[Lord Dave]

*agrees with george*
Broody superman works only in small doses.  But the brooding should end when he realizes that brooding does nothing but show people you're depressed.  Superman is hope.  Hope that one man can fight back.  Hope that you don't need to abandon your morals.  Hope that maybe, just maybe, you can be powerful and not corrupt.

Superman brooding for a little at what he's brought upon the Earth is great but it needed to end once he saw the issues of his inaction. 

Of course, Hollywood's focus groups seem to be focused on broody as "relatable" for some reason.  But I don't want superman to be relatable to me, I want superman to be better than me.  Someone to strive for.  Someone I can look up and say "I want to be as heroic as him."

Also:

[Rama Set]

I didn't find him brooding in his public appearances. Aloof is what I would use to describe it. I also didn't find his brooding to be pointless; he has just had a significant event attributed to him unfairly and is seeing a swell of public opinion against him. Pretty upsetting for someone who tries to help people for its own sake.

His attitude when fighting batman was counter productive, I thought. Who talks to someone like that when they want their help? "If I wanted it, you'd be dead already". Seriously, this line is quintessential tyrannical villain stuff.

[George]

Sure, he's in a tough situation, but that doesn't mean that what he ought to be doing in response is brooding and wallowing in self-pity.  There's more than one way to communicate a character's distress to the audience, and going with the same montage of furrowed brows, solemn faces, and somber music every time just feels tiresome.  Here's something that I appreciated about SS - it didn't feel the need to do that.  That movie's "dark night of the soul" was the characters having a few drinks.  They didn't need to bow their heads in contemplation as the digital rain fell and they dwelled upon the poetic tragedy of their existence.  It would be nice if the actual heroes didn't have to do that all the time as well.

Also, Roundy, what didn't you like about Batfleck?  He was the one part of BvS that most critics and fans seemed to agree was great.

[Rama Set]

Sure, he's in a tough situation, but that doesn't mean that what he ought to be doing in response is brooding and wallowing in self-pity.

When does he wallow in self-pity?

There's more than one way to communicate a character's distress to the audience, and going with the same montage of furrowed brows, solemn faces, and somber music every time just feels tiresome.

Yeah, that is mostly the director's fault and/or the editor's. I think Henry Cavill did a good job with in that sandbox.

  Here's something that I appreciated about SS - it didn't feel the need to do that.  That movie's "dark night of the soul" was the characters having a few drinks.  They didn't need to bow their heads in contemplation as the digital rain fell and they dwelled upon the poetic tragedy of their existence.  It would be nice if the actual heroes didn't have to do that all the time as well.

They don't really do it that much, and Batman is more angsty than Superman. I feel like the design choices let the impact of those few moments linger too long. It makes it seem there is more "brooding" than actually is in the film.

[George]

The scene on the mountain with Jonathan was probably the biggest broody mcbroodwalking moment, and his morose speech to Lois about Superman only being a dream also stood out.  But even when he isn't necessarily brooding within the story itself, we still have to deal with his faces he's pulling the whole time.  I know this might seem like an odd point, but Superman has a ton of scenes where he has no dialogue, and in those cases there's very little to focus on other than his facial expressions.  It's like they set the tone for his character, and that ugly scowl of disgust he so frequently has is just downright unpleasant.

As for Cavill's performance specifically, I'm sure he's doing the best he can with the material he's given.  The only issue I can really lay at his feet rather than simply the writing or direction is his nonexistent chemistry with Amy Adams.  Seriously, Batfleck and the random lady who's in his bed when he wakes up in the middle of the night are a more convincing couple than Clark and Lois.  I can at least believe that those two had sex, while Clark and Lois come across like two awkward strangers together.

[Rama Set]

The scene on the mountain with Jonathan was probably the biggest broody mcbroodwalking moment, and his morose speech to Lois about Superman only being a dream also stood out.  But even when he isn't necessarily brooding within the story itself, we still have to deal with his faces he's pulling the whole time.  I know this might seem like an odd point, but Superman has a ton of scenes where he has no dialogue, and in those cases there's very little to focus on other than his facial expressions.  It's like they set the tone for his character, and that ugly scowl of disgust he so frequently has doesn't set a pleasant tone at all.

Yeah.  I can get behind that.  I think it totally makes sense for Superman to have a very neutral facial expression, but the consternation that Superman often displays is not very condusive to connecting with the audience.

