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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #980 on: March 05, 2020, 12:43:06 AM »
No idea what that's supposed to mean. Anyway, we now have some official pictures of the new Batmobile:









I love this. I fucking love this. Words cannot express how fucking delighted I am by this design. It's an actual car, not a city-smashing monstrosity, and it looks amazing. It's not at all what I expected or would have visualized as the ideal Batmobile, but it's fantastic all the same.
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Online Lord Dave

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #981 on: March 05, 2020, 02:56:42 AM »
And look, a cape.
If you are going to DebOOonK an expert then you have to at least provide a source with credentials of equal or greater relevance. Even then, it merely shows that some experts disagree with each other.

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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #982 on: March 15, 2020, 04:17:31 AM »
I would like to officially respond to Crudblud's review of Batman Returns:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=700.msg200592#msg200592

I largely agree with you. It's an odd thing to say, but the movie feels less offensive for its deviations from Batman lore than its predecessor, despite being even less faithful to the source material. Maybe that's exactly the reason; the previous Burtman was required to be more Batman-like and include details like the deaths of the Waynes, which then contrast sharply with Batman being a reckless murderer, his flair towards the theatrical, and other elements more reflective of Burton's sensibilities than the character of Batman. But in Returns, where we're not constantly being reminded of whom Batman is "supposed" to be, and he certainly has nothing approaching an arc, everything feels much more natural. This Batman is a Burtonesque weirdo first and foremost, and so it's a lot easier to accept his attraction to Catwoman and almost instinctive distrust of the Penguin as being consistent with his warped personality. As well as, of course, all the killing.

I do feel like the story ought to have been trimmed quite a bit. It feels like it was written by a dozen people all shouting their ideas at once. "The Penguin should be a wild and savage freak who lives in the sewers!" "And he should somehow be the leader of a criminal circus troupe!" "And he should run for mayor!" "And he should be partners with another villain, an evil businessman who's hoarding power!" "And then he should steal the firstborn children of Gotham's elite!" "And then he should destroy the city with penguins armed with rockets!" These plot points all lurch into each other clumsily, sometimes being resolved with a careless handwave, other times being forgotten entirely by the screenplay itself. It's too much, even for a ridiculous cartoon of a movie like this. Also, much of the movie's dialogue is absolutely horrendous, especially the puns and double entendres Penguin and Catwoman so regularly spout.

The improvement that stands out the most for me from the first Burtman is the action. In the last movie, as I've said, I found Batman to be distinctly unimpressive, as he mostly blundered his way through fights and seemed to be far more lucky than he was actually tough or skilled. This time around, however, Batman legitimately kicks ass. I'm not sure who deserves the bulk of the credit - Keaton and/or his stunt doubles for learning to work within the inflexible Batsuit's limitations, Burton for approaching action scenes with more confidence and experience - but either way, I think they managed to do a pretty good job with the tools they had on hand. It's not quite "super-genius ninja Batman," of course, but it's a perfectly valid reinterpretation. And Keaton is just great in the role. In a way, I think the biggest missed opportunity of the Burtmans is not giving Batman himself, and by extension, Keaton's take on the character, enough time in the spotlight. Not with the "My parents are dead!" standard Batman crap, which Burton obviously didn't care for, but more of what's in this movie (and the first act of the last one) - Bruce Wayne being a goofy, charming guy who apologizes for hitting women while fighting them, casually gives journalists grants, and occasionally drops his eccentricities to confront corrupt fellow businessmen. With a little more focus, he could have become as iconic as Christopher Reeves as Superman.

All in all, it's a ridiculous mess of a movie, and far less cohesive than its predecessor, but I found it the more enjoyable watch.
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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #983 on: April 04, 2020, 11:30:36 PM »
I watched Birds of Prey, or whatever its name is supposed to be. For a movie that's trying way too hard to be a distaff Deadpool, it's actually pretty good. Certainly better than Aquaman, not quite as good as Shazam! or Wonder Woman. The action is easily its biggest strength, being raucous and energetic, choreographed with flair and creativity, and full of comic grisliness. It's a lot like a more fanciful John Wick. The cast is great, especially Ewan McGregor as a ridiculous villain, and I had a few laughs too. The movie's main issue is that there are just too many characters and not enough time to spend on them. I'm really surprised they kept the runtime under two hours. This movie definitely could have used another ten or fifteen minutes with the characters, especially Huntress, who by far has the least screen time of the main characters. She's also the funniest, largely due to Mary Elizabeth Winstead's portrayal of her as a wannabe edgelord.

