Justice Denied

Holy cow, how did this happen?

I've been careful since Batman v Superman... and probably since before that, to champion movies where the outcome wasn't entirely guaranteed to be positive. I've felt guilty doing so, and would rather not, but in the wake of F4ntastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Suicide Squad, you can understand if I feel somewhat of a jinx.

Whether you're a DC/Warners fan or not, this movie should not have 'failed' as soundly as it did; and yet the numbers are damning - and now I've seen it for myself. And, knowing I should prepare for disappointment, I went in with medium expectations. My paragraph above notwithstanding, I left before the credits came up -  in part because it was a daytime screening on the last week and I had a life to get back to; but it was hardly like being torn from my seat. This movie is a bewildering disappointment.

The fault is not with the characters; the Justice League should sell the movie themselves, most being recognisable now for over fifty years. I do believe Whedon at least worked to rule, if he didn't quite bat his best. 

The back story should be known well enough by now - initially helmed by Zack Snyder, this movie was to be in part a culmination of his three (or five?) story arc, but for a family tragedy which saw him stand down from the production, and Warners to swiftly helicopter in Joss Whedon in to finish the job. The history of trilogies being finished by a new director has been patchy at best - and in the superhero genre you can look easily at the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and Bryan Singer's X Men franchise to see clear and cautionary examples of what happens where there's a disjoint. Whedon had a brief: cut down the run-time to enable more screenings; add more humour; convert the doomladen Snyder vision into an audience friendly Marvel-like one. It doesn't work.

Many of the jokes don't land or just don't fit (an alien anal probe gag would struggle past the Nineties, let alone the Twenty-teens) , scraps of Whedon's script for his unfilmedWonder Woman have been reused, and there's an odd disjoint where scenes which feature in the two trailers have obviously been reshot for the movie. Timing? Grading? Mood? It can't be to add to the story, because al signs point to the Whedon version drastically cutting Snyder's story down to a more chewable (or boltable) size. Like its principal (well, only) villain.

As a threat Steppenwolf comes across as vague and somewhat undersold. He comes to Earth after Mother Boxes, but with no clear motivation after that - is it terraforming? Is it conquest? Who is this 'Mother' he refers to? And who is he talking to?

The frustration lies in knowing at least some of what there could have - or should have been, fed in tantalising scraps  by Snyder's friends and allies.  So what we're left with is this cut-down could-have-been - which has inevitably been compared to the Marvel model and Whedon's bigger, brighter, more confident and much more loved Avengers. But this is not good, and after the mixed batman v Superman, and the financially successful but critically thumped Suicide Squad, this will be a tough move to come back from.

And so is the plight of the DC movies fan: a wild pendulum between moderate success and painful failure. Cynicism and ridicule. I don't know what Zack Snyder's vision might have been outside this botched remix, but it could at least have been a little more complete, and a lot better looking. 

The fans deserved better.  

Wonderful

Wonder Woman (dir Patty Jenkins, 2017)

So this is what winning feels like?

After the turbulence of DC's first three (and largely male-dominated) superhero outings, the time has finally arrived for Diana of Themyscira/Wonder Woman to fully take the lead. Very happily - and despite assurances from too many places that WB could do no right, Patty Jenkins' film is a triumph.

It's not only director Patty Jenkins who is vindicated here, of course. There's the matter of the casting of Gal Gadot by Zack Snyder; set up in BvS and, by all accounts, widely regarded as the highlight of that movie by audience reaction. Gadot's early casting image and announcement was, while not controversial, not without comment from the peanut gallery  and a fair amount of it negative. "Too skinny!" "too dark!" "Not American-looking enough!" (??) "She should be [insert actor from other IP/MMA fighter]. But once again, Snyder's casting eye has been proved dead-on, and our new Wonder Woman is truly a household name. Not bad for an actor on the verge of quitting Hollywood.