As for Cavill's performance specifically, I'm sure he's doing the best he can with the material he's given.  The only issue I can really lay at his feet rather than simply the writing or direction is his nonexistent chemistry with Amy Adams.  Seriously, Batfleck and the random lady who's in his bed when he wakes up in the middle of the night are a more convincing couple than Clark and Lois.  I can at least believe that those two had sex, while Clark and Lois come across like two awkward strangers together.

The first scene in the apartment was decent but then the relationship floundered after that.  They should both have slick inner thighs for each other though, it's true.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

So, I finally saw (most of) BvSDoJ on Saturday and found it bewildering. I know it's both a sequel and an exercise in extended world-building but it should still stand up on its own, this film doesn't. I haven't seen Man of Steel, so that whole segment at the beginning of the film with the Kryptonian invasion and buildings collapsing meant nothing to me. This was supposed to be where Batman's suspicion of Superman first took place, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. The ones slicing skyscrapers apart were the giant lozenges of death, Superman was just stopping them. You'd think that an experienced Batman would by able to emphasise with superheroes not being able to save everyone - especially with that whole Robin-suit bit.

Character motivations in general seemed like they never made their way into the script, especially Lex Luthor's. Maybe I missed it, but why was he funding African civil wars? Why does he hate Superman so much? He was so busy being a manic pixie dream girl that he forgot to demonstrate his motivations for doing anything.

There were bits that were just utterly bamboozling. I worked out quickly that the whole Emperor Superman bit was a dream-sequence, but was confused as to where it came from since the scene before Wayne had been working on his computer without showing much sign of falling asleep. Then he apparently woke up and someone (I think it was the Flash?) appears in a ball of lightning screaming about Lois Lane. Then we're on a mountain with Superman's dad (I thought he was a corn-husker in Ohio not a mountain-man - whatever.) Then there's a side-bit where the rest of the Justice League are unveiled with mini-trailers because... who the fuck knows?

Eventually I stopped watching after the 'Martha' bit (Does Bruce Wayne freak out so much every time the name 'Martha' is mentioned?) when Lex was doing something with a crashed alien MacGuffin and the body of General Zod. I kind of felt like it was a little late in the day to be introducing whole new plot segments, but I don't know, maybe there was another hour of film to go but since it felt like it had been going on for nine hours already I felt that I'd seen enough.

In conclusion, this could have been a fun film if they hadn't been so busy jamming in everything that they found on the cutting-room floor. The tension between Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent was genuinely enjoyable, I can't help but feel like the film would have been massively improved if it was stripped back and we spent more time watching the cat-and-mouse chase between them.

I think I did the right thing by staying faa-aarr away from Suicide Squad.

[beardo]

Eventually I stopped watching after the 'Martha' bit

You missed the best scene in the film then.

[Snupes]

You did.

[George]

Batman's anger at Superman over the climax of MoS was a nod to that movie's critics.  People complained that Superman was far too reckless and cavalier when he fought Zod and showed little to no concern for the thousands of innocent people being killed all the while in his wake.  There's also the fact that the earth was only in danger because Zod had followed Superman there.  It was an interesting premise to base the two capeshitters' enmity on, but that issue seemed to sort of fade away as time went on, and in the end it was nothing more than Lex's manipulations that brought them to blows.  That's something that I complained about earlier in the thread, so I might as well just quote myself:

The downside to the story being made clearer is that it emphasizes just how dumb the story was to begin with.  One thing the ultimate cut really makes explicit is that Lex was behind literally every single aspect of Batman and Superman's enmity.  Even beyond the obvious things like the shenanigans in Africa and the Capitol bombing, there's also his specifically inviting Clark Kent to his party so that he would confront Bruce Wayne, smuggling shivs to prisoners so that they would kill anyone with Batman's brand on them, sending Clark the information about those prison stabbings that got him started on his investigation, etc.  Setting aside how convoluted and nonsensical his plan is, this fatally undermines the titular struggle.  It wasn't enough to only have Batman and Superman fight when they were tricked into it - their entire ideological conflict is based on them being tricked into it.  Well, I suppose Batman did hate Superman after Metropolis getting rekt during the events of MoS, but I think the movie kind of forgot about that as it went on.

