Movies

The reveal of The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg was the single worst scene in the entire movie. It was such low-budget TV ad schlock that it boggles my mind that it was allowed in the film. That scene should have been cut entirely or, if it absolutely has to be in the film (and it doesn't) shot differently. The Flash reveal should have just been various security feeds of blurs moving by and stopping robbers, the Aquaman feed should have just been the last shot of him swimming at high speeds through the water, and the Cyborg reveal should have similarly been security footage from a lab, not the researcher's webcam.

Alright, so overall, I really enjoyed the movie; however, that may just be relief because it was better than I expected it to be. I'm going to be realistic here and say that with a second watch I might have different opinions, but I honestly thought it was going to be a pile of shit with cool explosions and slow-mo. It did out-perform that expectation.

That said, the dream-within-a-dream thing going on with Bruce was probably my least favorite scene. I don't know who the fuck was coming out of a portal or whatever in the second dream of his Dreamception (maybe because I'm not up-to-date on Arrow and I haven't seen The Flash). It confused me as a casual watcher of DC visual media. It shouldn't have. Shit needs to be explained without callbacks to other series, considering this is the first Batfleck movie.

I also just really fucking hate how every movie with Batman in it has to show his parents dying. We get it because the scene has been done so/too many goddamn times. There was nothing particularly special about this one, other than showing how much Batman misses his mother. Without that scene (and the re-showings of that scene, I think I counted two or three), I could've easily gotten the same effect from one, maybe two scenes of Bruce visiting their tomb (considering we're not even shown Thomas Wayne's headstone/plaque). It could've been more subtle and just as easily understood (or maybe I'm overestimating the attention span of the average moviegoer for whom the film is made).

I enjoyed Superman and Batman's fight for the most part, but there's no real reason to me that every Kryptonite round didn't have a delayed explosion like the first (the one Superman catches). I considered that maybe they were set to explode on impact and explode on a short timer, but wouldn't Superman's stopping of the bullet be considered an impact, what with his skin being essentially rock and shit? It didn't seem to me that he was handling the projectile with any special care so as not to aggravate the substance inside--he had no idea it was filled with Kryptonite dust. I also didn't see any detonator in Batman's hand (unless it's on the gun?). It didn't make much sense to me, but the brawling part of the fight was good.

The fight with Doomsday is where I felt that Batman was most useless in the movie. It makes sense, considering he has essentially no way to fight Doomsday, but I was a little peeved that he was essentially left to his own devices to do little but dodge and watch. I also understand that his weapon was used to kill Doomsday, and maybe he distracted him with the Kryptonite round just before Superman stabbed him, but overall I felt like he didn't contribute much.

Superman's death kind of caught me off-guard; I didn't expect them to kill him off, actually. I didn't think they had the balls to surprise people who haven't read/heard of Hunter/Prey with the apparent death of Superman. Bravo, movie (until the JLA movie).

On to Lex Luthor; I'm not sure why he was so obviously... unhinged in this movie. Shit, his lines barely made sense. He was more a Joker figure than a mastermind. Giving Superman the ultimatum between the death of Martha Kent and the death of the Batman was almost straight out of The Dark Knight. Now, sure, Batman wasn't nearly as important to Superman as Martha, which ruins some of the parallelism of Batman having to choose between Rachel and Harvey Dent, but wasn't Harvey Dent also less important to Batman than Rachel was? I think so, and I think this movie stole that from TDK. However, I don't think Jesse Eisenberg was really a bad choice (even though I'd have paid lots of money for Bryan Cranston to play Luthor). With what he was given lines-wise (if they weren't improvised), I think Jesse Eisenberg did a damn fine job of playing a genius who doesn't think Superman should have the status that he does, and would do anything to take it from him.

It will ruin his presidential bid in later installments, though, what with getting caught and receiving jail-time.

Wonder Woman wasn't nearly a big enough part of the movie for me, as well. I understand that she's not exactly receiving top billing (read: the title), but I really feel like the plot could've done without her for the most part. Feel free to disagree, but I'm pretty sure Doomsday was dumb enough to run into the spear anyway if Wondy hadn't been holding him still for a time. That said, had she been given top billing and more screentime, she would've done an even better job.

Mostly what I want is a live-action Flashpoint Paradox movie.