Warning: There Be Spoilers Here...
Last week, I sprained my ankle coming down the stairs. Hard to explain how it happened; all I remember is losing my footing three steps from the ground and the unpleasant spectacle of my right foot twisting round like Linda Blair's neck in The Exorcist. Since I could still stand and move my toes, I decided to go into work as usual. (That's probably the influence of my Dad's unforgiving macho work ethic: the only time I was ever got off school was when I was circumcised in my early teens - and that was only allowed because he was too embarrassed to talk about it.) Anyway, by lunchtime I was having difficulty walking and my ankle had swollen to the size of an orange. When I mentioned this to my boss (in passing, of course - I'm a real man, remember), she insisted on getting myself checked out at accident and emergency. Four and a half hours and one x-ray later, I left hospital pissed off at the lack of reading material in the waiting room (I must've read the 'No Smoking' sign over a hundred times and all it did was make me want a cigarette) as well as feeling strangely self-conscious of how knobbly my ankle-bone is. The advice to rest up for a few days was extremely welcome since work has been rather frustrating recently and I needed a bit of time to get my head together again. (You'd think an art gallery would be a pleasant, peaceful environment, but it's as cut-throat and mercenary as any other business. And like it or not, art is a business.)
By this point you're probably wondering what this dull story and its many parenthetical tit-bits has to do with Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. (God, I love that subtitle: it's so pompous it should be written in upper-case.)
The truth is... nothing, really - I'm just letting off steam. But it's a damn sight more interesting than anything that happens in DAWN OF JUSTICE.
I have a number of other articles in various states of completion to post up later this week, so writing about Zack Snyder's latest assault on the audience's intelligence is fairly low on my list of priorities. I feel compelled to comment on it, though, because there are one or two points this movie raises which I feel need to be addressed. But first, another anecdote - and this one is relevant.
The first film I recall watching was the 1978 version of Superman starring Christopher Reeve. I was about four-years-old at the time so much of that experience is a dull haze, but I remember being spellbound by the scene where Superman stops the helicopter crashing into Metropolis. In fact, it had such an impression on me I re-enacted it many times with a toy plane and a crude plasticine model I constructed of the Man of Steel. It was Superman II, however, broadcast roughly a year or so later, that really stuck in my mind. Even at that age, Margot Kidder's beautiful portrayal of the spunky but vulnerable Lois Lane made me understand why Clark Kent would fall in love with her, give up his Kryptonian heritage, and how General Zod's arrival on Earth was a major hassle in our hero's quest towards personal happiness. When Tim Burton's Batman came out in '89, I was one of the privileged few who saw it at the cinema before the UK rating was pushed up from a PG to 15 certificate after accusations of copycat violence. Although it was a lot darker than the Superman films, not to mention the reruns of the 1960s Batman TV series on Channel 4, its accessible theme of the grey area between heroism and criminality, victim and perpetrator proved just as captivating. My Dad, who doesn't have much patience with cinema, particularly enjoyed the noirish atmosphere and Jack Nicholson's Joker. In fact, his belly-laugh echoed warmly round the theatre at every sardonic quip or moment of macabre whimsy when Jack Napier was on screen. When the film ended we decamped to a nearby KFC, where other kids were pretending to fire grappling hooks into walls and their parents exchanged amusement at some of Nicholson's bawdier lines.
These films were special. Whatever your views on comic books, and the more savvy of you out there know how the medium has evolved considerably in the last 30 years, there is something genuinely important about characters such as Batman and Superman. They're not just actors in branded, marketable costumes: they represent us. I'm not much of a comic book fan, I must admit, but I recognise their status as icons who reflect our hopes, aspirations, flaws, dreams and sorrows. There's a reason that serious academics have studied Batman and Superman with the same weight afforded other literary creations such as Captain Ahab or Anna Karenina. When you look back at what Richard Donner, Richard Lester, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan achieved in bringing the characters to the screen, introducing them to audiences who previously considered comic books to be the preserve of socially maladjusted geeks or people with poor literacy skills, you realise they performed a minor miracle. You believed a man could fly, in much the same way it made sense for a man to put on a rubber codpiece and fight crime because he'd lost his parents. And once they made us believe, we shared the adventure. Remember "You've got me? Then who's got you?" or "I made you, but you made me first"? Fantastic, spell-binding stuff.
I watched DAWN OF JUSTICE three days ago and I can't remember a single line of dialogue, let alone name any of the characters who weren't wearing costumes. I recall Holly Hunter making some comment to Jesse Eisenberg about her grandmother's piss, but that's about it. I laughed at the time, but simply because the line was so poorly written. It doesn't quite compare with Lex Luthor explaining to Otis in the 1978 film why the number 200 unites them, or the trucker in Superman II calling the now powerless Clark a minute steak just before the diner fight, but there you go. I suspect Warner Bros. (and Snyder, of course) didn't think the audience would be particularly interested what the characters had to say - not when DC is in such a hurry to build its own cinematic universe that they're happy just to dump a load of superheroes together as a teaser for other movies we can look forward to yawning through.
Okay, enough with the snide comments. Let's be constructive.