Gadot is helped along the way of course by a very capable supporting cast: Connie Nielsen is majestic as Hippolyta, Robin Wright is formidable, Chris Pine every bit his charismatic self as romantic lead Steve Trevor, Danny Huston intimidating as Ludendorf, David Thewlis layered in his role, and Ewan Bremner and Lucy Davis? Just fantastic. The story is straightforward, but not too by-the-books, and I would say perfect for a full-length debut. There are equal pars humour and emotion, and the film's European and WW1 setting is both unusual and novel - we definitely need to see superhero movies escape modern day US more, and with a near-immortal as its hero Wonder Woman was a very good choice indeed

There are a few weak spots, naturally. The setting, as contained as it is, occasionally makes the film seem small in scope, and the CG-heavy finale, while de rigeur, doesn't counteract this. But when used for Themyscira it's wonderful, and the intimacy of the movie actually helps the story (plus Diana and Steve's dance in the snow at Veld looks beautiful)

Foe the moment, though, the big win for Wonder Woman the movie and character is its message. The power of love is a tough sell - even tougher in an age of digital explosions, outlandish set pieces and  epic battles. Unless those things are part of the message (in which case, god help us all), then the story has to go small - but Wonder Woman does it's damnedest to have it both ways, throwing in sacrifice, mercy, and the unforgettable bravery of the No Man's Land scene, and Diana emerges from all of these things stronger, more sure of her purpose, and still the same idealist she was as too adorable youngster back on her island paradise. That's winning.

The next movie is going to have to work very hard to top this.

AD DC

So now the DC cinematic universe is up and running, and what a start. Collective wisdom would indicate that it's not been the most auspicious of beginnings, but two things come to mind- principally that Marvel's movie universe didn't arrive fully-formed and blockbuster-ready, and that this muted beginning- plagued though it may have been with low critical scores and seemingly divided audiences, at least has a vision that its current creators simply cannot take for granted. Harsh lessons have been learned.

By far the greatest surprise has been Suicide Squad, a movie I did get to see and reviewed here. It did Box Office gangbusters, which on the face of it is very good news for a movie with only marginally-recognisable characters (and no, the Joker doesn't count, even if he does feature heavily in the trailers - simply put, the same word of mouth that afforded its bad reviews must naturally be telling anyone who listens that the Joker wasn't in the movie very much at all.) Indeed one of the big lessons moviemakers might take away from its four-week run topping the US box office is that August needn't be a dead zone for franchise movies and that a few more slots may open up in schedules in years to come, thanks to its performance. 

That said, this success was probably a fluke and not to be repeated. My worry is that the pressure that came off the reviews of Batman. V Superman and which informed the arguably-botched late changes to Suicide Squad will now be visited upon Wonder Woman, a movie which unlike Squad is expected to be a tentpole franchise winner. But a female lead and also one not yet wrought from Hollywood's A List and a less-recognisable setting for a Tinseltown movie (World War One, rather than its more recognisable legacy) may prove challenging.

Still, among the remarkable things about Squad was its apparent appeal in the US to some broader moviegoers - namely young women and Hispanics. It is a remarkably diverse and progressive cast ethnically and in gender, with (as Forbes covers) features nine out of its fourteen leading characters who are not a white male - and that includes all three potential villains (no, still not a Joker movie). Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman ought to appeal to one of those demographics directly, and further down the line James Wan will give us an Aqua Man who to intents and purposes could bring a decidedly Pacifika bent to a traditional white bread super hero.

Diversity is the next big battle in superhero movies, and it'sa battle that needs to be fought hard.When Marvel fans baited the 'serious and realistic' DCEU birth with cries of "hey, we just had a blockbuster movie featuring a tree and a talking racoon!" the correct response is to counter that with a movie led by an ethnically diverse and gender-mixed cast. Crocodile man aside, Suicide Squad did just that, and we'll see Wonder Woman headline on the big screen well before Captain Marvel, let alone a Black Widow solo feature.

So although its start was less than ideal I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of DC's hero franchise. Justice League may have the worrying presence of Zack Snyder behind the lens but is a year away yet with clear directive post-BvS, and there still seems a lot of goodwill held for it with Ezra Miller's Flash receiving a lot of positive buzz. There will be a solo Batman movie yet, Man of Steel 2 is in development, and somewhere in the schedule it's believed Margot Robbie will give Harley Quinn a well-earned victory run - with or without the rest of the Squad, and maybe with some other female DC heroes in tow. We'll see, keep working hard everyone.