It's a shame this didn't do better at the box office. It's a decent movie, and it's nice that they gave a chance to an up-and-coming young director who isn't a privileged, well-connected white guy for once. Like I said, the R rating was a clear mistake, driving away the family and teen audiences. If there's any positive to this, at least it might kill off the dumb gimmick of making R-rated capeshit for the sake of it.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2020, 03:15:18 AM by honk »
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Offline beardo

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #984 on: April 05, 2020, 12:49:09 AM »
I watched Birds of Prey, or whatever its name is supposed to be. For a movie that's trying way too hard to be a distaff Deadpool, it's actually pretty good. Certainly better than Aquaman, not quite as good as Shazam! or Wonder Woman. The action is easily its biggest strength, being raucous and energetic, choreographed with flair and creativity, and full of comic grisliness. It's a lot like a more fanciful John Wick. The cast is great, especially Ewan McGregor as a ridiculous villain, and I had a few laughs too. The movie's main issue is that there's just too many characters and not enough time to spend on them. I'm really surprised they kept the runtime under two hours. This movie definitely could have used another ten or fifteen minutes with the characters, especially Huntress, who by far has the least screen time of the main characters. She's also the funniest, largely due to Mary Elizabeth Winstead's portrayal of her as a wannabe edgelord.

It's a shame this didn't do better at the box office. It's a decent movie, and it's nice that they gave a chance to an up-and-coming young director who isn't a privileged, well-connected white guy for once. Like I said, the R rating was a clear mistake, driving away the family and teen audiences. If there's any positive to this, at least it might kill off the dumb gimmick of making R-rated capeshit for the sake of it.
April 1 was 4 days ago.
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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #985 on: May 20, 2020, 09:21:29 PM »
04/05: If you really hate Margot Robbie's portrayal of Harley, then it's safe to say you won't like the movie. I found her to be...okay. She's improved from SS, and is at least dressed much better, but Robbie's line delivery grates on me. It's like she's trying to squeeze every bit of sass and attitude she can into every line she says, and then her dialogue ends up being drowned out by the subtext of just how full of sass and attitude she is. Her stupid Three Stooges accent doesn't help. The other characters are much better, except for "Cassandra Cain," who has absolutely nothing to do with the Cassandra from the source material beyond being an Asian girl. And like I said, the action is great. Oh, and I can honestly say that even the most hardcore right-wing/anti-SJW critic would have a very tough time trying to point to any insidious anti-men material here or whatever the fuck they imagine is in the movie. Hell, the animated Harley show is far more pointed and direct in its commentary on gender politics and toxic relationships, and that show has, as far as I can tell, notably not drawn any right-wing/anti-SJW backlash. Go figure.

...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/justice-league-snyder-cut-plans-revealed-it-will-be-an-new-thing-1295102

Holy shit, the Snyder cut really is going to happen! And I was so confident that it wouldn't! In my defense, I don't think this is a particularly good business decision, and that rabid enthusiasm from a vocal minority doesn't always translate into IRL success. And contrary to the narrative that many people in the movement promoted, the Snyder cut is not essentially complete, and still needs a lot more time and money before it's in a presentable state. Still, at least they're finally getting what they want, and of course I'll check out the finished product. Will it be any good? Probably not, but it'll at least be far more interesting than the Z-grade filler Whedon crammed the original with. And the terrible, terrible quips.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2020, 09:24:55 PM by honk »
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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #986 on: May 20, 2020, 09:24:05 PM »
This is WB being so starved for revenue they will do anything. I have a really hard time seeing how this could redeem JL, but I am interested to see it nonetheless.

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #987 on: June 04, 2020, 11:15:24 PM »
In honor of Crudblud's recent return to us, I will rejoin him on the Batman retrospective. Our moist respectable gentleman last reviewed Batman Forever:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=700.msg202736#msg202736

In the aftermath of Returns, I think the studio was justified in looking for a new director. Burton - whom I'm pretty sure was always a producer on this movie, he didn't quit and then later on come back - had done his thing by now, I doubt he had anything new to contribute to Batman at that point, and Returns did underperform quite a bit, given what an enormous success the first Burtman was. It was time for a new voice, and Joel Schumacher, unlike Burton, actually was a Batman fan, so we might have even gotten a Batman more faithful to the source material out of it.

