The Batman Vs Superman In Depth Review YOU NEED

Spoilers ahead, and some profane language. I’m going in, no holds barred. I’m going to be making wild speculations that could be completely wrong or totally right. Comments will be open for dialogue for all of my fellow comic followers!
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Ok If you’re still here I’m assuming you’ve seen the movie OR you’re one of those strange hellspawn type individuals that like spoilers.

I’m going to take you through the stages that I watched this movie so that you, dear reader, can understand exactly where I’m coming from. A lot of “stuff and things” have been said about this film. So I’m going to try to filter it all out and get to the bottom of it all.

The Story

So the first 30 minutes were boring. We relive Bruce’s parents being killed. Interesting point here, Thomas Wayne attempts to punch the mugger. This doesn’t usually happen, and when it does it usually denotes some sort of, alternate universe. When it happened in Justice League, it was Batman’s favored reality brought upon by Mongul’s starfish creature. Now of course, this time he still loses, but this tiny change could be an indication of a fractured universe/timeline, especially since we see flash come through the speed verse specifically to tell Batman “you were right all along.” A clear allusion to the Flashpoint run, one of the biggest game changers in the DC universe. Brings about the new 52, changes hero origins, puts superman and wonder woman together, completely mishandles Static Shock. You know, the big stuff.

We were all disappointed bro.

Thomas Wayne’s fist clench initiated that whole line of thinking. Different universe, fractured timeline. Now the question is, what’s going on? Superman has already shown he’s willing to kill, Luthor threatens his mother, who, we’ve already seen what he did the LAST time that happened (Zod). So I’m thinking maybe Justice Lords? (more on that later)

Back to the movie. Lane goes to some desert in order to follow a story. Shit hits the fan, superman comes in and tackles a guy(presumably human) through two buildings, apparently that doesn’t kill him, or it does, whatever who cares at this point, everyone’s dying. And that’s the point. The next scene an African woman who was there describes in detail to the US Senate, the horror she felt when seeing him come down from the heavens, bringing his wrath.

This whole time Lex Luthor is discovering a giant piece of kryptonite and figuring out how to use it.  While, as usual he has legitimate concerns about a seemingly all-powerful being operating under no one’s laws or supervision, his plan to handle it is devious and flat-out evil.

The movie gets a bit confusing (ok a lotta confusing) if you don’t follow the comics and or TV shows at this point. Dream sequences are thrown in apparently willy-nilly and are not explained at all. The desert scene with Batman would seem completely nonsensical. It actually made me angry how completely out of the loop the writers and directors left the  casual film goer. Batman is tricked into believing the kryptonite is in the truck, they turn on him killing everyone. Batman starts fighting, takes a gun, starts shooting. As all of this fighting is going on all of a sudden from the sky, Mosquito men come down.

(Ok I always called them that since I was a child, but I was informed by Lord Darkseid himself they are called parademons).

Get it right

But anyway, ALIENS COME DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS. With no explanation. Batman is knocked out and wakes up to Superman killing two of his comrades.  Then he wakes up again and is in front of his batcomputer and Flash comes through the speed force to tell him “Batman you were always right about him.”

WTF kinda fevered ass dream was that? If you don’t know about justice lords, Darkseid, Apokolips, AND Flashpoint you’re gonna be completely in the dark. Reason one why I can understand a lot of people giving this movie bad reviews. You shouldn’t have to have prior knowledge of 3 separate timelines in order to “get” a film.

A great part of the movie is the bombing scene. Where the Senator slowly realizes her tea is “granny’s sweet peach tea”, and allusion to an earlier conversation she had with Lex, the bomb goes off right after, leaving superman the lone survivor in the building.

Batman breaks into Luthor’s building and steals the Kryptonite, of course, he meets Wonder Woman there. Her role is pretty small, but opens the door for the Justice League to form.

Anyway following some great fight scenes with Batman, and some Messiah like scenes with Superman, it’s time for the final battle.

The hardest thing to write, I believe, must’ve been that fight. But I give all the kudos here. It was extremely well done. Full disclosure, I’m a Batman fan so I know why Superman fans are mad but go ahead and take the losers cape so you can be super mad at this. Batman beat his ass. At one point Bats LITERALLY DRAGS HIM. Now I don’t say this often, but at that point I was like YES DRAG HIS ASS!

