Well see, that's the power of a well structured plot. Another example: Predator. Every single scene in the movie has a purpose, pushing the characters to an epic confrontation and conclusion.
Except Billy's death.....wasted opportunity that they sort of addressed in "Predators" Long held rumor has it that Billy and the Predator fought and Billy wounded it, but it took away from Dutch's confrontation....never found a source or refutation for this, but it is a great myth!
I haven't seen it but I doubt I would. I highly disliked Man of steel and I doubt Snyder did any better with this one. I agree, he's a visual director but that's about it. Man of Steel stripped Superman of Many qualities that made him enjoyable to me. I'm ok with removing the silly campiness from Donner's Superman movies...to a point. Snyder made the character too broody, serious and dark from A to Z, probably thinking that people would respond positively the way they did Nolan's Batman. The movie takes itself too seriously. I didn't like Superman leveling a whole city while fighting Zod, nor Superman snapping his neck. Even though it wasn't that good and nearly totally ruined by Kate Bosworth's terrible acting, I enjoyed Singer's movie way more. Maybe because it didn't take itself so seriously and had nice references to Donner's flicks.
It would take me longer than I can spare to write about how much I like this movie, how well crafted I think it is, how much homage it pays to a number of different themes and stories from both comics and film, and how it forms an excellent sequel to Man of Steel while at the same time beautifully setting up the solo Batman and Wonder Woman films and creating a backstory impetus for Justice League. The two movies combined (Man of Steel and Batman V Superman) form the most powerful tribute I've seen yet to the character of Superman and the difficulties he must face to be the type of man he is and stand for what he does. I will be watching this a second time later this week.
I guess I don't know what you mean by wasted opportunity; to my mind, it was an integral part of the piece. Billy had consistently demonstrated that he had some inkling of what they were facing. He was a tough, mean dude who was more in touch with his environment in a way that the other soldiers weren't. The creature had thus far struck from the shadows, it was only in those few minutes that he had come out and killed the other two soldiers. Billy represented the first confrontation mano a mano, face to face that the critter engaged in. By not showing us that fight and just hearing Billy's scream, the tension was built up even higher for Dutch's confrontation that occurs later in the script. In fact, to defeat the creature, Dutch becomes like the creature, invisible and to the creature's eyes part of the jungle.
See I disagree with that....Billy takes a definite stand, eschewing the modern weapons and his trappings of being a soldier and instead chooses a traditional weapon and stands as one in tune with his fate and facing it head on....he is effectively buying time for his comrades, knowing he will die....his removal and subsequent bloodletting is a dramatically shot and tense moment Which cuts away and is ended with a MASSIVE anticlimactic off-screen scream And ol' Predders then appears seconds later and attacks the crew This means that not only was Billy's huge, dramatic build up a huge popcorn fart of a payoff, it was all a massive waste of time as he was just killed an left for pick up later like a bag of dog poop hung on a tree on a long stroll
That to me was the exact point of the scene: the impotence of humanity in the face of the predator. As lethal as Billy was he wound up just another trophy, one that the predator wasn't even particularly concerned with. I can get wanting an action scene there, but I think the scene functioned and contributed to the story. Predator's arc to me was Act 1: Ahnuld and his crew are bad donkeys. Act 2: Oh christ, there's something worse than the bad donkeys! Act 3: Ahnuld becomes an even badder donkey. Finding the corpses in Act 1 created foreshadowing, fighting the Colombians built up Ahnuld's crew as lethal military machines, the deaths of Act 2 caused the Predator to become a greater threat and Act 3 had the confrontation, denouement and catharsis. Within that context the scene makes sense, even if something cool could have been added. Also Predator 2 was pretty awesome, but definitely a looser script.
Achilles victory over Hector is so much the more poignant because of the fight with Patroclus - this was the same thing only mishandled to my view
Dude, April Fool's Day was a few days ago. You're late. :jester: But seriously, the attempt was there, sure, but do you really think it was executed well? And actually I can't think of any other movie was this was even tried. Was it tried before? Regardless, it's my opinion that the comic books "Injustice: Gods Among Us -- Year One" executes the same theme much better.