Needless to say, things didn't work out, and I'm in full agreement that this movie blows chimp. The worst part for me are the villains. Tommy Lee Jones and especially Jim Carrey in this are absolutely insufferable. They're not smart, they're not menacing, they're not compelling, they're just fucking annoying. I have no doubt that both of them played their roles exactly as they were directed, but said direction sucked. Carrey brings a lot of energy to every role he plays, but I've never seen him be this obnoxious. And Jones is just floundering, to the degree that I almost felt embarrassed for him. Why even have Two-Face be as manic and over-the-top as the Riddler? Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to be a straight-faced foil to the Riddler, a serious side to their villainous partnership? It also would have been a better fit for an actor like Jones. In fact, he should have been the one to get the origin story, because he has the best origin story of all Batman's villains. Interestingly enough, Jones had played a prosecutor in The Client (also directed by Schumacher) just the previous year who was pretty similar to Harvey Dent. That would have been a good inspiration.

Speaking of Two-Face, while this is far from a serious flaw in the movie, it drove me nuts how during the assault on Wayne Manor he repeatedly flips the coin until he finally gets the scarred side, at which point he incapacitates Bruce and tries to kill him, only to be stopped by the Riddler. That's not how the coin works! He flips it once, and he abides by the result. It's not like this was even critical to the plot. Bruce's life ends up being spared anyway, so they might as well have let Two-Face not kill him because of the coin. Maybe they could even have had the Riddler be the one eager to kill him, but Two-Face stops him. It's such a tiny little thing, and yet the movie goes out of its way to deviate from one of the most important details of Two-Face's character from the source material.

Val Kilmer was at least physically better suited to the role of Batman than any other actor until Christian Bale, but his performance in this movie was just...nothing. I'm not inherently opposed to this Batman being more traditionally heroic, but that doesn't need to translate as boring. Kilmer has always been best playing roles with some sort of a twist or eccentricity to them, like in Tombstone and True Romance. This sort of square-jawed straight man wasn't a good fit for him at all. I'm also a little puzzled by the movie going through the motions of giving him some sort of arc. Batman doesn't really learn anything or change throughout the film, and he doesn't need to. For all the movie's talk of him reconciling the two sides of his life, it seems like he's already got things pretty much figured out. Bruce Wayne is doing well, Batman is doing well, what's the problem? That his new girlfriend likes Batman more than she likes Bruce? Come on. Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing for Batman to not have an arc, but they didn't need to waste time on essentially pretending he had one. They could have just kept the focus on Dick Grayson and kept Batman in more of a mentor role.

Continuity between the Burton and Schumacher movies is handled strangely. They are in continuity, strictly speaking, but the newer films always seemed to walk a fine line between directly referencing anything that happened in the Burton movies and openly contradicting them. I'm convinced that played a role in Bruce's objection to Dick planning on killing Two-Face not on the grounds that Batman doesn't kill, which he couldn't really do because of Burtman, but that revenge never makes things better. Is he speaking from experience here? Does he have a story to share about the time he avenged his family and it brought him nothing? Apparently not. Also, there was another actor who appeared in both the Burton and Schumacher movies - Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon. It's easy to overlook him, as his appearances were brief, and while I don't think it was intentional, he comes across as something of an inept buffoon.

What else is there to say...I do still like the idea of this glitzy Gotham as an interesting evolution of its depiction in Silver Age comics, but the CGI is appalling, and Schumacher's direction, with its giant swooping shots and nonstop Dutch angles, is just demented. And this is incredibly minor, but the acting of the guy playing the security guard at the start is so, so bad. "OH NO, IT'S BOILING ACID!" It's so weirdly amateurish, like he's a kid in a school play trying to make sure his parents notice him. I was surprised to discover when I looked him up that he's a veteran actor and way older than he looks. Must have been really weird direction.

