Batman V Superman needs to, and is desperately trying, to generate interest in the DC side of superhero films in a post Christopher Nolan world. Marvel’s most comparable film, Captain America: Civil War, simply needs to show up to be an almost guaranteed success due to Marvel’s meticulous planning with their characters years and years ahead of release. It’s an uphill battle with DC settling on having a single film in their new cinematic universe preceding this match up and introducing their Justice League while Marvel instead had 5 movies to get things in place giving me the impression that DC is definitely in a hurry. The fact that the solo Wonder Woman movie will be a prequel to her appearance in Batman V Superman just seems odd. Why didn’t DC just make a Wonder Woman movie before her appearing in Batman V Superman? The whole thing just seems a little sloppy.
Batman V Superman seems like that relative with a substance abuse problem that takes things “day by day”. No real plan for tomorrow, mostly just being reactive rather than proactive. Batman V Superman is trying to show that it’s still cool and reliable but every once in a while it has a ‘slip’ that causes all sorts of backlash and doubt. The most recent mishap, during the holidays no less, is when the film officially revealed that there would be multiple villains for our heroes to contend with, a Lex Luthor that is wildly unrecognizable, and that ‘Dawn of Justice’ is a Justice League team up film in disguise. Of course the internet easily predicted this a long time ago and all but agreed that the Batman fighting Superman thing was the most appealing cinematic idea in the whole DC universe. Sure it was predictable that there would be a villain that our heroes would set aside their differences for the greater good but nobody cared. We all wanted to see Batman hand Superman his ass with a big budget but the recent Doomsday reveal, not to mention the humor that contrasts everything DC has done thus far, stole some of the attention from the main fight that was billed.
I get the impression that WB/DC is doing everything they can to sweep this whole Doomsday thing under the rug since the reveal got mixed responses from fans and have decided to refocus on the the whole “Batman fighting Superman” aspect that previously worked. Doomsday has been absent from marketing since and it all gives the impression that there is no clear plan for things. On the other hand Marvel has plans for plans, fallback plans, and backups for the fallback plans down to their marketing approach years in advance. They really make me feel like DC is simply hoping everything works out in the end and begins to rev up for another movie. Seriously, what will Suicide Squad offer for the greater cinematic universe narrative? Will there be anything related to Darkseid in either Suicide Squad or Wonder Woman? Are they building to a greater threat to over arch the films or are they doing things differently from Marvel in that regard?
Lex Luthor. Where do I begin? The casting of Jesse Eisenberg was weird enough but the reveal that he’s all ‘internet genius’ CEO rather than a traditional ‘corporate schmuck’ CEO has me concerned. This isn’t a slight characteristic trait change, this is a fundamental alteration to one of his characteristics. I get that they want to do something ‘new’ with the character but it is concerning. I could be completely unfounded in my worry and this could be a success on Heath Ledger’s Joker level but I don’t see it yet. Is Christopher Nolan still involved with the DC Cinematic films? Did he approve of this?
Also,I hate the art style and subdued color pallet used. This approach certainly works for adapting the Jim Lee/Frank Miller art styles but these particular approaches aren’t very appealing to me. I don’t really care for a walking talking Frank Miller interpretation of Batman that will be with us for an unknown period of time. At first it seemed cool but I feel in the long run that it seems a little hokey that this guy pretty much looks like a wrestler that’s rocking more muscles than a wrestler. I don’t really care for the Superman depiction in the comics that is missing his red underwear on the outside and foregoes the trademark S curl in the front. Wonder Woman looks fantastic but liking 1 out of 3 is just terrible.
On the good side I will admit that I do love the new Batmobile design. I do like the new TV spots, especially the one where the Batmobile bounces off of Superman like a pinball.