Oh yeah, about that. It's so incredibly obvious that Injustice is going to happen. The big give away was the Flash visiting Bruce (apparently in a dream) and claiming that Bruce was right all along. The thing is that for anyone not familiar with the comic, that's totally out of sync with the film.
Full review (includes spoilers) It would take me longer than I can spare to write about how much I like this movie, how well crafted I think it is, how much homage it pays to a number of different themes and stories from both comics and film, and how it forms an excellent sequel to Man of Steel while at the same time beautifully setting up the solo Batman and Wonder Woman films and creating a backstory impetus for Justice League. The two movies combined (Man of Steel and Batman V Superman) form the most powerful tribute I've seen yet to the character of Superman and the difficulties he must face to be the type of man he is and stand for what he does. It borrowed heavily from stories by Dan Jurgens (The Death of Superman trilogy)and Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns), and the fact that these are two of my favourite stories about their respective heroes may have something to do with how much I enjoyed it. In many places dialogue that I knew well was replicated word for word, but combining the two stories with other elements made for something greater than the whole. The combination of imagery and music at the start of the movie (Beautiful Lie) gave me genuine goosebumps. I found the movie well paced and well balanced with a fair division throughout between dialogue action and story telling. It never dragged and it didn't feel slow at any point. I was engrossed in the story from start to finish. I liked the fact that there were lots of nods to other stories and incarnations of characters as well as great easter eggs (the Joker, the Riddler, Darkseid, an alternate future timeline...) Unlike some other superhero movies the dialogue and story did not feel like an excuse to set up or slot in some big showpiece sequences in the manner of some of the recent Marvel movies (or the recent Batman movies). I found the story true both to the heritage of the previous Superman movie (Man of Steel) and a number of Batman and Superman stories. So far as I am concerned no hard and fast rules concerning the characters were broken (Batman has killed many times in the comics and has done so in the films (Bale and Keaton spring to mind), while Superman has killed in the comics (Doomsday and Henshaw immediately spring to mind in the Jurgens story) and on film (Zod and his henchmen for example) and been responsible for mass deaths (an entire city in Return of Superman)). Batman By far the best on screen Batman I have seen as well as the best Bruce Wayne. Affleck for me caught the public persona of the charming business man/ playboy from some stories exceptionally well and we got more of the detective than we have seen for a while. I particularly liked the greater return to seeing Batman 'at work' out of costume. We also got a Batman that moves like Batman for the first time. Superman This movie had to contend between carrying forward the Clark Kent/Superman story and introducing a new Batman story. I thought it did so brilliantly. I preferred Cavill's Superman to the previous iterations I have seen before and in this film we also saw more of the underlying Clark Kent. It did not feel as if we were sacrificing a Superman story here; the whole story was about Superman - how the world reacted to him and he was coping/responding to their reactions. Superman failing to prevent mass death in Man of Steel (which is very plausible given the weight of technology he was facing against very experienced Kryptonian soldiers intent on destruction) was a great way to emphasise his values and his development as Superman. Spoiler Superman stories often have parallels with Christ and we have seen that theme throughout these two films. The early reference to him being like a God to them, the raising by other parents, the focus on doing no harm instilled and the suffering he endures as a result, the fear he engenders in the authorities and people once he does manifest his abilities (combined with adoration and support), the temptation to become a ruler of the world posed by Zod, the temptation to be worshipped as a God by humans, the direct temptation to kill a man to solve a problem (Batman) and finally sacrificing himself for others in killing Doomsday and dying at Easter. He will most likely rise again in 3 films time (Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League). Luthor Luthor has never been well treated on screen and I feel that Hackman and Spacey were given poor scripts and did the best with the bad material for a camped up villain they were given. Luthor here was not 100% what I would have liked to see (think Wilson Fisk in Daredevil Season One), but I felt combined the twisted rage, hate and intelligence of the Luthor of the comics with the surface face of a Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg with a twist of Lex Luthor Jnr from the Jurgens story. It was an interesting portrayal and I liked it. It did not kill the movie for me. Luthor held more