Waiting for Superman

Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, and Gal Gadot in Justice League. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

What makes the generally dire Justice League somewhat worth watching is Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot's fiery, intense warrior remains a delight to watch as she charges headfirst into a fight, sword and shield in hand ready to strike down the foes who oppose her. Aside from the satisfaction wrought from having Wonder Woman serve as the toughest character among a collection of super powered folks – a trait shared with the great Justice League animated show from the 2000s – Gadot gives the character a little charm to add a touch of humanity to her character. Some adaptations, for example recent video game entries, have centered her character on the character's warrior spirit they lose touch of the humanity that allows a god to embrace life among humans. DC has a good thing going with Wonder Woman, so it totally makes sense for the company to add a male version of her in the form of Jason Momoa's Aquaman. They’re effectively mirrors of each other, one serving to make the other moderately redundant. Because having a unique, distinguished female character is a step too far for DC, and Aquaman needs to do something besides speak to fish.

One way or another, DC can't get out of its own way when adapting its comic properties to film, which is the driving force of Justice League's failures. The decisions made in the filmmaking process by director Zack Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon are more often than not wrong, resulting in a disjointed, slight movie instead of the powerful blockbuster the company needs. This was DC's shot at a franchise centerpiece, and it fell remarkably short of achieving that goal.

The most fundamental flaw with Justice League is a story that feels incomplete, as if key components were removed to keep the run time at around two hours. The movie brings back Wonder Woman and Ben Affleck's Batman (who spends the movie being fairly useless among his powerful friends) from, but takes time out for the origins of new heroes Aquaman, Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and Flash (Ezra Miller). All three will get their own movies in the next few years, but they are new to this DC Cinematic Universe, and Justice League has to take time to introduce all three from scratch. The process is clunky, stealing time away from the save the world narrative while missing opportunities to understand the team dynamic. DC would have been better served properly introducing Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash in separate movies ahead of this one, as almost a third of this movie is devoted to introducing those three.

Cutting down on the new character introduction would then provide more time to focus on the aforementioned save the world story audiences came out to see. Justice League would benefit from additional time to flesh out an uninspiring, rote plot. Part of the issue is from the choice of villains – the alien Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciarán Hinds) is not a major DC villain, certainly not as intimidating as Darkseid or even a deranged Lex Luthor. Once the team of beings with godlike powers (and Batman) assembles, Steppenwolf's inevitable defeat becomes clear and anticlimactic. The build up of a grand battle to save the earth ends in an blasé fashion, concluded with neither of the movie’s two proud warriors, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, ending the battle with the killing blow.

If the plot feels a little familiar, that’s because Marvel already did it in The Avengers, although Marvel did a much more competent job. And it doesn’t take too close of a look to see where Snyder and crew lifted from other sources with small to no traces of shame. A flashback to a previous battle with Steppenwolf is formatted like a Lord of the Rings rip off. The bits about Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and the world losing hope after Superman's death (Henry Cavill) has elements of Ghostbusters II to it, and there’s a rather blatant rip off of Frankenstein. Throwing these elements together just makes the story feel weak, as if the writers weren’t confident in the path they chose for their superhero team.

The overarching vibe for Justice League is disappoint. Is this all DC has to offer for the most memorable superhero team of all time? A recycled plot with poor characterization is the best this company has to offer fans who've already been stuck with Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad and murderous interpretations of otherwise pacifistic heroes? None of this bodes well for the impending Justice League sequel and the rest of the onslaught of DC movies, so strap in for a bumpy ride.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 120 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: People who love DC Comics.

Take the whole family?: There's a lot of violence with minimal amounts of human blood, so for parents who are good with that this won't be too much for kiddos.

Theater or Netflix?: Really, really don't pay the extra money to see it.

What about the little things?: What irked me the most was how the little things kept getting messed up. Most notably is how every superhero calls each other by their real first names, no matter how close they are to, say, a group of cops or Bruce Wayne's employees. These heroes hide their identities for many, many reasons, and there's no way Batman would allow anyone to call him Bruce in open quarters.

Watch this instead?: Wonder Woman is the best of the recent DC Comics movie adaptation, although it still isn't that great. The Justice League cartoon from the 2000s is excellent, and the ongoing Justice League Action is pretty fun. If you do want to go out, just hit up Thor: Ragnarok and enjoy the madness that ensues.

Wonder Woman a flawed but solid superhero outing

Gal Gadot as the eponymous hero in Wonder Woman. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

Wonder Woman is by far the best DC film since Christopher Nolan wrapped up his Batman trilogy in 2012. Wonder Woman has a light touch with its take on the eponymous character and a willingness to have its main character thrive when throwing her fists through Germans and gods alike. But this is still a DC film, meaning it has the Zack Snyder-related DC problems that go along with some remarkable similarities to another superhero movie from a rival company.