It's really strange.  I can't understand how Snyder or Goyer/Terrio seriously thought that Lex tricking/manipulating Batman and Superman into fighting would make for a more compelling and interesting story than them choosing to fight because of their own goals or motivations.

Snupes and beardo are right about you missing the best scene in the film.  I posted a link to it earlier, but that's been taken down now, so here's a new one, along with my comments from earlier in the thread:

It's kind of a stretch that Batman can shrug off so many close-range gunshots, but if the alternative is him wearing a big clunky suit of armor that he can barely move in, let alone fight, then we had better just suspend our disbelief and suppose that this Batsuit is so tough that it can even absorb the impact of a gunshot.  That blood splatter was an extremely unnecessary touch, and the part with the grenade had me rolling my eyes as I remembered that Snyder thinks that this sort of killing "by proxy" is okay.  Aside from all that, though, this is a pretty gnarly fight.

[Lord Dave]

If that's the best scene in a movie about batman vs superman, then I'm not sorry I missed it.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

Eventually I stopped watching after the 'Martha' bit

You missed the best scene in the film then.

If I hadn't stopped watching I'd have been asleep and missed it anyway.

[George]

http://io9.gizmodo.com/geoff-johns-on-the-future-of-dc-movies-relax-were-cha-1786394751

This is good.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/joe-manganiello-will-play-deathstroke-in-the-batman-sol-1786389222

Interesting choice of villain.

[Lord Dave]

Is it?  They took justice league and now made it a single film.  Can they do it?  Probably but they don't have all the setup that Marvel had with Avengers. (everyone having their own movie already)

So... not sure how they're gonna do it.  Also, they said it's almost done filming yet they're changing the tone so it's going to be a quick flip, cutting room floor full, movie.

I predict failure.

But I'm all for the direction of hope and optimism.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

So, it's going in a more lighthearted and hopeful direction whilst remaining in the same gritty Grimdark universe and directly addressing murder, torture, and attempted supercide?

Oh, and Zack Snyder's still directing.

Sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen.

[George]

They took justice league and now made it a single film.

I'm sure there's going to be a sequel, but it's not a two-part story anymore.  I think that's for the best.

Also, they said it's almost done filming yet they're changing the tone so it's going to be a quick flip, cutting room floor full, movie.

The tonal change was decided upon after the poor reception to BvS, before the filming for JL began.

Oh, and Zack Snyder's still directing.

This is my main concern.  I'm guessing that firing him and getting a new director would have ended up delaying JL, but that would still be preferable to continuing on with him.  Presumably WB disagrees.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

Oh, actually, having seen it. I did watch that scene at the time.

You thought that was the best scene in the movie? It's really, really boring. We've established that Batman can take a bullet to the back of his armoured head without flinching, and we know that he doesn't have try hold back to save himself from killing these thugs, so where's the tension? Is it just the satisfaction of watching an admittedly well-choreographed fight scene?

[beardo]

Is it just the satisfaction of watching an admittedly well-choreographed fight scene?

No, it's the satisfaction of watching the coolest and best choreographed Batman fight scene. It's literally the most exciting scene in the movie.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

Is it just the satisfaction of watching an admittedly well-choreographed fight scene?

No, it's the satisfaction of watching the coolest and best choreographed Batman fight scene. It's literally the most exciting scene in the movie.

I preferred the battle in the office block from Dark Knight. Beating up the bad guys, whilst stopping the good guys from accidentally killing hostages, and not being able to just resort to machine-gunning them. Genuine tension, you know that Bats isn't going to be killed, but can he rescue the hostages? Can he beat the SWAT guys in time to stop either the joker or the two ferries full of hostages from blowing everyone up?

The BvS scene is fun, in the same way watching someone execute a difficult combo on Arkham Asylum is fun, but there's no tension, no depth to the fight.

[George]

Nolan's action scenes definitely worked better from a storytelling perspective, but as far as style and choreography went, they were severely lacking.



Just look at how slow and ungainly Batman is.  I mean, I wouldn't want to fight him or anything, but I don't buy him as any kind of brilliant martial artist capable of taking on crowds of enemies and winning.  With Batfleck, however, I can accept that this is how the goddamn Batman fights.  With the exception of all the murder, of course.  Fast and brutal, making extensive use of his gadgets as well as his environment, fending off multiple attackers at once, plowing through walls, etc.