Suicide is Painless

This month I had a stop-over in Gisborne for work. It was wet, I don't know anybody there and was a bit anxious about what was in store for me the following day, so rather than cooling my heels in a motel room with bad telly I took in a movie. I saw Suicide Squad in a small-town cinema at a late session with six other people including three of the local youths - loud voices, confident swagger, armfuls of candy bar popcorn and selfies galore. What the hell I thought, they may be more the movie's dynamic than I am.

But in the end I didn't mind Suicide Squad and some parts and characters I quite dug. It's certainly not the ultraviolent hoodlum gangster flick I feared it would be, and is more likeable than Batman v  Superman, and though it fell a little drunkenly between stools (namely the grimy urban vision of David Ayer's original shoot and the dayglo gonzo of Trailer Parks' reworking) it falls just short of recalling some mid 80s B movie fare in giddy pleasures. Perhaps I responded to this movie from a background in comics like 2000AD's Strontium Dog and Bad Company, where motley bands of outcasts find their honour in the spurned work of normal men, and redemption the insurmountable odds of doomed battle. Truly, Squad is to date the most comic-strip looking of the modern superhero movies, relishing in its colourful grotesques.

I find my reactions are frustratingly akin to those of others. - yes Margot Robbie, Will Smith and Viola Davis carry the movie. But yes also Jay Hernandez deserves more recognition for his doomed Diablo, and Joel Kiniman does a lot with his character Rick Flagg's character - enough, in fact, that I'm sorry the movie didn't make more of Flagg and Deadshot's grudging alliance seen through his eyes; the normal man amidst Amanda Waller's crew of deadly circus turns. Jared Leto is hard to gauge - he's simply not in the movie enough, and could have been edited out for the most part, which isn't to say I wouldn't want to see his Joker return, it's just that Squad is not a Joker movie whatever the marketing and trailer might have led everyone to believe. 

But, like Batman v Superman before it, Suicide Squad has turned out to be a different beast from the slick production the trailers promised. It is a little lumpy in places, and the third act looks like it's had some chops that would make F4ntastic Four snigger. The musical cues are all up the wop in places and in others are about as blurty and welcome as the soundtrack to a DIY programme. Cara Delevigne dances about as well as I do in her big scene, and there are other casualties along the way. Katana and Killer Croc hardly get out of the gate and are timidly underused, the former especially as Flagg's hired muscle. Boomerang has to feature in the Flash movie if there's any justice. We just see too little of him, and a comic foil with his rough unrepentant charm would to my mind be more fitting than Harley's "irksome" self-aware needling. 

But Jeez - it's not the end of the world, and it's not cinematic trash. It's guilt-free gung-ho hooligan heroism, with a powerful foil in Davis' Amanda Waller (essentially the true villain of the piece.) Its part in the DC cinematic universe is well-earned with some fun and effective cameos by two Justic League members, and its graphics are awesome. It's by no means perfect, but I can't help liking it. Let justice be served - let's see them again. 

Postscript: Justice has of course come to this movie, weirdly enough. The critics have been effectively silenced, and Squad has become the Little Blockbuster That Improbably Did. It's out-grossed Captain America : The Winter Soldier without a Chinese release, and out-profited Iron Man, its soundtrack has just gone gold, and it's Will Smith's most profitable movie. It's made a star of Margot Robbie and Harley Quinn into a future movie lead. This despite a lingering well-below-par critical score and acknowledged production and editing issues. The future for Suicide Squad looks bright, I'd say, though some of the above will assuredly make it an interesting one. And I can't wait to see what makes it onto the Blu Ray.

Out of the Blue and into the Black

Batman v Superman : Dawn of Justice

Thanks to Al I recently got to see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Thanks, Al!

Wow. Complicated movie.

I'll try to be brief, as lots of words have already been expended on this film. It seems that even for a perceived failure, BvS has generated a LOT of discussion, and of course to call an $870M grossing movie a failure is to overlook a lot of first week interest in DC Warner's expanding Justice League franchise. As I say, it's complicated.