At least Wonder Woman offers a livelier take on its source material than the rest of the super serious DC franchise. There are honest to goodness jokes in Wonder Woman, moments of designed levity with wordplay and even hints of fun goofiness every now and then. Director Patty Jenkins even allows for a little sunlight to shine on screen, using the brightness of Wonder Woman's (played by Gal Gadot) home island of Themyscira to contrast against the dour grey of the European landscape she eventually stumbles into. It's not quite as bright or funny as the average Marvel film, but it remains a refreshing change of pace and potentially a sign of lovelier days for DC films.

If only the narrative was as refreshing as the aesthetics. Told through a moment of reflection by Wonder Woman, aka Diana Prince, the movie tells a pretty straightforward origin story, starting with a stereotypical struggle between the character's mother (Connie Nielsen) and aunt (Robin Wright) over her future. There is the obvious love interest (to be fair, it is the effortlessly charming Chris Pine), a couple of stock Teutonic masterminds (Danny Huston and Elena Anaya), a helpful British gent (David Thewlis) and some fun and silly sidekicks (played by Lucy Davis, Saïd Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock and Ewen Bremner) around to keep things lively. There's also an armada of German villains to dispatch with; setting the movie during World War I allows for some convenient stock bad guys to dispense with. Remove the family and switch the gender and this is effectively Captain America: The First Avenger. Except it isn’t as good as Captain America: The First Avenger. Wonder Woman lacks either the devotion to the era or the moderate deconstruction of it First Avenger director Joe Johnston orchestrated with his movie. It's not necessarily a problem that Marvel did this story first; the issue is really that Marvel did it much better.

Wonder Woman does at least use its retread plot to address a few interesting themes, most notably focusing on the nature of humanity and how one maintains hope in the worst times. There's enough run time for Wonder Woman to go from naive to disillusioned to finding that balance between seeing the devils and angels that populate the human soul. The conversion from step two to step three is a little rushed – it takes place over the course of about 10 minutes during the third act – but it at least offers Wonder Woman a complete character arc to supplement some of her actions in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Everything comes together though in a less than fulfilling manner. The ideas Wonder Woman floats never come to a natural fruition, either being rushed by the screenwriters or abandoned as the movie progresses. The sequences occur in a staccato fashion with loose narrative threading but not enough to keep the movie tied together. Despite having nearly 150 minutes to tell an origin story, Wonder Woman still feel incomplete, eliding over key elements or just missing scenes that would tie up loose ends.

In other words, this is a DC film, and DC films can’t be complete works of their own but require sifting through the content edited out of the movie to provide the full picture.

It’s not the only flaw Wonder Woman shares with the rest of the DC series. The use of CGI is abundant in this movie, but the quality of it is at best mediocre and most frequently terrible. For some reason DC just cannot get the CGI right for fight scenes, resulting in a cartoon Wonder Woman fighting a god. Jenkins throws in her fair share of token slow motion shots that look cool at first but lose their appeal as the frequency increases (a fate suffered by Snyder movies). There’s also a rather lazy bit of writing toward the end of the movie that effectively undercuts Wonder Woman’s character growth, making it dependent less on the character’s internal growth and more on a trite relationship. Perhaps someday DC will learn from its mistakes, but for now it at least has one movie that comes close to being pretty good.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 141 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Audiences who have been waiting for a very long time for a comic book movie featuring a female protagonist, plus any Wonder Woman fanatics.

Take the whole family?: This is pretty violent, but the amount of blood is minimal and the innuendo is greater than what is on screen.

Theater or Netflix?: If you're going to see it in theaters, might as well go for the matinee and save a few bucks.

Do the Germans speak German?: In this movie they speak English in a German accent. It’s one of those weird movie quirks that always bugs me. It makes zero narrative sense for a German to speak English among other Germans. And it’s not like the accented English is replacing the Teutonic speech; the Germans still speak to the other characters in English using the same accent.

Watch this as well?: As mentioned above, Captain America: The First Avenger shares a lot with Wonder Woman. Catching up on a few episodes of the great Justice League animated series is always a good idea as well.

'Batman v Superman' gets almost everything wrong

Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." Image courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

To lift a line from Commissioner Gordon, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” is not the Batman and Superman film we need, nor is it really the one we deserve either. It represents what happens when a studio takes the Marvel formula (and this film is a vital cog in a Marvel rip off) and doesn’t understand how those pieces fit together to form a cohesive movie. “Dawn of Justice” strips away the qualities that have made the eponymous heroes so memorable, instead opting to turn these characters into hyper violent caricatures of themselves. “Dawn of Justice” fails its audience on almost every level, delivering a soulless flick directed by a man with nary a clue as to what to do with the characters he’s created.

