A Study in Super Heroes: Part One -- Batman vs Superman (review)

Yeah, so, fine, I'm a bit late with this, but I've been busy and only just now got around to seeing it. That's kind of okay, though, because it moved to the cheap theater last week, and I got to go see it for $3.50, about all it's worth. However, it was actually worth that, unlike the last Superman movie or, say, the Green Lantern movie (I saw Green Lantern for free and still felt ripped off).

I'm not going to go through the movie the way I usually do with these things. Let's just say the story was... flimsy. Like a balsa wood airplane, the kind you get at the supermarket for... I was going to say for $0.99, but I bet those planes cost more than that, now. They're great for the first half a dozen or so throws, then things start falling off, then they start refusing to go back into their assigned places, right before they start splintering. Basically, you get one good afternoon of play with one before it goes into the trash. This movie is like that, good for one afternoon of play before the plot falls apart and you begin to wonder what actually happened.

Of course, what actually happened was a contrived scenario to get Batman and Superman to fight. Um... yeah... That's all I'm going to say about that.

Let's do this:

The Good:
Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne. In fact, you could say that was the awesome. Definitely the best part of the movie. Affleck should have always been Batman. Or, I should say, Bruce. He's great as Batman, too, but, face it, that's the easy part. The part every previous star of the Batman movies since Burton's Batman came out has failed at has been portraying a convincing Bruce Wayne. [Okay, well, Clooney was a good Wayne, but the Batman fail in that one was so epic (no fault of Clooney's (seriously? nipples on the suit?)) that it has discolored everything about it.]

The Bad:
The opening sequence giving Batman's origin. Again.
The dream sequence Batman has of the future where Superman has taken over the world. It was long and added nothing to the movie. I get that they were trying to... I don't know... incorporate more of Miller's Dark Knight, but that sequence was gratuitous and pointless.
Wayne as an alcoholic. No, it's not stated, but it's certainly implicit. And dumb.

The Good:
Surprisingly, Henry Cavill as Superman. I don't think much of Cavill just on a general basis. I thought he was adequate in Man of Steel and horrible in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., although, to be fair, it was a pretty awful movie, so it may not have been his fault. However, he pulled off a fairly convincing portrayal of a brooding Superman, unsure of himself and his place in the world.

The Bad:
Basically everything to do with Lois Lane.
Look, I like Amy Adams. I think she's a great actress. But Lois is supposed to be a strong, forceful personality, and Adams doesn't bring that to the table. She's just too tentative. Plus, in this, she's often Lois ex machina, showing up at opportune moments to deliver vital information. Or whatever.

The Good:
Jesse Eisenberg as the Joker. Oh, wait, he wasn't the Joker? Well, he gave a great performance as whoever it was he was supposed to be.

The Bad:
Lex Luthor. Or Alexander Luthor, Jr. The character played by Eisenberg. The character is completely inexplicable. He's a perfect example of how DC or Warner Brothers or whoever has written themselves into a hole they can't get out of because they continue to do everything from a pantsing standpoint. They killed Lex and they killed the Joker, so they just make up a new character with the same name as the villain they want to use and tack a Jr. onto it. Lame.

The Good:
Gal Godot as Wonder Woman. I don't really understand all the fanboy rage over Godot in this role. She looked good as Wonder Woman and pulled off the character more than adequately.

The Bad:
Wonder Woman. Why is she even in this film? It would have been just as plausible and, possibly, more believable, if she'd just shown up for the fight sequence. That's really the only believable moment for her being in the movie, anyway. They just need her in the movie because she's part of the Holy Trinity of super heroes and, if Warner Brothers wants to pull off a Justice League movie, they have to center it around all three of those heroes: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

The Bad:
Perry White. There are no words for how poorly they have translated White into this movie, and Fishburne does nothing to help the character out.
Jeremy Irons as Alfred.
Doomsday. Everything about Doomsday. There's nothing about the character or his origin in the movie that rises above stupid. Mostly, it's moronic.