The way the fight goes, it’s clear that Batman had the upper hand the entire time. He knew they’d end up at the bottom, right where he’d planted the spear (why a spear, idk, probably something about Jesus).

The fight was a great battle and showcases the difference between the two, brute strength vs skill. The fight ends right about here–

The only thing that stops Batman from killing Superman, is Superman begging for the life of his mother. As she happens to share the same name as Bruce Wayne’s mother, he pauses. It’s an extremely thin thread but they hang the plot twist of “let’s be friends” on it.

While Batman is saving Martha, Superman is watching Lex birth Doomsday. Strange that he let Luthor sit there and talk when he could’ve stopped him…

There’s a giant battle between Superman, Doomsday, and Wonderwoman. It’s a flashy battle with of course, lots of CGI. But It gets the point across I suppose.

Superman sacrifices himself to kill Doomsday which I suppose solidifies his “good guy” status with Wayne because he seems kinda torn up about it. The movie ends at Superman’s funeral. Bruce is talking to Diana(Wonder Woman) about starting the Justice League. Dirt begins rising from Clark’s tomb indicating that, of course, he isn’t really dead.
Which brings up a problem because Clark Kent has been declared dead as well, though his death was regulated to a back page of the Daily Planet. Won’t it be weird if he comes back as soon as Superman does?

Waaaaiit a minute…

All in all there were a lot of allusions to the comics…but that’s really a double-edged sword here. On the one hand, a lot of it was unfair to expect a casual film goer to understand. In the context of the dream sequence it was not explained, which was the problem with that. But some things like the weaponized Kryptonite gas, needed no explanation, but Frank Miller fans immediately recognized it. The line when the bad guy is saying “I’ll kill her!” and batman says “I believe you.” Classic, pulled straight from the comics and animated film. That kind of homage shows the respect and dedication that these people had to this film.

Themes and Philosophy

Woven intricately throughout the entire film are several intense questions.
What makes a hero? What makes a deed heroic? What is bravery? Is it saving a life?
If all it takes for you to save a life is you pressing a button and you have no consequence, are you a hero or merely a decent living creature with bare minimum empathy?
It’s always been an interesting theme to me and I’m glad they explored it here. What makes someone like Superman good or bad? If he sees a mugging and doesn’t help is he bad now? He has literally no risk associated with helping, so does that make him responsible? If so, his hearing has been demonstrated to be so strong that he can hear things around the world. So, is the only responsible thing for him to do is to sit in a chair listening all day? Because if he doesn’t, surely he will miss something and someone will die because he wasn’t paying attention. And wouldn’t that technically be his fault?

I smoke to dull the pain of all of my failures.

“I’m worried I didn’t see it, because I wasn’t looking.” This hints that he may start his plan of bugging and watching everyone. Locking up anyone he deems suspicious or dangerous seems like the logical end to his current thinking. Which kind of takes away people’s lives and free will.

How about collateral damage?

So many people died in that fight with Zod. You saved the world, great, but there were times where you literally threw him through buildings which subsequently fell, killing and endangering even MORE people. It was great to see the ramifications of his actions there as well. Far too often it’s seen as “The good guy saved the day, the end.” But in this world of hardcore politicians, policies, and ever-changing structures, like they say in the movie “every action is political.” It’s never over. As Friedrich Nietzsche poses in the book Beyond good and evil, nobody is all good, or all evil. So, if Superman does even one thing bad, with his powers…what is that bad thing and how many people does that wipe out?

One of my favorite lines is “You aren’t brave, Men are brave.” It’s said in the midst of the big fight, but it’s poignant and necessary in the argument of who is better, Batman or Superman. Again, Supes has little to no risk associated with his “acts of heroism.” So for instance, when Bruce Wayne ran and saved that little girl from the collapsing rubble, he could’ve died.
That was heroic. That was brave. He put his life on the line.
For superman to do that? It’s laughable to call that heroic. I mean, it’s nice but, it’s clearly not the same thing. Another juxtaposition that, while isn’t back to back, is there in the film.