The movie itself to me immediately comes across in one word: existential. Even in its dream-fed Bruce Wayne-centric opening the film employs real world referencing, to sometimes uncomfortable levels - a climactic re-enactment from immediate predecessor Man of Steel recalls instead a plane cannoning into a skyscraper. The terrorists are cleaved from real world examples like Boko Haram; no criminal comes unarmed, most carry an automatic weapon, and they don't politely line up to be taken down in turn in hand-to-hnd combat by an outnumbered hero.
 Not even in Christopher Nolan's trilogy was the Dark Knight this dark, this brutal, and at times in this very unheroic superhero world you wonder if there's a point to it all.

The answer is yes, and it's not initially from Batman himself, but it is about him and his alter ego. Ben Affleck's Batman is as far from the Caped Crusader as you could have, and yet the Bruce Wayne-to-Batman story here, reiterated once more, is core to the movie. Wayne narrates the film's opening, and the first line of dialogue is (crucially) his mother's name, the very word that will towards the film's end become the lynchpin of Bruce's understanding of his believed enemy, a man he is unable to categorise as anything but an alien until the realisation that they both had a mother, a family, and are capable of calling this planet their home.

Superman meanwhile struggles under his burden, and his doubt and ability to be led is open to exploitation by madmen and cruel geniuses with father complexes. Were I a Superman fan (as my good friend Al is), this would upset me the most - and yet this is a movie where even in death Superman triumphs. He never loses his imperative, the trailers (which tell many lies about the movie) do not show that he approaches Batman addressing him by his real name, appealing for understanding.

To me, Batman v Superman is about the plotting of Bruce Wayne's recovery from his lowest state as an angry, hard-drinking loner with deadly vigilantism as his escape - a monster glowering under the disapproval of a cynical Alfred, to being the hero he once was, needing the help of others to achieve this. The film's message in one line could be: Superman saves Batman's soul, echoed in Bruce's last lines: "I failed him in life; I won't fail him in death", and crucially his resolve that "Men are still good ... we can do better. We will. We have to."


I didn't enjoy this movie. I saw it under a strict timeframe and was itching to leave the theatre before it ended. It was noisy, depressing in places and often without mercy. And yet, given space and time, and on a second viewing even the theatrical version (I've not yet seen the Ultimate Edition) falls more into place. There's a lot of work in this picture from direction and cinematography (Zack Snyder is  one of the best visual directors working in superhero cinema today) to score and casting. The criticisms of storytelling and pacing are fair, but the film is sumptuous.

Many of the themes from Man of Steel are continued here, and developed. One of the curious dichotomies of the Superman story is his Semitic origins (an intestellar Moses, the creation of two Jewish boys from New York) with a Christian iconography, and even in death and repose Krypton's last son is depicted with the same visual language of Michelangelo's Pieta among crooked crosses of twisted reinforcing steel. This is specifically Superman as God/god, while the earthly Luthor and Wayne are the John Gaults from a director whose next movie outside of Justice League set may well be The Fountainhead.

Ultimately Batman versus Superman has to be seen as a building block in the DC cinematic world. Contrary to expectations, it's not a Superman movie - although Superman will undoubtedly return, and one of the consequences of BvS' reception will surely point to a revision of this version of the Man of Steel. It has to happen. In the mean-time we have another Batman for our age, also reinvented and repurposed, and like it or not, another step in the road to DC's heroic vision.

Four Squares 2: Golden Years

I'm back watching The Flash, and still really enjoying it. This year the particle accelerator which made our hero's metahuman enemies is gone, replaced by a wormhole singularity which is now feeding him bad guys from a parallel Earth - Earth 2. And, of course, it has also brought in this guy:

 Yeah! Jay Garrick, baby!

The version of the Flash from Earth 2 or, as we might otherwise know him, 'old 1940s Flash' or thereabouts. It's one of the many cool things about the show that it has actually been this series which has ushered in the established comics model of multiple worlds. It was a concept that originated in the Flash comics, and it's given the show a boost that it didn't yet need, but which in an expanded DC TV universe, needs no futher explanation.

I also love the look of Jay Garrick, with his slight Dieselpunk look and the Mercury kettle helmet. Hell, I like mostly all of the old school hero costumes with only a few exceptions, and their heroes' grouping, the Justice Society of America is a territory that I also think is rich for mining.