So...
It's not a horrible movie. That's really the best thing that can be said about it. And I'd rather watch it again than to ever think about seeing, say, The Revenant again. Or Green Lantern. It's probably even worth it to see it on the big screen. But it's not a good movie. It's not even brain candy. At best, it's a piece of that hard candy your grandmother kept in a dish on the end table under the lamp, but it's all melted together, and you can't get any of it out without getting a knife or something and, then, once you have the broken piece you finally pry out of the reef-like structure, you can't tell what it's supposed to taste like, because you have parts of three or four different pieces of candy all stuck together. You try to suck on it but you end spitting it out into the metal trashcan next to the table where it sticks to the bottom and you try in vain to pretend that it wasn't you who spit it in there. [Not based on any actual event that ever happened to me.]

The Theory of Everything (a movie review post)

I'll start by making it clear that I am not a Hawking fan. In general, I am not a fan of science that has a greater relation to the kind of "science" that Greek philosophers did than to actual science. But that has nothing to do with the movie, which is kind of unfortunate, actually, since the movie barely touched on anything to do with science other than that Hawking was working on his PhD in physics.

In fact, the movie doesn't seem to have much to do with anything. The trailers seemed to indicate the movie was going to be focusing in Hawking's survival of his early onset motor neuron disease, and, maybe, the movie looks like it's heading in that direction at one point. Hawking meets Jane (the movie opens with that), they fall in love, Hawking falls on his face and discovers he's going to die. He has two years. Jane proclaims, "We'll fight this together." And, well, that's it. They just glide on through and never mention the fact that Hawking failed to die or why he lived. So, basically, the thing that might have made the movie interesting is left behind as if it was nothing more than a conversation over breakfast, "Oh, and by the way, we'll fight your disease together. Have a good day at work doing physics."

I did become curious, though, as to why Hawking did survive, and I tried to find out, but there's not a lot out there on the subject, at least not any information that requires a lot more time to find than I was willing to put into it. Basically, though, it sounds like the general attitude is, "Oh, he just didn't die." Did he have better care (Jane) than other people? Was it love? Was it determination? Was it just that he's so smart? None of those things are touched on in the movie, and I didn't see anything in a quick survey about Hawking, either. He just lived. Kind of like Harry Potter.

As far as the movie goes, there was nothing compelling about it. It's not that it was boring (that would be something that could be said about it, at least), it just wasn't anything. If the power had gone out or the projector broken or, for any reason, the movie had to be stopped, I would not have felt enough interest to wonder what happened. When it comes down to it, more than anything else, the movie is about what a horrible deal Jane struck when she said she wanted whatever time she and Stephen would have together, but, then, she didn't expect that to be more than two years.

In effect, the movie is about the horrible marriage that seems so common amongst most couples and hardly needs to have Stephen Hawking in it to drive that point home. And if it has a point, it's probably during the fantasy sequence at the end where Hawking imagines himself walking again and gives his "where there is life, there is hope" speech. I don't think I needed a movie to make that point, and this movie certainly doesn't support that point. Not in any way that matters.

For some reason, people seem to think that Eddie Redmayne did some kind of spectacular job playing Hawking but, mostly, he just sat in a chair with a grin plastered to his face. To say that I was underwhelmed would be an understatement. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing impressive about this movie, least of all Redmayne's performance. As to why it's being considered for any kind of Oscar has everything to do with the person it's based on and nothing to do with the merits of the film, of which it has very few. This has Heath Ledger written all over it to me, i.e., getting an undeserved Oscar for which there would have been no nomination if he hadn't died. Not that Hawking is dead, but it's the same kind of sympathy.

Maybe, I'm a heartless person, but I don't have that kind of sympathy. Redmayne hasn't delivered an astounding performance, and people wouldn't think he had if he was playing someone we'd never heard of. But, you know, it's Hawking, and we all feel bad for Hawking, so "Oooh! He was so good!"
Sorry, I cry "Bullshit!"

Dystopian Marketing

I have made no secret of my dislike of the whole "dystopian" thing in popular culture these days. Much of my dislike springs from the fact that it, mostly, is not actually dystopian but post-apocalyptic, and I got over the whole post-apocalyptic thing back in the 80s. Names mean something to me, which is part of the reason I never liked Tim Burton's Joker movie. What? You're telling me that Burton never made a Joker movie? Sure, he did; he called it Batman. I walked out of that movie completely dissatisfied and the first comment I made to friends that I saw it with was, "I might have liked it if they'd called it The Joker." [I'm not just giving an opinion here. If you watch any of the interviews with Burton at the time, he says repeatedly that the movie was focused on the Joker. That's the character he found interesting. He could really have cared less about Batman.]