Also, on the notion of the toxicity of the Snyder fandom and what it means to give them what they want:

https://www.vulture.com/2020/05/the-snyder-cut-what-does-hbo-maxs-release-really-mean.html

https://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/release-the-snyder-cut-toxic-fandom/

Is it really fair to judge a large fandom by its worst and loudest voices, though? Also, it's surprising to hear that "DC Extended Universe" was never official and just a label casually made up by a journalist.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2020, 03:07:37 AM by honk »
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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #988 on: June 05, 2020, 07:05:12 AM »
And this is incredibly minor, but the acting of the guy playing the security guard at the start is so, so bad. "OH NO, IT'S BOILING ACID!" It's so weirdly amateurish, like he's a kid in a school play trying to make sure his parents notice him. I was surprised to discover when I looked him up that he's a veteran actor and way older than he looks. Must have been really weird direction.

This is one of many little details that I wanted to talk about but couldn't find a way to fit them into the review. There's also the part where the vault being put back in place is just the shot of it being taken out played backwards, which both comes off incredibly cheap but also highlights how confused the whole thing is. In an Adam West context that would have read as tongue-in-cheek, but here, because the film doesn't establish that (or any) kind of identity, it just looks like shit. Sure, some scenes do have a similar tone, but there's no consistency so all you have are a bunch of Batman-themed jigsaw pieces that don't fit together.

Also, Commissioner Gordon was something I forgot about until after I published the review, but yes, he is there, unfortunately for him.

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #989 on: June 22, 2020, 09:14:25 PM »
Joel Schumacher has died at the age of 80 following a long battle with cancer. He already apologised for (or rather quasi-disowned) his Batman movies, pretty much, so I won't feel bad for shit-talking Batman & Robin in my upcoming review, which I'm pretty much guaranteed to do, but the coincidence struck me. Luckily(?) I'm not superstitious.

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #990 on: July 16, 2020, 04:12:14 AM »


I like that HBO Max is hyping this up as a big television event that'll presumably have critics reviewing it, rather than a quick direct-to-download release. No matter how the finished product turns out, we can't let the discourse be dominated by Snyder's fanbase, especially now that they've shown they have some pull with WarnerMedia (what a stupid name). These guys can like what they like and that's great, but their opinions are not necessarily representative of mainstream critics or audiences, and it'll be good to have a broader range of reactions to this than just the people who are already guaranteed to love it because it has Snyder's name on it. To put it another way, I don't want a revisionist history of this franchise to spread unchallenged that if WB had just stepped back and let Snyder do his thing without interfering, JL would have been a critical and commercial success - which is more or less what happened when the "ultimate edition" of BvS came out and was greeted with adulation by Snyder fanboys and largely ignored by almost everyone else.

(08/21)

On the notion of Crudblud reviewing Batman and Robin and Batman Begins:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=700.msg217513#msg217513

A little bit of Bat-history is needed to contextualize B&R. Largely inspired by the enormous critical and commercial success of titles like Watchmen and TDKR, the mid- to late 1980s saw a rise in comics that were at least superficially darker and more "mature," a trend that lasted for the rest of the decade and throughout the nineties, and some would argue is still going on today in certain corners of the market. Part of this trend was driven by fanboys eager to establish their hobby as being cool and socially acceptable, and part of it was driven by the comics industry looking to corner a market of teenagers and adults with a lot more disposable income than the kids comics were traditionally written for. With Batman in particular, many of these older fans embraced the grimdark interpretation of him pioneered by Frank Miller, and grew hostile to the very idea of him ever being lighter and more whimsical, despite the fact that he had been portrayed that way for almost his entire history.

I'm convinced that this attitude more than anything is what led to B&R being vilified as one of the worst movies of all time and killing the franchise for several years. In the eyes of its haters, its crimes weren't simply artistic, they were cultural. This was a movie with a weirdly artificial aesthetic, a ludicrous plot, cheesy dialogue, and seemed to revel in just how cartoon-like and toyetic it all felt. Batman Forever was plagued by an awful pair of campy villains, but at least had a more straight-faced portrayal of its heroes. B&R, on the other hand, is pretty much nonsense the whole way through, and carries a distinctive veneer of self-parody. The fanboys absolutely overreacted, and there's an obvious parallel we could draw between them and the obsessive Snyder bros currently plaguing the DC movie landscape (as the Vulture article I linked above does, like with Harry Knowles spearheading a hate mail campaign), but I'd be lying if I said I couldn't see where they were coming from.