One of the other things I did leading up to season 2 was re-connect with the Golden Age of [DC] super heroes. The sole comic I own representing that era is a revisionist story The Untold Origin of the Justice Society collected into a tidy A5-ish pocket comic book, which I picked up from a local dairy years ago on the way to an intermediate school camp. Though I never reconnected with the story or the characters, I do still really like them. In their best stories there's a simple honesty to them that genuinely evokes a Wartime, pre-Marvel era, where many of the Justice Society's members nod more to their detective comics origins - millionaires and scientists sworn to thwart crime with gadgets, physical superiority and very limited superpowers.

I also picked up a few JSA collections from the local library, the best example being The Justice Society Returns!, which owes more than a debt to the aforementioned origin story, but builds other characters into the mix and heightens the profile of some more enduring, second-tier heroes; so out go Superman and Batman, but the likes of Hourman and Johnny Thunder get a much-deserved promotion. It's a pretty good, serialised story all told, with all the major players essentially getting a chapter of their own, and if there's a deluxe reprint - well, I'd be tempted to get it.

But as I say above, I think this is an era still ripe for use in today's comic book entertainment world. There are examples already of period-era heroes - Marvel's Captain America and its spin-off Agent Carter are obvious examples, and of course DC's Earth 2, the home of its Golden Age heroes, is now a Flash/Arrow-verse reality - and of course before he was making Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, director Zack Snyder cut his superhero teetch with the Minute Men of the Watchmen cinematic adaptation. 2017 will see a Wonder Woman movie which will tell a story spread over several decades, including the Second World War - perhaps it's not unreasonable to expect a few cameos there?

For me, though, the appeal of the Golden Age superhero is one of relatability. I will never have super powers or wield fantastic gas guns, magic rings or rods of power, but the vulnerability and human frailty of many of these early year super heroes is something I find more and more interesting as time goes by.

All the Jackals and the Undead

"All the jackals and the undead just can't wait to wipe the last of us out
First there were others like us, then there were none."

I didn't intend to blog about this again, so apologies, but this has been on my mind for the whole week.

The Fantastic Four is crashing globally in cinemas, the latest in a long series of battles it has had to fight since day one. Why? Lots of reasons: director hassles, studio hassles, reboot hassles, fan anxiety - that last one for me is the clincher. Logically The Fantastic Four property should not have a large and influential fan base - its last movie was in 2007, and Marvel cancelled its comic line last year, pointedly killing off likenesses of Fox's forthcoming movie in strip form (real classy, guys). And yet I think fan activity, and in particular fan vitriol has played a large part in the negative pre-publicity of this movie. And it seems I'm not alone, here's award-winning writer Peter David's view.

Look, films are hugely difficult things to make, and lots of films - sometimes incredible films  are borne of terrible shoots. Marvel' Studios' movies have not been immune, with directors leaving films during or pre-production (Thor 2, Ant Man), and even some of its most celebrated creators seemingly swearing off the whole game (stand up, Joss Whedon.) But it makes big, successful movies, and it has a very large and very vocal army of fans who apparently resent any studio who has 'their' heroes. Two years ago it was Sony's Amazing Spider-Man, this year it's The Fantastic Four. This fan resentment, fan entitlement is expressed online on websites like Comicbookmovie, where fan made 'editorials' are the by-word for the site's existence. The bad mouthing turns into a partisan headline, and this bleeds through to modern news media which, under-resourced and fighting for relevance in an ocean of free competition, jumps at clickbait articles for its own hits - and with that imprimatur fan opinion becomes reported as fact.

Of course I'm over-simplifying, and of course FF's troubles are many. But bad press sticks, and I still think this film has been unfairly maligned by... 'enthusiasts' with questionable loyalties. And poor judgement. You kids want a Fantastic Four movie series, and you think the way to do this is to sabotage the box office of the current movie - and that the average movie-goer will notice the difference when it switches studios and turn out in droves? You're crazy. And you deserve your stereotype.

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Fandom makes me uncomfortable most of the time. I've made the best friends I have ever had through fandom, and yet I take to social fandom like I take to dancing - under duress, with great awkwardness, and best left after a few drinks. It's not a club to which I readily subscribe; I just get a bit lost amongst it, Organised fandom can be a toxic thing, but it can be a wonderful and supportive thing as well - and some fan communities can be lovely, bonkers collectives of mutual enthusiasm.

