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Friday, March 25, 2016

Batman V. Superman Dawn of FAIL- I TOLD YOU SO!



The reviews are in.


And the Critics are saying what I said about Batman V. Superman Dawn of Justice way back in my 2015 blog on the trailer.


It’s an absolutely terrible movie.


Warner Brothers Executives laid an egg just in time for Easter weekend. And it’s just as rotten as I told everyone it would be last year.


Critics are calling Batman V. Superman a dull dreary movie filled with uninspired visuals, angry characters, no personality and no heart. A film that uses CGI to overcompensate for its lack of story.


Everything I wrote in my previous blog last year.


It was clear to me that Warner Brothers has STILL learned NOTHING since Catwoman in 2004 after I saw the first Batman V. Superman trailer. They’re still applying the archaic model for films that hasn’t worked since Joel Schumacher’s terrible Batman films in the 1990’s.  


Batman V. Superman is yet another film that proves that WB STILL doesn’t know anything about making superhero movies. They’re still trying to apply a 1990s story model to superhero films that has been obsolete since 2002 when Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man changed the game.


And the game changed even further in 2008 when Paramount and Marvel Studios launched Iron Man. But Warner Brothers continues to apply the same dark and dreary approach to superhero movies that went out of style in 1997.


Warner Brothers and DC were way behind in the superhero movie race back during the Christian Bale Batman era. And now they’re about to be left in the dust. Probably permanently. At this point I think Valiant Comics has a better chance of catching up to Marvel Studios. Heck, I think SJS DIRECT will be catching up with Marvel Studios by the time Warner Brothers finally realizes they need to get their shit together.


Is there a FAIL more than EPIC? I think we’re about to find out.


With a bloated $400 million budget Batman V. Superman is a disaster the equal of Cleopatra. And with a half the comic fans staying home this weekend due to the split audience, it’s going to have a hard time at the box office.


Batman V. Superman needs to make $1.2 billion dollars in order to be profitable for Warner Brothers. And based on what’s on the screen, that ain’t gonna happen. With Cavill and Affleck acting like a pair of cardboard cutouts with cell phones taped to them, Jesse Eisenberg playing a Lex Luthor that’s totally out of character and Doomsday looking like something out of a PS1 game, this movie is gonna sink like a rock after opening weekend.


And it doesn’t help when you have stars like Ben Affleck telling the world on Good Morning America he can’t take his son to see a movie with Batman & Superman in it because it’s too violent.


That’s the kind of PR that’ll to cut into those movie ticket sales for opening weekend and the weekends after. Superhero movies are supposed to be made for kids. That’s how movies like The Avengers make a billion dollars at the box office. By being bright, fun pictures filled with friendly heroes parents enjoy bringing their kids to. The equivalent of a Disney or Pixar movie with guys in spandex instead of colorful characters.


But Warner’s executives insist that dark and gritty heroes are the way to go. That if Superman and Batman are brooding angry killers people will be excited to see their films. That there’s a huge market for an R-Rated Superman and Batman, the faces of family entertainment who have sold everything from soap to peanut butter for over 75 years.


Good Gravy, what are these Warner Brothers executives on?


As I stated in my 2015 blog about this cinematic turd waxed with polish, WB’s executive management needs to clean house from top to bottom at DC Comics and DC Comics film division. They need a new vision for their comics and their superhero films. Because the one they have right now hasn’t worked for two decades.  If they stay on this course and continue to make terrible overbudgeted superhero movies with no audience like Cyborg and Aquaman there may not be a Warner Brothers left standing in five years.


Batman V. Superman was supposed to be the Dawn of a new era of Superhero films at Warner Brothers. But it looks like it’s about to be the twilight of a dysfunctional era at DC Comics and for DC Comics films. If this film’s failure leads to more competent professionals working at DC pand in DC’s film division publishing their comics and adapting their properties that’s a good thing. Change has to come at DC’s offices in Burbank after the roasting this film is receiving. 


Again, if Warner Brothers is serious about getting DC’s superhero films division and comic publishing division in shape to compete with Marvel and Marvel Stuidos they can contact me on my Facebook page.

3 comments:

  1. I saw "Batman v. Superman" and I agree with everything you said. For DC/Warner Bros. to take what should have been a slam dunk and somehow mess it up shows it is clueless in how to make a quality superhero movie.

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  2. Spot on Shawn. I would recommend to everyone that instead of spending money on this trash, get a copy of the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated movie Superman/Batman World's Finest. It's this same story done right, by people who actually love and respect these characters.

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  3. To be fair, WB did have a nice run of films due to Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. I think that film's success led WB to go with the gritty and grim route, which unfortunately was the wrong tone to take with MoS. To be fair with MoS as well, I felt the representations of super powers were inventive and visually stunning. Sure the battle of Metropolis resembled the final battle of Alan Moore's Miracle Man, and Superman would never kill, but visually the film was stunning and the action was terrific.

    BvS was just a mess. Batman was essentially Frank Castle, if Castle were the scion of the Wayne fortunes. Nothing about this characterization was correct, from the psychotic dream sequences to the World's Greatest Detective going after Superman for the Battle of Metropolis even though he was there to see an alien race attacking Earth while watching Superman defend the planet as well.

    Snyder didn't have the guiding hand of Nolan this round, and since storytelling isn't his strong suit unless it's in a paint by the numbers style reminiscent of 300 and Watchmen, he was way out of his element, it's an inept film.

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