Superman does literally nothing to achieve his powers. He wakes up and he’s a chiseled, super strong, sonic boom flying, son of a krypton. In the film they show how hard Batman pushes himself in the gym BIG UPS to Ben Affleck properly conditioning himself to do that scene. Phenomenal work man.
And therein lies the true, huge difference.
Batman has mentally and physically pushed himself to the limit in order to become a person who CAN be a hero, Superman just has to get out of bed and passes judgement.

As Doctor Ian Malcolm once said-
“I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it.”
In the context of Superman it’s, you didn’t earn the power for yourself, so where’s your sense of responsibility? Clark Kent wields his power as if the only thing he can do wrong is NOT catch someone. In this film Batman sees this danger and goes to take care of it.
Because in this world, Superman, is a God. And what kind of God gives his people free will knowing they will suffer countless atrocities for it? The kind that wears a lab coat or a sweater and takes notes while silently judging you sure… But definitely not the kind that wears a cape and desires your love and acceptance.

A good point that Superman does bring up (as Clark Kent) is the fact that Batman has been hitting underprivileged areas hard, and because of this he believes the Daily Planet isn’t covering his attacks. Especially the act of branding that he’s been doing that is essentially a death sentence for prisoners. Batman’s “in the dark” methods stray greatly from Superman’s more “boyscout” style. However in this movie, both heroes are a bit more grim, and more willing to hurt people so, each character calling out the moral failings of the other are a bit muddy.

Overall

There are many reasons to hate this movie, but I’m already past 2000 words so I figured, I’d just talk about it in general. There are characterization issues mostly, and they just stopped the entire movie for an email attachment to tease Justice League, which could’ve been handled far better. Dream sequences all over the place with no real transitioning. A couple of the redundant plot holes like why would you let the bad guy press a button when you have super speed…
But overall though, the movie was fun and intelligent. They may have overextended themselves, but the message is still there. In the next films they won’t be trying to do so much outside of the main feature. So it should be a bit more put together. I’m look forward to seeing what comes next from DC.

Thanks for reading!

Batman Vs Superman: Spoiler Free Review!

The biggest showdown in comic history. Bigger even, dare I say, than Civil War(Let’s be fair this is just two guys, marvel had to get literally every single hero they ever made in order to generate this type of buzz). These are the two titans that literally started DC comics. Superman and Batman. The light, and the dark. Who would win?

There’s been controversy about this film since the moment it was announced. For instance, when the news first broke that Ben Affleck would be playing Batman comic nerds everywhere had a collective sphincter clinch. Even I wrote an article about the stages the announcement sent me through. Rest assured though, after viewing this film it is clear that he learned from his past failure as Daredevil. He holds his own as The Dark Knight and his performance is one of the best parts of this film.

Now setting aside my love of comics and watching as just a casual film goer, this film is all over the place and makes minimal sense for the entire first, oh I’d say 35 to 40 minutes. Random dream sequences were forced in there (with no context for people who don’t follow the comics) for seemingly no reason. Honestly I’m still trying to figure out where the dreams ended and the real scenarios began. All of this mess happens extremely slowly as well.

It’s really the pacing that works against this film as opposed to acting or plot. Henry Cavill reprises his role as Superman/Clark Kent and does a phenomenal job. Jesse Eisenberg was an interesting casting choice for Lex Luthor. He brings a sort of…psychotic twitchiness that fans aren’t used to from Lex. He’s usually a calm, collected individual. Charming and totally in control…until superman foils his plans, THEN he loses it. This version of Luthor has none of the charm, but all of the ruthless intelligence…and a whole lot more hair. But his socially awkward persona makes sense in the overall scope of this movie.

All in all here’s the low down. Ben was better than Bale(I said it, fight me). Jesse wasn’t better than Spacey(even though Returns in general was awful) but he was still pretty good. The fight sequences for Batman were far better choreographed and much more exciting than in the Nolan films. I can’t stress that enough. He actually threw a kick or two, you know, like a real martial artist would. The lead up to the big showdown was rather bland and sometimes confusing, but after those first 30 minutes it was great. Overall a really fun movie and a great set up for Justice League.

I’m giving it 4 stars on a curve. The curve being, it’s a set up movie, it didn’t try overly hard to be something it wasn’t, and it delivered beautifully on one of the biggest fights in comic book history.