On to the movie itself. It's bad, sure, but it's far from being one of the worst movies of all time, or even one of the worst capeshit movies of all time. I can't really say it's a better movie than Forever in any kind of substantive way, but it's less boring and less irritating. Really, the toughest thing about trying to criticize a movie like this is separating the unironically good from the ironically good, and also the unironically bad. There's a lot of both. On the bad side, there's pretty much everything about Batgirl. Her new name and origin, Alicia Silverstone's twitchy-mouth performance, and how awkwardly she's shoved into the main plot are all terrible, and she's simply a plate too many for a movie this stuffed. I'm also not a fan of the constant bickering between Batman and Robin. I don't know why Robin is so determined to do things his own way when the movie makes it clear that he's hopelessly ineffective without Batman, and I don't know why the movie apparently wants us to sympathize with him when, again, Batman is objectively correct in every disagreement they have and clearly his superior in every way. It's annoying to watch and never comes to any kind of proper conclusion. And while this is not at all a major issue with the film, I think Poison Ivy ought to have been more conventionally attractive. I'm not trying to do a "2/10 wouldn't bang" thing. Uma Thurman is a lovely actress; the problem lies with her costume. It makes her look like a drag queen, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the resemblance was deliberate, although I won't try guessing why.

Conversely, there are a few elements here that I genuinely think are unironically decent. Disregarding all the Batgirl nonsense surrounding it, I like the subplot with Alfred's illness. It's handled with a grace and sensitivity missing from the rest of the movie, it added a personal dimension to the conflict without relying once again on someone close to Batman being kidnapped, and the moments between Alfred and Bruce feel surprisingly heartfelt. Speaking of which, George Clooney's charm and panache make him a perfect fit for both Bruce as a popular man about town and Batman as an unflappable stoic. I also like this version of Gotham, and I think it's presented a lot better here than it was in Forever, with the statues being incorporated into the buildings and the characters being able to climb them. Pretty much everything else about the movie is just goofy, enjoyable nonsense, and it's long past time that the capeshit community stopped treating it like a pariah. And while they're at it, they could also stop all the revisionist nonsense about how Batman has always been dark and adult and make some room for lighter interpretations.

Also, I highly, highly doubt that Coolio was going to play the Scarecrow in a sequel. Maybe he misunderstood Schumacher, maybe Schumacher was bluffing, but yeah, I don't think that was going to happen. Schumacher was in talks with Nicolas Cage for the role, and there's no way he'd have set him aside in favor of Coolio.

And then there's Batman Begins. It's kind of hard for me to revisit Nolan's Batman movies without being distracted by the fact that he laid the path for Zack Snyder's disastrous DC movies. There's a lot of shared DNA here. A hyper-masculine sensibility, an almost complete disinterest in women beyond an obligatory love interest the hero has no chemistry with, a portrayal of what should be larger-than-life fictional cities as generic and unremarkable, a pompous self-importance driven by a pounding score seemingly determined to reinforce just how unbelievably significant and important the movie is, a weird insistence on explicitly spelling out the themes of the movie through dialogue, as though audiences are too stupid to pick up on them unless the characters point it out to them, and a general sense that the filmmakers are embarrassed to be making capeshit to begin with. None of those were major reasons why Snyder's movies failed, but they were very disappointing trends that arguably had their start here. That being said, it would be wrong to seriously blame Nolan for Snyder taking the wrong kind of influence from his movies.

Taking those flaws into account, I still think Begins is a great movie. Previous adaptations had never taken the time to explain what happened in between the deaths of the Waynes and the emergence of Batman (I think even the comics have always been pretty vague on the details), and I loved seeing a movie finally explore the whole process of how Bruce Wayne become Batman with a remarkable attention to detail. Having Bruce be trained by Ra's al-Ghul and the League of Assassins Shadows is a change from the source material, but it makes a lot more sense than the idea that a few short years of mundane martial arts training turned Bruce into a master of stealth and combat. Discovering old prototypes of equipment in abandoned Wayne Enterprises projects is kind of an obvious explanation for how Batman got his gear, but at least there is an explanation, when, again, previous adaptations didn't seem to care about any of this. I also like the little touch of him incorporating his ninja gauntlets into the Batsuit, possibly as a reminder to himself to always remember his training and not become too dependent on technology. While I'm talking about the Batsuit, though, I have to say that while it looks a bit easier to move in than previous Batsuits, it's also considerably uglier. The armored cowl is the worst part. It makes his head look grotesque and distorted.