And when a group shares the love with its fans, neat things can happen - like this, the official video for The Darkness' title track off their latest album. Ostensibly a song based on the character of Crow from Hawk the Slayer, more than a few reviewers have taken its defiant tone as the voice of a dying music form: pure, fun rock and roll. Fittingly then, a fan army provides the backing chorus in the track, and some appear in the video - a shambles of awkward, excited enthusiasts, bouncing, dancing, singing and just enjoying themselves. And that one particular fan - what a mover! Well played, sir. Well played.

Four on the Floor

I seem to be part of a select group who turned out to see Fox Studio's new version of The Fantastic Four. There weren't many of us! But I'm one, as was Jamas - who shares his review here. And here's my review.

I have no stake in The Fantastic Four as a comic property, so I probably don't care enough, I guess. I saw the two earlier cinematic movies, and didn't really care for them, finding them a bit too campy and more than a little silly. So, on stumping up the cash and braving (somewhat nervously as it turned out) the final, now-infamous product, I find myself preferring this version. It's not perfect, in fact it's a right Curate's Egg. But I can't find it in my heart to cal it a rotten one.  I thought the serious tone and the body horror elements were sensibly matched: it is a new take on the Four in film, and I don't know how I'd have introduced comic elements into that if I was making the thing. That said, there are moments of lightness, and some nice character moments in the first half.

The core Four are fine in their roles, and clearly not playing characters based on the mid-'00s models. I reckon Michael B Jordan brings a lot to the new Storm family dynamic in his performance, and there are seeds of the future family dynamic through the movie - Johnny and Ben's rivalry, a budding attraction between Sue and Reed, but on the whole this is clearly not a story where the heroes come fully-formed. In fact, most of the movie is about them finding their new identity and escaping their confines - it's almost all origin story.

The CG work was pretty good, the score was great, and the support cast noteworthy. There's a good story in here, possibly butchered in post-production, if rumour is to be believed. I'd say the biggest disservice done to the movie is that it doesn't have 'Part One' at the end of its title, because it is true that just as the Four are established, the movie ends. Frustratingly. A post-credits scene would have also been a great addition - not necessarily to link the movie to a Fox/Marvel universe, but to simply promise more; and I think this signals Fox's lack of faith in the project. Any accusations of cynical rights-grabs fall easily on this point; like it or not, in a movie genre dominated by Marvel's shared universe model, continuity and continuance are forgiven, perhaps even expected. 'They' will come if you only promise to build.

Perhaps, though, this movie shouldn't have been 'about' the Fantastic Four, and certainly the second half looks like... unhelpful things happened in the editing suite (maybe not by director Josh Trank's intent, though we may never know.) But I feel I'm repeating the words of others by saying the first half is pretty good, and inventive. Overall I didn't hate this movie, I suspect the current vortex of gloom is dragging down any neutral discussion on it, and I refuse to join the lynch mob. It's a decent take fluffed, that's all - and as I said, I'm just not as invested in these charcters to feel personally wounded by the changes wrought. The movie's terrible opening weekend is awful, though - I do feel for those directly involved; it's a mess. The closest comparison I can find is Ang Lee's Hulk - a stylised and singular take on a known property that may deviate a little too far from its comic origins for some fans.

The future is yet to be written. "Change is Coming", the movie's tag-line reads, and I rather fear it is. We may not see a sequel, a cross-over with more succesful Fox/Marvel properties (X-Men, the forthcoming Deadpool and maybe Gambit) looks tenunous. I find myself feeling similar to how I felt at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, although maybe not as let-down. A sequel could improve, build, reinforce the sound core and casting of this movie - but I fear the revised returns and critical drubbing will just spook Fox's execs into pulling the plug. With Fox and Marvel not enjoying the same relationship as Sony and Marvel, the much-crowed and anticipated 'return of the family' to its Nineties sellers may not happen. Nobody wins this one.

But I went all the same, and I'm glad I did.

Cape Expectations

This is a synched trailer review from a Batman perspective. You can read Kal-Al's Superman-oriented review here!