Directed by	Zack Snyder
Produced by	Charles Roven Deborah Snyder
Written by	Chris Terrio David S. Goyer
Based on	Characters published by DC Comics
Starring	Ben Affleck Henry Cavill Amy Adams Jesse Eisenberg Diane Lane Laurence Fishburne Jeremy Irons Holly Hunter Gal Gadot
Music by	Hans Zimmer Junkie XL

Thanks for reading!  I’ll be making a more in depth Spoiler FILLED review soon because I really feel this movie deserves a real digging into, so stay tuned!

How DC can optimize their upcoming film list easy as 123

This past week DC released their list of upcoming movies.

2016: Suicide Squad (directed by David Ayer)
2017: Wonder Woman (starring Gal Gadot)
2017: Justice League Part One (directed by Zack Snyder)
2018 The Flash (starring Ezra Miller)
2018: Aquaman (starring Jason Momoa)
2019: Shazam
2019: Justice League Part Two (directed by Zack Snyder)
2020: Cyborg (starring Ray Fisher)
2020: Green Lantern

That’s a pretty intense list. I mean I’m geeking out about Suicide squad, that’s going to be quite the gritty action movie. Let’s take a look at the lessons they should learn from their OLD films and see how they can apply these hard learned lessons to their future releases.

3. Steel – Casting

Several things were wrong with this film(obviously). But for the sake of this article, let’s go with casting. Now it’s 2014 so I’m pretty sure they wont be casting any pro ball players in major roles, HOWEVER the lesson to be learned here is not to cast purely on numbers. See what Hollywood loves to do is test an actor’s name with audiences. The actor with the most positive response likely gets the role. This doesn’t always work, sometimes it’s best to look at someone with little or no name. If they need a refresher course for that they can look at that last green lantern movie.

2. Diversify

Tell me this doesn’t aggravate your soul

Yes, diversify.  John Stewart is the tough as nails Ex-Marine and sometimes ladies man Green Lantern. If you were born in the late 80s early 90s that was your first Green Lantern. The animated series have a LOT of weight regardless of what the “purist comic book fans” would have you believe. Most people are introduced to the comics via the animated series, and according to the animated series, John Stewart was the Green Lantern who helped found the Justice League.

 

*Backstory From 2001-2006 he was showcased on television with the justice league show, justice league unlimited, static shock, and appearances in video games. At one point Common was even cast to play him in a film adaptation but the WGA strike pushed it back and they switched it to Hal Jordan for unknown reasons. *Backstory ends

Why go with a character that your target demographic doesn’t know? Especially when diversifying your film actually makes you money and you ALREADY EXPOSED EVERYONE TO THAT CHARACTER. Anyway DC fix this mess.

1. Writing

I will never let this go.

Lest we forget the original Justice League of America made for tv movie. Pretty much terrible in every way possible when it comes to writing.

Now on the other hand they are using a great writer to headline most of these films. But as great as David Goyer has been for you guys, can he get a break? I mean…seriously he’s done all the Batman films, Man of steel AND signed on for the next one. He’s doing the Justice League movie…He’s going to be completely tapped out!
This time let’s try not to make these soooo “kid friendly” I mean, granted DC can be the boy scouts of the comic world at times…but suicide squad NEEDS to be rated R.

Well that’s the 123 of it, here’s hoping for great releases for all of the films. Really looking forward to Cyborg, Wonder Woman, and of COURSE Batman Vs Superman (still salty about Affleck)

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely

Wiseguy Industries.

the SPOILER FREE REVIEW PRESENTS: Justice League Flashpoint

I’m back! In the time that I’ve been gone a lot has happened, I shot a part of my webseries pilot, I finished a feature-length post apocalyptic screenplay, I watched Flashpoint, and last but not least…I got my computer fixed! (duh)

All of that other stuff you will see in time but today let me tell you about the DCAU adaptation of “FLASHPOINT”

PLOT

So it all starts off with Flash as a kid talking with his mother. Later he comes home to find his mother dead. “Flash Forward” (see what I did there?) Flash is fighting basically the main characters in his rogue gallery. These guys…they’re pretty weak… I never really liked his rogue gallery but I digress. Flash barely wins after anti-flash shows up, and then only with the help of the Justice League.  Afterwards he’s so upset he just starts running, right into a lot of craziness. The next thing we know the DC Universe has been turned upside down, there is no FLASH, villains are heroes, heroes are villains, Superman is nowhere to be found and Cyborg takes his place as the boy scout.