Anyway, if you want to know more about my whole thing with dystopians and calling things what they are, hop over to Indie Writers Monthly and read the post.

Now, I have a question. Last month, I did a little experiment focused on getting reviews. Mostly, that didn't work out. I did get one review from it, so it wasn't a total failure, but one is hardly what I'd call successful, either. However, I did get some sales from the push for reviews. So here's the question: What is it that makes you go from thinking you might want to read a particular book some day to actually buying that book in preparation for reading it? I know what it is for me (sort of), but I don't think, at this point in my life, that I'm a good example of how people buy books. Then there's that it seems to work to some extent (no matter how much I don't like doing it) when I say, "Hey, buy my book! please" And I do know that I don't do that "enough," at least, not according to all of those marketing people who say you ought to have such and such a ratio of self-promotion to other stuff. I tend to, um, not self promote at all.

So, yes, specifically, I'm looking to find out what it would take those of you out there who have been thinking about buying one of my writing things to move from the "thinking about it" side of things to the "doing it" side of things, but I'm assuming that it's the same process for my stuff as for any other books. So let me know:

What's the thing that pushes you over the edge from just thinking about buying a book to actually buying the book. Aside from how it might benefit me, I am curious. Let's call it a data study.

And don't forget, after you answer that question, here, hop over to Indie Writers Monthly and read all about the "dystopian thing"!

Bait and Switch

Back in the summer of 1989, I was walking out of the most ginormous superhero movie ever made. Actually, it was the most ginormous movie release ever, at the time, bringing in $40 million its opening weekend. All of my friends were ecstatic and cheering, and my cousin wouldn't shut up about how the Joker had pulled that three feet long pistol out of his pants and shot down the Batwing, a moment I'd thought was especially stupid, and I wasn't really happy.

Yeah, I know. I hear all of you out there being oh so shocked.

But, see, the thing I kept thinking, the thing I still think today, was, "Maybe, if Burton had just been honest and called the movie The Joker, I would have liked it." [And I could go into a whole thing of all of the things wrong with having Burton make that movie to begin with and how the Joker was the only character he found interesting and how he didn't (and doesn't) like the movie nor, even, the idea of making it--he just wanted to be a part of what he expected to be a vast pop culture phenomenon. But all of that is for some other time.]

And that's how I feel about Man of Steel. If Nolan wanted to make a movie about General Zod, he should have just called it General Zod. As it is, I'm left with feelings of dissatisfaction because Superman was only included as what amounts to an afterthought. He's the guy that's going to defeat Zod, and there's only just enough information in the movie to let us know who he is.

Which brings me to what I think is the biggest issue with Man of Steel, which includes Nolan's abuse of the title (and let's not fool ourselves into thinking that this was not Nolan's movie, even if Snyder directed it. The story and style was Nolan's, which makes it his). Nolan exploits our outside knowledge of who and what Superman is to skimp on the origin, which he then changes. It's sloppy storytelling. Worse than sloppy. And I don't like feeling exploited. The truth is, if I didn't already know Superman's background, I would have had a difficult time with the movie.

For instance, my sister-in-law is a Marvel girl, so she doesn't really know about Superman, not the details, anyway. Her entire exposure to Superman was the godawful Superman Returns, so there were parts of Man of Steel that she didn't get. Like why we should care about Perry White. Within the context of the movie, the fact that we spend so much time watching Perry and friends run away from falling buildings makes no sense. We have no reason to care about that character UNLESS we already know about who he is from the comics (or previous movies or whatever). And she didn't feel any real connection to Clark because the whole reason we care about Clark is we know the Kents took him in and raised him as their own. They accepted him. But what we get from the movie is Jonathan Kent constantly telling Clark what an outsider he is. And don't get me started on the ridiculousness of Jonathan sacrificing himself to the tornado to "protect" Clark's secret. All of this includes the lack of context for calling the movie Man of Steel, which does not come from the movie. Unless you know that Superman is called the man of steel, there's no reason to understand the title, so, again, outside knowledge. Also, the name the "Man of Steel" was given to Superman when humans thought Superman was actually human. They never think that in the movie, so that particular moniker becomes inappropriate, so, in effect, it's a stupid title for the movie and something only chosen to distinguish it from the other Superman movies. He should have just gone with Superman or, even better, General Zod.

