instance - she's given balls-all to do). She's after a photo, or something - again, the reason why escapes me. And it'll escape you too. Wayne is also visited by a superhero from the future (possibly Nightwing? I don't know, he had a red eyemask on) in a borderline-exciting dream sequence that goes absolutely nowhere. The film is full of these kind of shoehorned plot lines that serve nothing other than to build towards the Justice League film, as if the only reason these films exist nowadays is simply to generate more films. Like a cloning experiment that's gotten horribly out of control. It makes for boring and bleakly depressing viewing.
In other news, whilst Superman is off getting hounded for being a weird alien who answers to no-one, Batman gets busy building a bastard-heavy suit to take him down with (Jeremy Irons' Alfred sits off for most of the film, uttering pointless asides as if he'd forgotten the cameras were rolling). Lex on the other hand ends up stood in a pool of alien water on-board the ship he took charge of. (again, I try and recall how/why he did this... no, nothing.) He forges a dead Zod with his own blood (?!) in some kind of funky Krypto-ritual, in order to create a deformed mutant creature to kill Superman with. He comically notes "It's your Doomsday" (one for the fanboys) when the thing comes to life right on cue, at which point Supes and Bats appear, having made friends after some serious cape-measuring (Batman's was bigger) in order to stand tall and kill this abomination together (I'm kidding of course - the real reason they make friends is because their mother shares the same name. Yes, really). Then Wonder Woman swoops in out of fucking nowhere and chips in with an outfit that really doesn't offer half as much protection as her male counterparts. The whole screen erupts in a cacophony of flames, debris, static and fury, a mindless orgy of (literal) nuclear-grade nonsense that leaves you cheering for precisely no-one whatsoever. It's absolute tedium on the grandest of big-budget scales.
As noted above, neither Batman or Superman actually 'win' in their much-hyped and hashtagged super-battle. That's because 'justice wins', obvs. In fact, the only real winner is the studio judging by the opening weekend box office takings. Money that will no doubt be ploughed into the ongoing experiment to produce more comic book films no matter what the cost, this particular batch being of the aforementioned 'dark' and 'dramatic' variety as a counterpoint to Marvel's primary-coloured bullshit.
I'd love to say we should be grateful for how the tide has turned, the superhero genre bubble on the verge of bursting when Iron Man was announced ("Iron who?" said the great unwashed), only for Ol' Shellhead to kickstart a socio-economic programme designed to punish an audience into submission with film after film the studios KNOW the public will pay to see, no matter where the quality bar is set (Spider-Man 3 = $890m; Age of Ultron = $1.4bn).
Though let it be said, I have no axe to grind here - my dissatisfaction is all-too recent. There's been plenty of fun times blasted out of the comic book cinema canon, not least of all the middle portion of Raimi's Spidey trilogy, which only serves to highlight what a studio-meddled mess the third film is. As an antithesis to said fun times (without actually losing the inherent sense of fun these films should have written into them by law), Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is for many the holy grail of how superhero cinema can and should be executed - treating the source material with respect, whilst at the same time raising the bar for a once-hokey genre to be compared with Mann's Heat and Coppola's Godfather saga.
Snyder on the other hand seems sadly intent on wiping all traces of fun from the screen, taking legendary characters and making them soulless ciphers, there to do naught except team up in one shot for fanboys to cream over. But surely said fanboys are now as disillusioned as I am with this whole affair. When the Avengers all slo-mowed into frame at the start of Ultron, it was the beginning of the end. As if this money shot is what we've all secretly been waiting for. Well you can stick your money shot, if this is what it adds up to. Poorly-written, scattershot cinema with no genuine heart and soul; just a churning, endless production line of uninspired, open-ended tripe that paves the way for another thousand films just like it.
Though let it be said, I have no axe to grind here - my dissatisfaction is all-too recent. There's been plenty of fun times blasted out of the comic book cinema canon, not least of all the middle portion of Raimi's Spidey trilogy, which only serves to highlight what a studio-meddled mess the third film is. As an antithesis to said fun times (without actually losing the inherent sense of fun these films should have written into them by law), Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is for many the holy grail of how superhero cinema can and should be executed - treating the source material with respect, whilst at the same time raising the bar for a once-hokey genre to be compared with Mann's Heat and Coppola's Godfather saga.
Snyder on the other hand seems sadly intent on wiping all traces of fun from the screen, taking legendary characters and making them soulless ciphers, there to do naught except team up in one shot for fanboys to cream over. But surely said fanboys are now as disillusioned as I am with this whole affair. When the Avengers all slo-mowed into frame at the start of Ultron, it was the beginning of the end. As if this money shot is what we've all secretly been waiting for. Well you can stick your money shot, if this is what it adds up to. Poorly-written, scattershot cinema with no genuine heart and soul; just a churning, endless production line of uninspired, open-ended tripe that paves the way for another thousand films just like it.
Now if you don't mind, I'm off to book my tickets for X-Men: Apocalypse and Captain America: Civil War. Might as well, eh.
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