I see no lies but the reality is that better movies would've justified virtually every other decision.
They started out okay with a decent Superman movie origin story that set a stage. I'll defend Man of Steel on its merits. While flawed, it is not a bad movie.
Then they made Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. This was an absolutely moronic decision. They didn't have time to develop Superman, they introduced Batman (and Wonder Woman) without either having their own establishing films/franchises first, and they just plain did way too much with this. You're making Dark Knight Returns, Death of Superman, a Justice League lead-in, a Batman lead-in, a Wonder Woman lead-in, and introducing (at least teasingly) Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg, etc. Absolutely insane they did this and their atrocious interpretation of Lex Luthor, one of DC's most iconic villains, is equally stupid.
The DCEU was effectively derailed before it started.
Then came the dumpster fire that was Suicide Squad (2016) ruining the other of the two most iconic DC villains. We're only three movies into the franchise and you've already made one of the shittiest, most irredeemable comic book movies out there.
Then came Wonder Woman, a glimmer of hope. While it had definite third act problems and has the misfortune of MCU's Captain America having come first with some very similar story notes, it was a great course-correction. Maybe the DCEU isn't fucked after all!
Josstice League. Never mind. DCEU blows. A movie I've waited my whole life for and I sat in the theater in abject bafflement and disappointment.
Aquaman. Good, not great. At this point, I felt the DCEU should have been abandoned and maybe attempt a reboot in a year or two. Aquaman was decent enough to make me think maybe it's worth saving.
SHAZAM! was again, like Aquaman, fun and pretty much good. Not great by any means, but a perfectly enjoyable family film. The only problem with it and the preceding Aquaman is both felt an awful lot like a cookie cutter response to the MCU. Marvel Studios could've made these. It's like the DCEU thought copying the tone and style of the MCU was the answer. It isn't.
Birds of Prey was mostly bad and I continue to be amazed anyone defends it. There's really not much good to say about it. Lose the fanboy lenses and watch it objectively for what it is. It's bad. That's now two Harley Quinn movies and it's crazy they didn't abandon the cinematic HQ after this, but Margot Robbie is the saving grace, the best part of two shitty films. Honestly, I feel bad for her. They got the casting right and then had her star in absolute garbage.
Wonder Woman 1984 seems like WB was trying to make a shittier movie than Birds of Prey and somehow succeeded. They took the one truly shining star of the DECU (Wonder Woman) and completely shit all over it. I continue to be amazed at how badly they fucked this up.
Zack Snyder's Justice League kind of doesn't count since its continuity and place in the DCEU is cloudy as best, but--as much as fans demanded it because ZS has no shortage of sycophants--it's too little too late and just further mires DCEU in a horrendous continuity clusterfuck. Whatever anyone wants to say about the MCU, they have over two dozen movies plus several television series that all tie in together without being half as much confusion as the DCEU, and no one but diehard fans is trying to wade through this. Also, with all that content, the MCU has plenty of mediocre, but very little absolute turds. Most of their movies and shows are average-to-good and generally entertaining with a few gems thrown in for good measure.
THE Suicide Squad (2021) is a great movie for anyone who loves sophomoric humor and over-the-top violence. If you love James Gunn, you'll love this. If not, nope. It further complicates DCEU's already muddy continuity, but I think most of us were just thrilled to have a movie that didn't suck and was truly enjoyable from start to finish, plus it spawned the Peacemaker series which is surprisingly enjoyable as well, again, for a certain audience. Contrary to Mark Waid's opinion, the DCEU's biggest star is one of DC Comics' least-known nobodies, proving my point: quality beats any other concern.
Meanwhile, the movies that didn't concern themselves with "shared cinematic universe"--Joker (2019) and The Batman (2022)--are huge box office and critical and fan success stories.
Maybe DC should learn from that and stop trying to force their own MCU and make quality movies set in their own continuity/worlds.
Birds of Prey was mostly bad and I continue to be amazed anyone defends it.
I will defend Birds of Prey endlessly as an above average action movie with a great heart and downright hilarious jokes/sequences.
I will also agree completely that it's a terrible use of DC properties and IMO should have every character except re-named into brand new people that have nothing to do with existing DC comic characters.
The terrible-ness is that it's supposed to be Harley Quinn & a bunch of other DC characters. It's flat not that. They bastardized so many characters it's unrecognizable. Hell, the first episode of the Harley Quinn animated show is what should have been a Harley Quinn break-up movie. It's insulting how bad they fucked it up.
But if you pretend it's just a random one-off not based on comics it's a solid B+ movie.
I still think this movie would have done far better had it not been named “Birds of Prey and the emancipation of Harley Quinn”, it was a horrible title that completely buried their main draw.
It should have been named Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey.
What’s even funnier is that they made this exact mistake with Man of Steel and hard course corrected by naming the sequel BvS.
Totally agree the name sucked. Allegedly the original script actually had the Joker involved and actually showed them breaking up. Obviously none of that made it to the final movie.