So, with all of that in mind, no, I did not like the middle of the movie. I thought the origin part of the origin story of Superman was very poorly handled. We have no idea of who this new guy is, no idea of the strength of his character, no idea of why we should trust him. Other than, well, he says we should, and that after trashing Metropolis (at least, I suppose it's Metropolis--the movie wasn't explicit with that). What we do know is that, when he was a kid, he saved a busload of kids and got in trouble for it. Later, after having a fight with his dad, he allowed his dad to be killed by a tornado.

Also, the idea of Clark having spent 15 years as a drifter while looking for his origins is... well, it's dumb. Why didn't he ever stick that key into the spaceship in the barn? The technology should have been exactly the same. Or is it that the spaceship was "broken"? I'm just not buying that explanation. And why would he even expect to find anything else on Earth from wherever it was he was from? There's no good logic for any of that. It's just a contrived way to bring Lois into contact with Clark and not a very good one at that. And I have nothing to say about the "symbolism" of having Clark be 33 when Zod comes to Earth. That, also, was just dumb. As was Clark learning to fly, basically, because daddy left him a super suit. For which, by the way, there is no good reason for it to have been on a spaceship buried under arctic ice for 20,000 years.

The beginning of the movie, though, I liked. Mostly. It was good to have a back story for Zod beyond "space criminal." The swimming scene and the codex being a skull, though, was, again, dumb. As was depositing the codex within the body of baby Kal-El. The rest was pretty cool, even if it was rather like watching Star Wars what with the big battleships while Jor-El flew around on some kind of giant insect. Yes, I'm overlooking the part where, basically, the entire population of Krypton chooses to stay on Krypton and die rather than evacuate despite having the technology to do so. [I'm also overlooking the fact that, evidently, every single Kryptonian colony failed despite having huge world engine terraforming machines.]

So... we open the move with Zod, and we end the movie with Zod. It was a movie about Zod. And the end of the movie just went on and on and the destruction was beyond my ability to accept. See, here's the thing, we, as viewers, accept that Superman is a good guy, because, well, we know he's a good guy. We have 75 years of prior knowledge that tells us he's a good guy. But the people of Earth in the movie have no such prior knowledge. They don't know who Superman is any more than they know who Zod is. What they do know is that two aliens showed up and destroyed a major city and tried to destroy the world. But, yet, they just accept that Superman is a "good guy," and Nolan gets away with it because he bases that on our knowledge of the character, not what's revealed of the character in the movie (who, remember, allowed his human father to die because of an argument).

But how was Zod? So much of the focus is on him, so how was he? Michael Shannon was, actually, very excellent as Zod. If you've seen him in Boardwalk Empire, it's apparent why he was chose, and it was a good call. He brings just the right amount of zeal to the role to make it believable.

Russel Crowe, whom I generally dislike, was pretty good in his role as Jor-El. Well, except for the hide-and-seek bit in the spaceship, but that was hardly his fault. Seriously? The virtual Jor-El is going to play hide-and-seek with his son upon being uploaded? Another bit of contrivance to get Clark out of the way so that Lois could injured. [And, um, just why didn't Clark hear her coming down  the tunnel? It's not like she was being quiet. Or that that should have mattered at all.]

Henry Cavill was adequate as Superman, although I think he really got the part due to his resemblance to Tom Welling from Smallville. They have the same "farm-boyish" grin. I liked Costner as Jonathan, even if I didn't like the part, much, as it was written. I don't have, however, have strong positive feelings for Diane Lane as Martha. I also thought Amy Adams was good in her role. The rest were non-spectacular.

The final result is that I have a lot of mixed feelings about this newest Superman, which is a far cry better than how I felt about the last Superman. This new one is just too much Nolan for me, who seems to be more concerned on an ongoing basis with what seems cool rather than what makes a good story. Seriously, I didn't need more of the Inception-type building collapses. I am interested to see where Nolan is going to take the story, unless this just ends up being a setup for the JLA movie that DC and Warner Brothers are still trying to get off the ground, at which point, I will decide that DC needs to scrap all the previous movie history it's developed and start over, just like they keep doing with their comic book world. Maybe, someday, they'll get it right.