That man is Zack Snyder, who has somehow found himself in charge of DC Comics’ three pivotal characters despite a legacy of mediocrity and hypocrisy as a director. “Dawn of Justice” is not his finest hour, a film with no rhythm and far too many little subplots chucked in despite a central plot that nowhere near justifies two and a half hours in theater. It’s clear Snyder and film writers David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio are setting up the impending “Justice League” franchise throughout “Dawn of Justice,” which is strange considering having Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in the same movie already accomplishes that feat.

The failures of “Dawn of Justice” as a film begin with those three, from the aforementioned pacing problems to some wonky dialogue to unimpressive special effects to burdensome dream sequences thrown in to make the film feel deep. The fact these dream sequences add little to the film besides precious minutes of our lives is not a factor Snyder, Goyer and Terrio appeared to consider. “Dawn of Justice” is also littered with plot holes and silly contrivances obvious enough to notice and mock while watching the film. Admittedly, those holes did offer the highest level of entertainment this film has to offer.

And then there’s the casting of the charmless Henry Cavill and the Ben Affleckian Ben Affleck as Superman and Batman, respectively. Cavill, who first donned the blue suit for “Dawn of Justice’s” precursor “Man of Steel,” lacks the inherent decency brought to the role by Christopher Reeve that provides some humility to what is otherwise a god. Without humility, you’re left with a cipher, a bland being whose most noteworthy features are a garish costume, laser beams, and the glasses he wears as a disguise. Affleck doesn’t offer much in the way of a performance as either Bruce Wayne or Batman, which is to be expected for the Affleck sibling better served behind the camera than in front.

Cavill and Affleck are so solemn in their performances it makes Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor even more flamboyant than expected. The Facebook founder appears to belong in a very different movie, taking Gene Hackman’s performance from the first two “Superman” flicks and adding even more scenery chewing to go along with very obvious hints at some level of autism. Everyone else is OK, with Holly Hunter underused as Senator Finch; Amy Adams stuck playing damsel in distress as Lois Lane; Jeremy Irons butles as Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred; Diane Lane worries as Martha Kent; and Gal Gadot doesn’t do a lot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, but just having Wonder Woman around is the best part of “Dawn of Justice.”

The cinematic issues for “Dawn of Justice” though are trumped by the decisions Snyder and his wrecking crew make to the characters themselves. It starts with the opening sequence that shows robber Joe Chill holding up Bruce, Thomas and Martha Wayne. Most versions have Thomas Wayne attempting to shield his family and negotiate with Chill, who shoots him in cold blood before murdering Martha as she screams. Snyder has Thomas Wayne attempt to attack Chill, who shoots Bruce's father out of self defense, then shoots Martha Wayne somewhat accidentally after she attacks him. The difference is minor on the surface, but it effectively inspires the more grotesque acts Affleck's Batman commits in this version and diminishes The Dark Knight's skills as a negotiator, as a hero who tries to avoid a violent confrontation when he can.

This version spreads throughout “Dawn of Justice,” with Batman wantonly murdering, shooting and even branding people out of cruelty. Batman as a character has very clear guiding principles developed not just through the death of his parents, but the strong influence of Alfred as a father figure and a nuanced understanding of justice rooted in his intellectualism. Snyder's version is a dolt who leaves the non-punching work to Alfred and gets duped into taking on a god. Then again, Superman isn't exactly all that brilliant either, and it's implied heavily that he is willing to murder if he deems it necessary. Like Batman, that contrasts greatly from a character who avoids acts of gratuitous violence when he can because he can at least empathize with humanity at some level and understands the horror he's capable of inflicting.

The psychopathic versions of the eponymous heroes comes to a head in an anticlimactic final act highlighted solely by the presence of Gadot's Wonder Woman. The big twist in the film is based on a very famous comic from the 90s featuring an iconic moment that Snyder, of course, fails to grasp. He misses the point of the exercise, the true danger of the villain the heroes battle against and the exhaustion the combatants face at that final draw. It's the biggest misstep in a film that spends 151 minutes going in the wrong direction.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 151 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: All of those people who've flocked to see “Avengers” movies in recent years, as well as Batman and Superman fans. In other words, everyone.

Take the whole family?: A lot of people die in this film, so I really wouldn't recommend this thing for kids. You'll take them anyway though, because this is a film with Batman and Superman.

Theater or Netflix?: Matinee if you really, really must.

Where does Ben Affleck rank as a Batman?: It really depends on how forgiving you are about George Clooney – he's tolerable given the circumstances in my view – but I would put Affleck at the bottom of the Batman hierarchy. My list goes Kevin Conroy (he voiced Batman in multiple TV series and video games), Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, Adam West, Val Kilmer, Clooney, Affleck.

Watch this instead?: The first two “Superman” films are still quite good, as are “Batman Begins,” “The Dark Knight,” and Tim Burton's first “Batman” flick. For anyone who wants to dive a little deeper, find episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” from the 1990s and the “Justice League” franchise that ran on Cartoon Network last decade.