Flash has basically stumbled into a “what if” universe for DC. Things have changed and it is very interesting to say the least. The world is in the middle of a war that threatens to destroy life as we know it. The only one who knows what is really going on, is Flash but at the moment he has no powers.  So we get to watch Flash figure this whole thing out.

RATING

Get ready!

3 stars. Bear with me because I know this movie has been talked about for forever. It stayed very close to the source material that’s not my gripe. There were certain aspects that weren’t developed enough. It was too short for one. All of those different elements converging deserved more time to have the story told. The batman storyline for one, the superman storyline was woefully underwritten to the point of ludicrousness. I wish I had more quality time with the Joker and all of the villains. The story was nice I just needed more. So for that it gets 3 out of 5. I would watch it again but only if i didn’t have anything to do. Its interesting but it leaves me wanting to find out more about the characters that  could have been shown easily (especially since they resorted to flashbacks anyway).

Thanks for reading! I’ll be making a video for the Spoiler FILLED review! Stay tuned!

Sincerely

Brian Bell-Wiseguy Industries

uh oh

quick fly away!

Don’t look!

Cain the Conqueror Kickstarter Project! Brand New Superhero!

Wiseguy comics cain press release intro change

The Direction of DC and hollywood aka the Goyer/Nolan effect

If you’ve been living under the largest rock in the world for the past 20 years, or with one of those tribes that don’t allow other humans to get close enough to give them cable television.

We don’t care how many channels you have! There’s still nothing good on!

Then you know that comic book movies have really exploded, there are several of them that come out every year. Whether they are based on a comic book or a graphic novel or a combination of both (Dark knight rises), the comic book genre and Hollywood are now inextricably linked. Which is very interesting as the comic book movies made in the 80s and 90s sucked, I mean completely sucked. For evidence I give you the 90s captain america, dr strange, the punisher, Justice League, Nick Fury: Agent of shield and the little known and never released but somehow on youtube 90s Fantastic Four.

However in 1998 they decided to give David S Goyer another shot at this comic book live action gig(he wrote Nick Fury: agent of shield), and he penned the script for Blade. Blade starred Wesley Snipes at the height of his marketability and fame and did so well that it completely kicked off a new wave of movies. The dark comic book movie brought to the screen. It was the perfect set up for it actually, vampires, action, those things really transcend comics and can reach over to the regular movie goers. With Goyer’s amazing script this movie became the blueprint for all future comic book movies to follow including X-men, Iron man, superman returns etc. It also ushered in an age of acceptance and respect for comic book movies.

Mr. Goyer went on to write the rest of the Blade trilogy and then famously penned the script for Batman Begins. Teaming up with Christopher Nolan they completely reinvented the origin story and gritty reboot. This movie is beloved by casual movie goers and hardcore batman fans alike. There may be someone who doesn’t like it, but I haven’t found him.

WHERE IS HE???

This lead to the Dark Knight which IS the greatest Batman film of all time and I will not hear a WORD against it. Just the opening scene alone was enough to make me pass out from geek overload. THAT is how you introduce a villain. It also led to the best comic book video game ever created with the Arkham series. You may begin to see a pattern and that is what I am discussing today.

You see talent is hard to come across in Hollywood, not to say that there is a LACK of it there, but I’m saying its hard to come across, I’ll explain. It’s not an agent’s/producer’s job to find NEW talent, it’s his job to make the company money. So new people aren’t really what they are looking for, they are looking for a track record of making money. Much like how job searching today goes, you look and see they want someone with 3 years experience for a job but you can never get the job because…well you can’t get hired without three years of experience. It’s a whirlwind of aggravation to be sure and Hollywood you can see the result right there on the screen. The same people are making everything, the same people are acting in everything, they have their stable of actors and writers and now everything looks the same. Nobody new is getting in which means everything’s a remake or at the least a cheap rip-off of something that someone who is actually creative made in the first place. So they found a creative person in Goyer, he somehow slipped through the cracks and now he’s their go to guy for every single superhero, video game movie, as is Nolan. This is what I call the Goyer/Nolan effect, when you create something good in Hollywood they will leach your brain until they get every penny it can produce.

