Batman v Superman / Justice League / DC Movies

[Scockery]

Saw it last week and enjoyed it.  Surprising, since I thought Man of Steel was kinda so-so.

Someone said this is  mediocre movie with a good movie trying to get out of it. That's maybe fair. I think the R-rated cut or longer cut will redeem it more, though....at some point Zack Snyder racked up a hate tab with nerds and critics that's gonna stick with him. But hey, so did Michael Bay and he's still going.

In regards to Marvel comparisons. "This is just a set-up for Justice league" Well, that's what the title implies.
I mean Captain America First Avenger felt like a going-through-the-motions prequel to the Avengers.  BvS seemed like a condensed adaptation of a multi-issue comic book story (like the Watchmen movie was, but messier here), and to a degree Age of Ultron felt like that too, with less subplots.

I was most surprised that I liked Affleck's Batman.

Spoiler comment:
Why are Gotham City and Metropolis so close to each other?
The future dream sequence was awesome.
If you haven't seen it yet, find the released cut scene with Luthor is about to get arrested. It sheds light on his ending rant a bit more.

[BillCable]

Why are Gotham City and Metropolis so close to each other?

I think they're like Manhattan and Jersey.

According to this, Gotham is in Jersey, and Metropolis is in Delaware - which is HILARIOUS.

[Scockery]

I'd heard Gotham = NYC and Metropolis is Chicago or midwest. But NYC exists in DC?

Keystone City should be in the Keystone state...Pennsylvania,

[BillCable]

I'd heard Gotham = NYC and Metropolis is Chicago or midwest.

That's what I used to think as well.  But either that's been retconned, or we were mistaken.

What's more confusing is that Metropolis was clearly NYC in the Donner films.

[Scockery]

It does make more sense for Metropolis to be on the east coast, but just a supervillain toss away from Gotham City?

And  that map says Metropolis has 70,000 people? That's not large enough for a major metropolitan newspaper or well, major anything.

[Jeff]

Another former Spider-Man Universe cast member joins the DCU - Willem Dafoe Will Play a 'Good Guy' in the Justice League Movie

[Scockery]

See there, if these DC movies are so awful, why are a-list actors signing on board?

Oh, right, money.

Now Morgan Freeman needs to jump ship to Marvel...as The Watcher (FAN BOYS LOSE IT).

[EdSolo]

I'd heard Gotham = NYC and Metropolis is Chicago or midwest.

That's what I used to think as well.  But either that's been retconned, or we were mistaken.

What's more confusing is that Metropolis was clearly NYC in the Donner films.

If Metropolis was supposed to be in Delaware, they clearly screwed up, since Wilmington, DE would make a much better Gotham considering the immense crime rate and general look of the city.  Superman would have cleaned it up by now, but they could clearly use Batman.

[Nicklab]

Not sure if Suicide Squad belongs in this thread, but here it goes...

I've been hearing that Warner Brothers has been hoping that Suicide Squad could really help to bolster the DC Cinematic Universe.  But it seems that the initial reviews for Suicide Squad are not that good.

So how are fans responding?  They've started a petition to shut down Rotten Tomatoes.  Seriously?!?!?  The concept behind Rotten Tomatoes is to bring together a wide range of reviews to provide an average score from a range of reviewers.  The very notion of this petition is beyond ridiculous.

[BillCable]

That petition is freakin' hilarious.

[Jeff]

But it seems that the initial reviews for Suicide Squad are not that good.

Even the "good" reviews on RT aren't that good.  Most of the good reviews say things like "The movie is, on paper, a disaster. It is, in execution, a mess. It’s never really fun (but it’s also not relentlessly grim and bleak like BvS), but it’s… watchable? And it has those four performances that really make a difference."

It sounds like strong performances from Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, and Jay Hernandez (and to some degree Ben Affleck) are so good it's worth seeing at some point...  probably not going to see it in theaters, but I'm sure I'll redbox it or watch it when it hits pay cable at some point.

[EdSolo]

Aren't these just critics reviews at this point?  The recent trend is to be that the general public and the critics have had opposing reviews on rotten tomatoes.

[Darby]

Well, there's always been a divide between critics and audiences in general when it comes to blockbusters. That goes back a very long time. For example, Roger Ebert - not exactly a fan of the big dumb action movie - once famously dismantled a French film critic who dismissed Star Wars on Nightline in 1983. I think the discourse now has become intwined with this concept of fan ownership that manifests in both positive (getting a show renewed i.e. Star Trek) and negative (Ghostbros).

Here you have a very sizable block of fandom that has not seen a movie invalidating the opinions of people who have. Judgement as always should be reserved and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the facts on the ground seem to indicate WB does not have the same handle on making their own movies that Marvel does. This is a huge bummer for a lot of reasons. Chief among them is that WB has had the rights to the entire DC universe forever and done nothing with them. They watch Marvel scrap together a box office dynasty and now they run to try and catch up, throwing whatever will stick to the wall. That said, I am looking forward to Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman. I hope they work and they're enjoyable and they lead to more, better movies.

[BillCable]

The reviews seem consistent in declaring the plot and script are garbage.  So that's evidence enough that I'll hate it.  No number of funny one-liners or glorious visuals can make me enjoy a film that fails at storytelling. 

[Nicklab]

Going into this whole conversation I've got to be upfront about having been much more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy when I was actively reading/collecting comics.  I did read some DC titles back around the time when they had the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline running, but it was a short run for me.  I just found Marvel characters to be a bit more accessible.

While I did go to see Batman V Superman in the theater, the general feeling coming out of that film was just kind of a downer.  And mind you, I thought that Man of Steel was an interesting reboot of Superman following Superman Returns.  But I had very mixed feelings about rebooting Batman after we had such a solid trilogy of films in the Nolan-Bale movies.  As for the Suicide Squad team?  I barely knew who any of them were, to be honest.  Yes, the Joker is in there.  I thought that I knew who Deadshot was, but I think I actually mistook him for Deathstroke.  I never really had any experience reading books with Harley Quinn.  And I always saw Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang as third tier villains.  I really don't know any of the other characters. 

The general concept of the story seemed interesting.  A team of bad guys that the government can use for the purposes, and if they die so what?  Conceptually it sounds interesting.  But I just don't feel into spending the money to see this in a theater now after these reviews.  Now, in the case of an MCU film like Ant-Man?  I barely knew anything about Scott Lang as Ant-Man, and very little about Hank Pym in that role.  I knew a bit more about the Wasp.  But generally speaking, when I went into that movie I had concerns that Ant-Man might have been the movie where the Marvel Cinematic Universe jumped the shark and things fell off.  Especially considering director Edgar Wright getting fired from the project.  But I knew that up until that point Disney/Marvel studios under Kevin Feige's guidance have been good stewards of the Marvel material.  So I took a chance even though I was a little skeptical about the character, and I went to see Ant-Man.  I turned out being pleasantly surprised because the story, characters and actors won me over.  And the MCU has just built on Ant-Man in a cool way with Captain America - Civil War.  I just don't get the sense based on everything I'm reading that Warner Brothers and the DCCU is going to win me over.  I'm not really interested in the Wonder Woman movie.  Maybe I'll check out Justice League.  But it's telling to me that I'm far more interested in the production images that have been released from Thor - Ragnarok, which won't be released for quite a while than a project that's in theaters now.