On the very important subject of Ra's al-Ghul. Fanboys have given Nolan a ton of shit over the years for pronouncing his name like "rawz" and not following the lead of the DCAU, where his name was pronounced as "raysh." After doing some research, I've discovered that neither pronunciation is exactly correct Arabic, and the best way to pronounce it would be something like "rah-us," with a glottal stop in the middle. Nolan's pronunciation is a bit closer! Personally, I think if they're not going to feel beholden to precise Arabic pronunciation, they might as well go with the one that sounds better, and I've always felt that "raysh" sounds a lot more imposing and dignified than "rawz." It's also the pronunciation that every subsequent adaptation featuring the character I've seen has preferred. Speaking of Arabic, Ra's is supposed to ethnically be an Arab. The furor over whitewashing hadn't really reached its height at the time, fortunately for Nolan and Neeson.

As for the character himself in this movie, Neeson is (his ethnicity aside) pretty great, and it's a lot of fun to see him in a darker role than the benevolent mentor he usually plays. I don't think the movie really expected anyone to be torn between supporting him or Batman. Like, obviously the guy who's trying to kill millions of people is in the wrong. However, Ra's could absolutely have presented a more compelling point of view, and I think the main reason why he doesn't is the foremost difference between this version of him and the one from the source material - his lack of longevity. Nolan made a point of excising virtually all the fantasy/sci-fi elements of his Batman movies, which naturally included the fact that Ra's has been alive for centuries due to his regular use of magic baths. And yet that was a key part of what made him an interesting opponent for Batman. Unlike many of Batman's other villains, Ra's isn't a product of trauma or "one bad day." It's time that has warped him. Hundreds of years of fighting for his version of justice have eroded any sense of compassion that may have once driven him, and now he sees assassination, terrorism, and mass murder as the best way to achieve his goals. In this way, he's essentially a warning to Batman of what can happen when moral principles are replaced with zealotry, and a dark challenge to see if he can really do better on his quest for justice than the man with centuries of experience.

I like Christian Bale as Bruce, not so much as Batman. He doesn't give the kind of charismatic performance that previous actors did, but he's not really trying to. Instead, he's a figure more sympathetic and identifiable than previous Batmen, someone who isn't so much larger than life as he is relatable. It's funny when he acts like a fool in public to shake off any potential suspicion of his secret identity, but there's also a real sense of pathos in watching someone so clearly virtuous humiliate himself and damage his family's legacy all for the greater good. I'm also of the opinion that Michael Caine is easily the best Alfred of any Batman adaptation. The warmth and kindliness radiating from Caine make it impossible to dislike him, and I was never once left in any doubt as to the deep bond going far beyond that of an employer-employee relationship between Bruce and Alfred. It really is kind of incredible that this aspect of Bruce's life had been neglected in the movies for so long before this.

That having been said, as mentioned, I don't care for our hero when he puts on the outfit and becomes Batman. I'd go so far as to say that this trilogy overall is often at its weakest when Batman is on screen. The action is terrible. I get that for this movie Nolan wanted to emphasize Batman's stealth and the fear he strikes into the criminals he fights, but there had to have been a better way to communicate that than how this movie shows it - or to be more accurate, doesn't show it. The sequels improved the action by letting us actually see what was going on and letting blows visibly land, but this came at the cost of highlighting just how incredibly slow and ungainly he was. For all the effort they put into having him design his suit piece by piece, couldn't they have had him find some armor that didn't weigh so much he had to move in slow motion? And there's the voice. Literally everybody in the world has made fun of this at least once during the last twelve years, but it really is that bad. It's ridiculously goofy, and it distracts from the scene whenever Batman opens his mouth and that cartoonish growl comes out.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2022, 04:54:23 AM by honk »
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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #991 on: August 24, 2020, 01:06:32 AM »
A deluge of capeshit news and media has hit us because of some convention or whatever. Here's the highest-profile one:



Anyone want to hear my hot takes? Too bad, you're getting them anyway. I had kind of hoped that this movie might not be an aggressively grimdark take on Batman for once, but of course that's exactly what it's ended up being. Paul Dano sounds creepy as hell, and using a flexible villain like the Riddler is a good way to establish a new filmmaker's approach to Batman. The Batmobile looks awesome, while the Batsuit - well, it doesn't look as bad here as it did in the leaked pictures some months back. The collar is the one part of it that I still unequivocally hate. He looks like a fucking dork wearing that. Catwoman's outfit looks far worse than the Batsuit. Why can't she just have her regular look? Why do we need to see her in some weird bargain-basement "prototype" suit first? The brief glimpse of action we saw looks promising. I really hope we've moved past clunky Batmen slowly blundering about in cumbersome suits of armor now. I'm also hoping that this new universe isn't going to be strictly "realistic" in the vein of Nolan's Batman movies, both in terms of omitting fantasy/sci-fi elements and limiting what Batman can do with tools like his cape and grappling gun. We've been there and done that. We don't need another Nolan Batman film.

Apart from the above, everything looks good. Pattinson is a solid lead and Reeves is a competent writer-director. Let's hope we get a worthwhile movie out of it. In other Batman news, Batfleck isn't done yet, and neither is...Michael Keaton, of all people:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/08/ben-affleck-returns-batman-the-flash-multiverse-keaton

I'm intrigued, but I can't see myself paying to watch a movie with Ezra Miller at his most annoying as the lead. There's also Wonder Woman:



I don't care for Cheetah's design, but it's pretty hard to make a character like that work in live action to begin with. She's probably only going to look like that for the climax, anyway. In any case, this looks good too. Finally, we have more Snyder cut crap:



Here's Snyder himself responding to a critic's impression of the teaser:

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You said you enjoyed the theatrical cut of Justice League like you enjoy your Saturday morning cartoons… Well this is made for grownups, so you’re not in the demographic. Also, cool of you to comment on a leaked teaser.

Check out his army of devoted fans cheering him on in the responses as if he just delivered a totally sick burn.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2020, 05:21:19 PM by honk »
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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #992 on: January 02, 2021, 05:10:03 AM »
I watched WW84. It wasn't as good as the first movie, but I think it's a lot better than the mixed reviews it's been getting would make you think, and certainly far better than the consensus on reddit that it's a giant dumpster fire. To be fair, if you're the kind of person who judges the quality of a movie by the number of "plot holes" you can find, as so many redditors evidently are, then yeah, you'll probably hate this one too. Like, I'm embarrassed to admit that I've complained about plot holes in some of my previous reviews, but I can't imagine ever being the kind of person who would consider quibbling over details like "How did a huckster like Lord know about the Dreamstone to begin with?" or "How did they fly an old fighter jet across the Atlantic without needing to stop to refuel?" as actual substantive flaws with the movie. That's not to say that everybody who disliked the movie did so because of plot holes, just that an alarming number of people apparently did, and it's pretty disturbing that shitty YouTube "critics" have made that kind of whiny pedantry so popular.

But back to the movie itself. It's light, disposable fun roughly on par with a mid-tier MCU movie. Gal Gadot is still captivating, Pedro Pascal is great as an over-the-top villain, the period setting is bright, colorful, and realized far better than it was in something like, say, Captain Marvel, and the action scenes are fun and creative. On the negative side, some of the effects feel a bit off, the story is a little on the ludicrous side, and the film's ultimate message of "Be careful what you wish for" gets kind of muddled when the "price" that each character pays for their wishes isn't the unintended consequence of their wish, but instead something arbitrary and utterly unrelated to their wish. But overall, I think it's fine. A perfectly passable capeshit movie.

In other news, there's this. The big takeaway is that Warner's is now going to embrace the multiverse or whatever and not worry about continuity in standalone projects unless they feel like it. Sure, why not? I think DC's biggest characters are iconic enough to handle concurrent portrayals, especially Batman. Batman is the best capeshitter. He is better than Spidey. There's also this, because this is what happens when you negotiate with terrorists.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2022, 03:18:31 AM by honk »
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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #993 on: January 02, 2021, 07:14:30 AM »
WW84 was objectively a dumpster fire.  It was the worst written piece of shit I have maybe ever seen with some lines that would almost make The Room blush.  The action was ok, but the lasso was animated so badly that it was difficult to tell what it was doing.  Can anyone tell me where the gold armor came from in the finale?  The director's incompetence, that is where.  Gal Gadot is pretty but her silly monologue at the end was as dry as unbuttered wonder bread.  It had issues with tone throughout.  I hate that I ever saw it. 