Over the past weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time online, trawling a handful of websites, pushing the Refresh button at intermittent intervals. Oh, and reading. I did this because I was never going to go to San Diego ComiCon – hell, I’d be hard-pressed to get to Armageddon this weekend, but virtually at least, SDCC was where it was at for me. And why? Because of this trailer specifically:

Yes, in Marvel’s absence, the weekend belonged to Warner Brothers and Fox Studios. And Disney – but dammit, every day is Disney day with or without Star Wars, so enough about that. Let’s talk about the Bat and the Boy Scout. And, also the Amazon! And the Villain – or the one we see here, at least.

The trailer was pretty much everything I’d hoped for, but most of all it’s impressed me with how smart it is. Directly referencing the climactic Battle of Metropolis from Man of Steel is a great start, and should immediately shut up the ‘concerned moviegoers’ who, three years on, are still bellyaching over the destruction wrought in Superman’s death-match with the physically superior and battle-ready General Zod. Moreso, it places Bruce Wayne in the middle of the battle, in a breath-taking sequence loaded with modern imagery. 2016 will see the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11; Zack Snyder’s choice to film the collapse of Wayne Financial’s tower from street level, and frame it from the experience of the average person in the street, can only reference one major recent real-life event. It’s brave, and it’s immediately resonating and it works. The sight of an un-costumed, quite human Bruce Wayne running into the debris cloud is jaw-dropping.

At ComicCon there was much made on both DC movie panels (for BvS and Suicide Squad) over how these movies are anchored in a real world context – yes, there are spandex(ish) suits, capes and super powers, but the real world reactions and impacts are, I think, a new addition to the genre. Super hero comics already work in a heightened version of reality, so this change down is a significant revision, and a smart move on the producers’ part to create points of difference for DC’s heroes and villains. These are deliberate images – the rooftop appeals for help from flood-bound families recalling Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, the familiar rainbow-coloured placards outside Kal El’s hearing in the Capitol deliberately recalling those of the Westboro Baptist Church demonstrations are another. Maybe more than that, they are touchstones of US culture, a trigger against what looks like Superman taking on a global work roster (saving a Russian rocket crew, appearing in a Day of the Dead gathering.) In response, Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor appears to be baiting his (unseen) audience's patriotism, resorting to a national xenophobia, recasting himself as a modern day Paul Revere in the droll “the red capes are coming!”

So this is the set-up, but there's still much to see – Jeremy Irons' Alfred in the flesh as Bruce's moral core, the Joker's handiwork over a fallen Robin costume, some nifty visual echoes of Frank Millar's iconic Dark Knight Returns cover. And, of course, Wonder Woman in action - at long last!

I'm still sold on this movie, even moreso than I was with the teaser trailer a few months back, and even moreso even after liking the casting of Ben Affleck. It seems we're stuck with a grim and gritty Batman for some time yet (thank god then for the 50th anniversary of Batman '66 next year and the animated movie tribute!) but while Christopher Nolan's similarly 'real world' Dark Knight trilogy left me cold in the end, I think Snyder's Batman will be the best Batman to date; and I think the injection of super powers and godlike heroes into his world will be for the betterment of Gotham's finest.

Next trailer will hopefully show even more. Roll on 2016!

Capes and Capability

In recent weeks the roster of TV superheroes availabe to see here in NZ has shifted. We still have Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on Thursday nights, and Daredevil is accessible to those with a Netflix account. but it's fair to say that terrestrially at least, things have quietened down for the most part. Arrow closed off a reputedly acklustre third season with more pillaging of the Caped Crusader's book of enemies and plotlines (still, if you're going to steal...), while Gotham brought its first year to a bloody close and maybe a reduction in the castlist. The biggest finale for me, though, was Flash's.

Saviour of the universe! In my house at least.

This series started with not a lot and just grew and grew. The Flash comes across to me as a second-tier DC superhero - as any of the roster are behind the Big Three of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Yet with a carefully-put together season of mainly one-off metahuman-of-the-week stories, slowly building towards recreating the comic strip's Rogue's Gallery, teasing the identity of the mysterious benefactor Harrison Wells, seeding the season with peripheral allies (Firestorm mainly, but let's not miss out those fun Arrow and Atom crossovers) before ending with a genuinely moving and breathtaking finale. You sit there in wonder that what you're viewing is a television budget show, with the requisite rules and limitations of storyline, narrative and location, and then an item of headware pops through a time-space vortex. This is a series that got my derisive wife invested on the strength of a seemingly peripheral man-child support cast member (Cisco Ramon take a bow!) brought in Mark Hamill mid-season, and then a pretty convincing CG gorilla before the curtain went down. I genuinely can't wait for the next run. It looks like anything could be possible right now with this show.