Batman v Superman isn't quite the cinematic car crash you've probably been led to believe, but it's got problems. Big problems. For a start, the film spends so much time retconning the events of Man of Steel to make it adhere to the shared universe concept that there's absolutely no time given to character development. Lois and Clark are in a relationship, but the only evidence of this is when he walks into the room while she's taking a bath - and even then, all they talk about are the events of the previous movie. Here, Clark plays second fiddle to his alter-ego as Superman. I thought we'd moved away from this with the Christopher Reeve movies and John Byrne's 1986 revamp, but it's obvious that DAWN OF JUSTICE is so desperate to get the action going as soon as possible there's no place for establishing his home life. Wouldn't it have been a bit more interesting showing Clark's reaction to the public outcry against Superman? Snyder and co. don't seem to think so, and instead opt for the character to zoom around in his tights, looking extremely moody every time he hovers into close-up. Fascinating: it adds a whole new dimension to the film... Well, maybe if you're a glum adolescent who doesn't like it when your parents show affection in public.
We get the same problem with Bruce Wayne. When we first see him he's a bit narked at the destruction of the Metropolis branch of Wayne Corp during Superman's fight with General Zod; the next thing you know, we get a flashback to the Batman origin story and... we're told he hates Superman. That's about as far as his character development goes. (In fact, there were times when his resentment towards the Caped Crusader reminded me of the "I'm the only gay in the village" sketch from Little Britain.) To his credit, Ben Affleck isn't quite the walking hard-on we all expected him to be; he's a surprisingly effective Batman who convinces as a dark agent of justice, but he does seem incredibly awkward as Bruce Wayne. I'm tempted to say this is a masterstroke on Affleck's part, suggesting that Bruce isn't a whole man unless he's wearing the mantle of the Bat, but it's merely because the role is so under-written there's not very much he can do with it. Even Adam West would struggle with a script like this.
There's not much to say about the other major characters. Holly Hunter adds colour to a thankless role, but she's wasted here. She's a Senator holding an inquiry into Superman's activities. I buy that, and in the hands of a more skilled filmmaker it could've injected a much-needed intelligence into the movie. Instead, we're left with a bunch of questions we really shouldn't be asking. Why was she chosen? Did she volunteer? Does she fear Superman? Is she married? Is she gay? Does she have children? Is she Republican? Democrat? Is she a high-flyer on the American political scene? Your guess is as good as mine. I wouldn't try to read too much into what we see on screen because the film has no interest in using her as anything other than a plot device. And again, her entire discourse reminds us what happened at the end of Man of Steel. The only character who gets fleshed out at all is Lex Luthor, which is unfortunate given how supremely irritating and woefully unfunny Eisenberg is in the role. Anyone who follows him in the future will sleep comfortably knowing they'll never be able to pull off a worse performance. Regardless of this, at least we get a sense of who the character is - even if you do expect him to tip-toe out of shot like a pantomime villain. Spare a thought for poor Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman: it can't be good for your emotional well-being having to pout for two hours.
But really, this movie's about the novelty of watching two comic book icons duking it out. This doesn't happen until about an hour and a half into the story, by which time we're ready to get our money's worth. And it lasts all of ten minutes.
Seriously, ten minutes.
Oh, we get bangs and flashes, and Wonder Woman turns up in an unfeasibly sexy costume: but is this enough to justify the film's existence? Especially when the battle only comes to an end when Batman discovers Superman's mother is also called Martha. I mean, c'mon - how long did it take to think that one up? The movie doesn't give us time to ask questions, though, because suddenly Doomsday stumbles into view and there's another big fight with lots of CGI to keep the kiddiewinks happy. (In case you're wondering, this version of Doomsday has been genetically engineered by Luthor using the Kryptonian birthing matrix on General Zod's ship, which we last saw in a certain 2013 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder. You can probably guess which one.) Our glum trio of heroes get a few good punches in, then Superman gets killed. We cut to his funeral where Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman make a number of cryptic yet portentous remarks about how meta-humans are coming and nothing will ever be the same again, and the film closes on soil rising from Superman's coffin.
I'm guessing no one at DC learned anything from the death and return of Superman story arc back in the early '90s: Superman may be all-powerful, but once he's conquered death what else is there left to do with the character? If they do make Man of Steel 2 (and a quick glance at Wikipedia informs me it's a "go" project) it's gonna be a bitch trying to get the audience to invest in a hero who can't die. As a wiser man than myself once observed, film is all about the jeopardy: and if you ain't got the jeopardy, you ain't got a film. Still, in this case we'd feel cheated if no one died since the whole film - in the most heavy handed way imaginable - pushes for a gritty, sombre atmosphere that asks (no: demands) we take it incredibly seriously. A surprisingly large number of mainstream fimmakers today seem to assume that 'verisimilitude' means dark and doomy. Charm, excitement and wonder are alien concepts to DAWN OF JUSTICE; instead, all we get is a joyless, alienating commercial behemoth completely devoid of heart. I can't imagine any child watching this will feel even half the sense of magic I felt watching Superman II or Tim Burton's Batman, and that makes me sad.
So, that's Batman v Superman: DAWN OF WHATEVER: I can tick it off the list and sleep soundly, knowing I'm a stronger (although not nescessarily wiser) person for confronting it head on and walking away soundly. Unfortunately, I can't find much to recommend it; this is a movie borne of cynicism rather than enthusiasm. As a trailer for what's to come in the DC Cinematic Universe it's second to none, but you could easily cut it down to three minutes and get the same information. I understand there's a three-hour director's cut doing the rounds on blu-ray. The mind boggles.
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