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We were lucky enough to see the flick in IMAX on Tuesday night, and though grateful for the experience, were left scratching our collective heads. After so many versions of these characters in every form of media and a deep well of storylines to pull from, shouldn’t movies like this be a lot easier to pull off?
Apparently not.
We didn’t hate the film. But we sure as hell didn’t love it. Frankly, we didn’t even like it that much. If you walk out of a theater looking for the best in something, then its a clear indication that it didn’t deliver. For all of its visual glory, the story and it’s characters don’t feel like they belong in the DC universe. Not the one I know, anyways. Overlong in runtime and under utilized actors (except for Affleck) leave the movie feeling empty and soulless.
And now we’re at a fork in the road. Do we rant and rip at the things that made no sense whatsoever? No. Do we go in depth and drop spoilers? Hell no. Movies and making movies are complex works of art, so we have complete respect for those that make them. So, we simply report on what we saw – a too-long movie with WAY too much character distortion, gratuitous action sequences, disruptive music choices and anti-climactic scene resolutions. These are decisions that, at this point in the game, Snyder and WB should be well on top of. But they’re not. If anyone has ever seen “SuckerPunch”, they’ll know that Snyder is not a storyteller, a craftsman of dialogue. His talent lies in the visual construction of a scene, relying heavily on VFX to make it unique and breath-taking. He succeeds in that endeavor with BvS, but that’s where it ends. Our hope is the next WB movie he is given, he is relegated to direct an already written script, one filled with humor, struggle, drama and resolution. This one just didn’t deliver a feeling of satisfaction.
So, if you liked “Man of Steel”, you’ll like this, even though we found that one to have much more heart and emotional appeal than BvS. We feel this is going to be a rocky start for DC as they move forward with their slate of Justice League movies, especially with the #Marvel machine in full gear and putting out winners. Though it’s not always fair to make comparisons, we think it’s best summed up by what we overheard one person say as we left the theater, “well, they’re not Marvel.” And we couldn’t agree more. Until DC starts giving the fans what they want without the director/studio interpretations, they’ll always be less than what they could be.