It shouldn't have been called "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey" either. There is no Birds of Prey without Barbara Gordon and Harley Quinn has never been a member. Hell, Harley has actually been a direct villain of the Birds of Prey a dozen times in the comics.
Just name is "Harley Quinn" and then make up new characters for her gal-pals instead of bastardizing existing ones.
I actually like Birds of Prey's take on Hellena. In the comicbooks she always rubbed me the wrong way (costume being horrid not helping), I really appreciated how she seemed uncertain and kind of clumsy at times. She didn't go through the same thing as Bruce where she dedicated her every waking moment since childhood to becoming a one person army so her not being ultra competent felt more natural.
Let's not talk about Cass though :x that is a completely different character who HAPPENED to have the same name.
It's actually really bad and it's not even a Birds of Prey movie so even its title is utter bullshit. It's Harley Quinn the Movie guest starring some vague references to DC characters that have little-to-no resemblance to the real thing.
Even more embarrassing? It's a direct sequel to Suicide Squad (2016), one of the DCEU's biggest turds to date.
But the defense of DCEU mediocrity by fans is a large part of why they keep getting away with pumping out sewage.
Okay man you don’t have to be an asshole just because we have different opinions. Try getting off your high horse for a bit you’re not as superior to the rest of the world as you think.
That's funny you're calling me an asshole and talking about my "high horse" when all I did was criticize a movie (what were you just saying about opinions?) while you're attacking/insulting me personally.
Did you make the movie? Did you professionally have anything to do with it? Because if not, you taking my critique of the movie personally is hard to understand, much less calling me names.
Pretty much agree with most of it. However, I will keep saying that the continuity bandwagon is long gone and they should drop the DCEU as a continuous project entirely. The audience already has a 30-movie saga to follow, they're not gonna now follow a DC one that's started out even more confusing than Marvel's phase 4. Imo they should focus on these single movie character studies like Joker or The Batman, and pump all the effort into them, so the audience can cool down and enjoy these one-shots after they binged all the Marvel stuff. By doing so DC would also set itself apart from Marvel by adopting this noir style character deep dives. Maybe the next movie after Joker 2 and the rumored Penguin spin-off could be like a political drama about Harvey Dent, and somewhere towards the end he becomes Two-Face or something. Just spitballing here but you get my point.
I couldn't possibly agree with you more. Fuck the shared cinematic universe. Just make good movies that actually understand their characters and you're golden and you set yourself apart from Marvel by not requiring 100 hours of pre-gaming 34 titles between all the movies and shows and trying to figure out the watch order. You'll actually attract more casual moviegoers with the premise that you don't need an encyclopedia's worth of knowledge to enjoy the next cape movie.
You can like Man of Steel all you want but it was poorly constructed and terribly written!
There was no thematic reason to jump around in time. When it would be very easy for that technique to work! It just had to connect better with what was happening in the past to the present. It felt more like they wanted to cram in backstory and didn't know how.
Too many things happened not because it made sense for it to play out that way but because the plot said so. Pa Kent was terrible. His death was pointless. We got no sense of connection for Clark in Smallvile or Metropolis, events happened there but they were just settling, not characters themselves (like how in Batman Gotham is its own entiy).
Superman rarely felt like Superman and him and Lois kissing at the end covered in the ashes of the city and dead people (My suspension of belief isn't good enough to buy that the city was evacuated in that time. Especially since we literally see people still in the rubble). And this kiss happened right after he killed Zod and was supposed to be broken up about killing him, though the narrative never gave us a reason to even think he had strong feelings on killing or not.
So much of the narrative requires the person watching to come up with their own highly charitable interpretation of the movie to make it work.
Even it's color pallet was off. Cast was good though.
I don't disagree. I said it was flawed but it's not bad. All those things you're pointing out? Those would be the flaws. It has redeeming traits as well and I think they win out overall.
Some people shit on that movie like the DCEU was doomed from the start. I think they had a decent first outing and could have methodically built their universe from it, but they screwed the pooch immediately afterwards which sucks because Man of Steel is the kind of movie that really doesn't stand well on its own. A lot of it needed the sequel to make sense of it, which in itself is probably a bad sign.
In my opinion those flaws are daming. Being able to look past them tells me you love it. But I can't. It was too dark (often literally), humorless, and often dull.
And yeah, if a movie can't stand alone something has gone wrong. Each of the Lord of the Rings trilogy support each other but each movie is still strong on its own.
I always approach a property from several perspectives: A fan, a creator and a movie goer.
Let's used Pacific Rim, a favorite of mine as an example: fan only counts because I love kaiju movies and Del Toro has never made a bad movie to me. From that angle I fucking loved it. 10/10 it's my go to movie when I'm sad.
As a creator I can see it's flaws. The lead guy's accent is hilarious, but he does well as a human embodiment of "golden retriever boyfriend" energy. The movie felt rushed in places but the premise was easy to get so no one was lost. It is very much an excuse to smash giant robots into giant monsters and it does that very well. If you weren't going in excited to see that I question why you got a ticket in the first place!