info on both Batman and Superman in this movie than he has done in previous incarnations and it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the series. Lois Lane Lois in the modern world is always a difficult role to write. She's not a damsel in distress, but in a story combining the titans of Batman and Superman and Wonderwoman - I thought she got a good amount of screen time and development and played a believable role. Having Lois 'discover' Superman's identity in the first movie has helped make her character stronger rather than having us suspend disbelief. Perry White More development of the character and a strong performance. Greater screen time gave us more of an insight into Clark Kent and his values and I loved the nod to 1938. Alfred Great to see an Alfred that shows more skills and input into the Batman mission. Diana A great introduction to the big screen. Lots of mystery but enough screen time to establish her as a major player and leaving audiences hungry to find out more. I strongly suspect we'll see the context of that picture if not it actually being taken next year. Doomsday A solid interpretation and a much better 'origin' story than we were given for him back in the 90s when he first appeared. I particularly liked the way that his outer appearance kept changing just as it did in the comic story. The dream sequences I enjoyed these. A useful way to visualise the fears and memories of characters. The opening Bruce dream sequence was haunting and the best portrayal I have seen yet of Batman's origins. I'm not convinced that the capture of Batman scene was a dream because it contained information that Batman would not know (Darkseid's symbol and the flying enemies). I believe that was a look at an alternate reality from which Flash travels back to ask Bruce to prevent it from happening. We will see aspects relating to that reality in later films. I liked the 'what was that?' element of it. It's a real teaser for those immersed in the DC comics and for those without that familiarity like a really good film it leaves you with questions and speculative theories. Violence All things considered I was expecting a lot more from some of the complaints I had heard. The 'definitely dead' directly by the actions of either Superman or Batman looked pretty low to me (I don't count the future sequence as it never happened) and both characters have killed before in comics and in film. The violence makes perfect sense in what I anticipate to be the character arcs. Visual iconography Some classic comic images spread throughout this movie. A real treat. Without counting I think we got more classic images in this film than in any other. Soundtrack I really liked the soundtrack for Man of Steel and we got to hear some of those great themes again along with some new great themes for Batman (the haunting piano and string Beautiful Lie for me really encapsulates the deep sadness of Batman's life) and Diana (those drums!). Zimmer has scored so many big films over the years that the scope for him to come up with original elements is small and like with the work of John Williams wher eit can take a moment in places to decide between Superman, Raiders of the Lost Arc and Star Wars, I hear flashes of Inception and Pirates among other things. These two were my favourites (in addition to the Superman theme): Batman [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kvnQYRUvW0"]Beautiful Lie - Batman v Superman Soundtrack á´´á´° - YouTube[/ame] Diana [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGtaVV6sMEQ"]Is She With You? - Batman v Superman Soundtrack á´´á´° - YouTube[/ame] Superman [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGbzYxXIxzc"]This Is My World - Batman v Superman Soundtrack á´´á´° - YouTube[/ame] Story Arc I am sure that a number of people will feel cheated by the end of this movie, but this particular end sets the impetus for the JL perfectly, and allows for a fresh take on both that and the forthcoming new Superman movie by tying in that next important Dan Jurgens Superman chapter. The Batman and Superman who emerge from this movie will be changed in important ways and we have been given a solid foundation for that. Overall I felt this is an exceptionally well crafted movie. I wonder whether in time people who criticised it initially will look back and recognise how good it is. I will be watching this a second time later this week.
I'll be waiting too (after I've big screened it one or two more times). What I didn't expect is to be hyped up now for Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman and Justice League. I already knew that Ben Affleck would create a Batman I wanted to see again and that I'd want to see Henry Cavill's Superman again.
2.22 on the car... [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLLQK9la6Go"]Suicide Squad - Comic-Con First Look [HD] - YouTube[/ame]
Favorite Superman movie of all time: The Iron Giant. Favorite version of The Watchmen: The Incredibles. Proof positive that you don't need a whole lot of what's being put into movies these days to tell a good story.
Whoa, I didn't realize Brad Bird was in charge of both The Iron Giant AND The Incredibles. Someone give that man a franchise!