C’mon I know you’ve got something for Dr strange in there…

So now that the audiences have shown they want superheroes and they want dark. Hollywood says they want Goyer/Nolan! (nothing wrong with that they are very talented). Now everything looks dark, now everything is just a little different, and now we see the problem, they start trying to do things like them without them. Now the movies are FLOODED with dark, dingy, wannabe movies like Green lantern that just don’t work because that’s not really the character. This is pushing more and more people to independent films and outlets. The film festivals have been exploding lately, as have other outlets that promote indie films such as Netflix. Apparently the big movie studios are going to keep throwing more money into remakes and being safe until the movie going populace wises up and stops going to them. When that happens I believe what Spielberg said is true. They won’t try to make better movies, they’ll just up the prices and keep the movies they do make in theaters for a year.

That’s fine with me, gives me more chances for my films to be seen by greater audiences. However the Goyer/Nolan effect is taking great effect on DC. DC has long been known for their unwillingness to flinch when it comes to certain things about their characters. They even released a Mortal Kombat game with no real fatalities.

All he did was drill him into the ground? But where was the BLOOOD

Now clearly they are willing to change origin stories and things about the characters they never would have before. Which could lead to a better DC but they walk a thin line of treading into Marvel territory. DC and Marvel have always been two different entities when it comes to characters. DC has had the more “SUPERhero” the over powered, high morals, and huge stars. Marvel has always been darker and more real. Both takes on the superhero have their merits but fans of DC and Marvel love them for these differences. DC is getting darker but I believe that they will be able to pull it off because they have gotten Guillarmo Del Torro to write and direct a film starring the lesser known but darker DC characters.

All in all the next few years in Hollywood should be interesting, but as much as I love comics…can I please get something a little different?

Man of Steel Spoiler Free Review!

So today I got up early and went uptown to see the new superman movie “Man of Steel.” Now a little history has to be said first when it comes to this review. I am not the biggest superman fan, I feel he’s overpowered to the point of ridiculousness and I know how hard it is to make a movie with a character like that. That being said DC has done a  great job humanizing him through his character and his relationship with the most human of all the superheroes, Batman.

That being said with all the hype surrounding this movie and the fact that Snyder and Nolan helmed it made me pretty excited to see where they would go with it. I wondered how much they’d pull from the dark knight trilogy. The answer obviously was quite a bit. From the official name “Man of Steel” to the darker tone of the entire movie, we are treated to a superman tale that was never before told.

The movie begins on Krypton that is falling apart. (That’s not a spoiler you can see that from the trailers!) Russel Crowe plays Jor-El father of Kal-El (superman) and he plays him quite well. The Krypton they show is not the one you grew up with with golden cities and bright skies. This Krypton is dangerous, the type of place that would have people with a tougher physique such as Superman. They introduced the social climate and political structure of Krypton more than I had ever seen before and the action sequences right from the beginning are intense and quite on point.

They went sci-fi with this movie. In fact the entire movie, not just on Krypton but on Earth as well, I felt was a sci-fi flick. Aliens invading searching for another alien, sometimes I felt I wasn’t even watching Superman which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. On one hand superman fans love their boy scout on the other where we come in at in this movie he’s not quite there yet.

The fight scenes in this movie are a little over the top, which kinda works the first time  you see it until you think about what’s actually going on. Without giving too much away I’ll just say think of the animated series fights and you’ll get the idea.

The only gripe I had was with the cutting back and forth between ages, it was done a little choppily and left me feeling out of sorts in some places.

Overall this was a fun movie and the best they could have done with a Superman movie. There were great glimpses of Krypton, great performances, huge shocks, and great direction. The fight scenes were huge and over the top and the villain was well written. The rumor is that they’ll be putting out another movie in 2014 which is shockingly fast. Jasmyne suggested a Lex Luthor/Brainiac crossover which I completely agree with.

 

This gets 4.5 out of 5 stars great movie only thing holding it back was the telling of the story in the beginning. Its a summer blockbuster, sci fi, action movie to the core and It’s a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend going to see it.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Brian Bell-Wiseguy Industries