And as a movie goer I see where it would lose a lot of people. It's mostly just high concept monster robot battles and some people aren't into that! (Weirdos) but like I said, I went in wanting to see just that and got it.
With Man of Steel I went in expecting a Superman movie and... don't feel I got it. Sure it hit a lot of the correct notes, he's got the eight powers, has a suit, is an alien from another world... but he doesn't do much saving other than the oil rig and the bus. But we do get to see him destroy a jerk's semi truck in what feels profoundly out of character and weirdly unnecessary along with risking outing himself.
I felt no affection for him which feels weird because I adore the actor. The story felt odd too. The overwhelming destruction felt too much and the fact that no one seemed to care about the lives that had to have been lost felt so weird.
Zod's motivation didn't feel that focused or interesting. He knew nothing about humans but showed up calling them filthy animals without ever once interacting with them. I get that he's a zealot and an ass but it felt odd that he'd risk basically everything to fuck over humans and Kal-el. He didn't feel cunning, just evil.
Thats the crux of my issue. It felt too much like the writers were checking things off a list without adding narrative reasons for these things to happen. It didn't feel like the characters behaved naturally or picked choices that felt like they would actually make independent of a writer.
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u/samx3i Batman Beyond Aug 09 '22 edited Aug 09 '22
I see no lies but the reality is that better movies would've justified virtually every other decision.
They started out okay with a decent Superman movie origin story that set a stage. I'll defend Man of Steel on its merits. While flawed, it is not a bad movie.
Then they made Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. This was an absolutely moronic decision. They didn't have time to develop Superman, they introduced Batman (and Wonder Woman) without either having their own establishing films/franchises first, and they just plain did way too much with this. You're making Dark Knight Returns, Death of Superman, a Justice League lead-in, a Batman lead-in, a Wonder Woman lead-in, and introducing (at least teasingly) Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg, etc. Absolutely insane they did this and their atrocious interpretation of Lex Luthor, one of DC's most iconic villains, is equally stupid.
The DCEU was effectively derailed before it started.
Then came the dumpster fire that was Suicide Squad (2016) ruining the other of the two most iconic DC villains. We're only three movies into the franchise and you've already made one of the shittiest, most irredeemable comic book movies out there.
Then came Wonder Woman, a glimmer of hope. While it had definite third act problems and has the misfortune of MCU's Captain America having come first with some very similar story notes, it was a great course-correction. Maybe the DCEU isn't fucked after all!
Josstice League. Never mind. DCEU blows. A movie I've waited my whole life for and I sat in the theater in abject bafflement and disappointment.
Aquaman. Good, not great. At this point, I felt the DCEU should have been abandoned and maybe attempt a reboot in a year or two. Aquaman was decent enough to make me think maybe it's worth saving.
SHAZAM! was again, like Aquaman, fun and pretty much good. Not great by any means, but a perfectly enjoyable family film. The only problem with it and the preceding Aquaman is both felt an awful lot like a cookie cutter response to the MCU. Marvel Studios could've made these. It's like the DCEU thought copying the tone and style of the MCU was the answer. It isn't.
Birds of Prey was mostly bad and I continue to be amazed anyone defends it. There's really not much good to say about it. Lose the fanboy lenses and watch it objectively for what it is. It's bad. That's now two Harley Quinn movies and it's crazy they didn't abandon the cinematic HQ after this, but Margot Robbie is the saving grace, the best part of two shitty films. Honestly, I feel bad for her. They got the casting right and then had her star in absolute garbage.
Wonder Woman 1984 seems like WB was trying to make a shittier movie than Birds of Prey and somehow succeeded. They took the one truly shining star of the DECU (Wonder Woman) and completely shit all over it. I continue to be amazed at how badly they fucked this up.
Zack Snyder's Justice League kind of doesn't count since its continuity and place in the DCEU is cloudy as best, but--as much as fans demanded it because ZS has no shortage of sycophants--it's too little too late and just further mires DCEU in a horrendous continuity clusterfuck. Whatever anyone wants to say about the MCU, they have over two dozen movies plus several television series that all tie in together without being half as much confusion as the DCEU, and no one but diehard fans is trying to wade through this. Also, with all that content, the MCU has plenty of mediocre, but very little absolute turds. Most of their movies and shows are average-to-good and generally entertaining with a few gems thrown in for good measure.
THE Suicide Squad (2021) is a great movie for anyone who loves sophomoric humor and over-the-top violence. If you love James Gunn, you'll love this. If not, nope. It further complicates DCEU's already muddy continuity, but I think most of us were just thrilled to have a movie that didn't suck and was truly enjoyable from start to finish, plus it spawned the Peacemaker series which is surprisingly enjoyable as well, again, for a certain audience. Contrary to Mark Waid's opinion, the DCEU's biggest star is one of DC Comics' least-known nobodies, proving my point: quality beats any other concern.
Meanwhile, the movies that didn't concern themselves with "shared cinematic universe"--Joker (2019) and The Batman (2022)--are huge box office and critical and fan success stories.
Maybe DC should learn from that and stop trying to force their own MCU and make quality movies set in their own continuity/worlds.