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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #994 on: January 02, 2021, 03:13:04 PM »
Diana shows Steve the golden armor and tells him about Asteria about halfway through the movie. The real issue with her wearing it for the climax is that it made her look silly. Anyway, the Snyder cut is going to come out and save capeshit forever, because nobody can get enough of him. Discuss.
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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #995 on: January 02, 2021, 03:24:02 PM »
Diana shows Steve the golden armor and tells him about Asteria about halfway through the movie. The real issue with her wearing it for the climax is that it made her look silly. Anyway, the Snyder cut is going to come out and save capeshit forever, because nobody can get enough of him. Discuss.

She was flying at 40,000 ft in her regular costume and then lands in a suit of golden armor. If she went home to get changed first, it was a terrible piece of editing and direction. It’s the type of stuff you would learn not to do in Film School. It’s not the type of thing that should have survived a high budget production process. It still was better than her smiling coyly at the human host she fucked as he spouted lines so terrible it would make “It’s a Wonderful Life” look like a kitchen sink drama. It’s also better than the words Maxwell Lord shared with his son.

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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #996 on: January 02, 2021, 08:14:39 PM »
"The movie doesn't show her flying home to get changed" is a perfect example of the "Plot hole! Ding!" style of criticism that clickbait YouTubers like CinemaSins have unfortunately popularized over the past several years. It does not in any serious, substantive way make the movie worse, nor would it have made the movie better if we had seen her flying home. It's also pretty obvious why the movie doesn't spell out beforehand that she's making a detour - to preserve the surprise and dramatic impact of her wearing Astoria's armor. I don't doubt that you disliked the movie, but come on, it's not because of stupid little nitpicks like that. YouTubers today would be able to declare that any great movie is awful through this kind of pedantic hunting for plot holes. "Sonny's killers couldn't have known that he'd drive through that specific toll booth! Ding! Somebody would have to have noticed Andy digging a giant tunnel through the prison wall! Ding! There's no way firing missiles into a tiny little spot on the surface of the moon-sized Death Star could have destroyed it! Ding!"
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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #997 on: January 02, 2021, 09:01:13 PM »
"The movie doesn't show her flying home to get changed" is a perfect example of the "Plot hole! Ding!" style of criticism that clickbait YouTubers like CinemaSins have unfortunately popularized over the past several years. It does not in any serious, substantive way make the movie worse, nor would it have made the movie better if we had seen her flying home.

This is absolutely false.  Although I agree that not everything needs to be spelled out, your main character undergoing a change of garb that has some significant emotional impact is extremely jarring when it is unearned by the previous scene or the editing of the sequence. 

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It's also pretty obvious why the movie doesn't spell out beforehand that she's making a detour - to preserve the surprise and dramatic impact of her wearing Astoria's armor.

Nonsense.  You can preserve the surprise and still motivate the change in a number of ways.

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I don't doubt that you disliked the movie, but come on, it's not because of stupid little nitpicks like that. YouTubers today would be able to declare that any great movie is awful through this kind of pedantic hunting for plot holes. "Sonny's killers couldn't have known that he'd drive through that specific toll booth! Ding! Somebody would have to have noticed Andy digging a giant tunnel through the prison wall! Ding! There's no way firing missiles into a tiny little spot on the surface of the moon-sized Death Star could have destroyed it! Ding!"

This change is different than something that actually obeys the rules of the fictional world being created, like the Death Star thermal port.  It was kitchy window dressing that they decided to drop in to a scene for it's cool factor and it was absolutely unnecessary. What's worse is they decided to distract the audience with it at the onset of the conflict that had the most oomph in the movie.  While writing this I have thought of a few different ways they could have earned that transformation that still would have preserved the impact.  I hate nitpicking as much as you, but this is a more consequential choice for the flow of the movie than you are giving credit.

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Offline Snupes

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #998 on: January 03, 2021, 08:35:33 AM »
Okay, having just seen the movie today, I'm not sure if either of you are aware that there's literally a clip in the middle of the flying sequence of her getting home and getting the armor out of whatever she had it wrapped in. It's not very long, but it was enough for me to watch it and be like "oh, she's grabbing the fancy gold armor for the final fight".
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Offline honk

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Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« Reply #999 on: January 03, 2021, 01:57:47 PM »
I don't remember that scene. I was taking Rama's word for it that there wasn't one. I guess our discussion has a plot hole of its own. Ding!
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