I never got into Arrow, and increasingly Gotham became a grim watch. The future Batman references were a minor addition in the end - I actually took to this series as a procedural with two great characters in Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock easily, and the lingering complaint that it's not speeding up towards the obvious finish line seem silly to me. With two promotions among the support cast to core cast for next season it looks like not much will change. I hope for the best.

Also hoping for the best: Legends of Tomorrow, which looks rather crazy and as camp as Christmas on the strength of the trailer, Wentworth Miller's ham-tastic Captain Cold and Arthur Darvill sporting a Tenth Doctor wardrobe and not entirely convincing anyone that he's taking his new casting as a time traveller entirely seriously either. I'll stay for Atom shrinking, Dr Martin Stein, Firestorm flying, Hawkgirl in costume and the occasional Flash appearances. I guess I'm in, then.

Proving not all Kryptonians are grim-faced these days

Also from the DC stable and Flash Producer Greg Berlanti is Supergirl, the pilot of which I saw accidntally thinking I was watching the epic-length trailer (sort of). So far it looks fine to me, though nothing astonishing. Comparisons to early Flash are perhaps apposite, so maybe the best is yet to come, and I do think CBS got the lead casting bang on. It hoves very close to established Superman mythology and tropes once more, and I can't decide whether this is a sensible move for a pilot or not; and of course I can't know whether nods to Kara Danvers' famous cousin in Metropolis will be a staple of every episode to come. Unfortunately, Supergirl has a large hill to climb whichever way you look at it - a legacy series based on a succesful movie franchise, a female-centric superhero vehicle, or a newcomer to a busy genre. I wish it well, because I'd love to see something like this do well, especially without the questionable 'support' of a male-centric and over-entitled fanbase.

But here I go, off on one again about comics fans. 

That Trailer...

No! Not THAT one. Jeez, that's everywhere - what could I possibly add to all that? Nice trailer. Very exciting. There, done.

No, I mean this one . Here's the earlier-than-planned teaser for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice,

I really hope you didn't actually look at the teaser in my small window and instead checked it out in HD with fullscreen loaded up, because visually it really is rather lovely to look at - especially now that we have the real deal and not some Brazillian shaky sneaky cinemacam (boo!)

So anyway, yep, it's a teaser and we're still over a year out from the movie. I say this because my first reaction was a quiet "uh-oh"  - to be honest, it looks like it plays directly into the hands and mouths of the vocal crowd who hoot the usual mantra about DC being "dark and gritty" and therefore not fun. Well, what did you expect?

The central premise of the movie is the first-ever cinematic head-to-head between the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight. It's happened in comics and in animated adaptations, but here it is in live action - a big deal, so of course you put it in the teaser.

Some positives, then: Affleck looks pretty good in the Bat-suit, and there's an obvious study of Frank Millar's Dark Knight comics in Zack Snyder's direction. Crikey - Henry Cavill looks like a TITAN in his costume (and most of it is him!), and the recognisable voices - Holly Hunter, Jeremy Irons, Jesse Eisenberg - Neil Degrasse Tyson, are really intriguing. Props for what looks to be Mexico in one crowd scene (the Day of the Dead one). If so, it's good to see some other non-US locations in a superhero movie these days.

And it's dark. Of course it's dark. It's always darkest before the Dawn - and guess what this movie's subtitle is? I think far from this being a hasty attempt to build a Justice League franchise inside a Superman movie, or a misguided muddying of a Superman sequel putting Batman front and centre, this looks to me more assured than that. Superman is front and centre here - the teaser is a direct callback to Jonathan Kent's warning to Clark in the first movie, so this story can only be a logical sequel, even if the first movie suggested a more optimistic ending. Millar's The Dark Knight has been shipped in, but it's intriguing to see the roles of the combatants reversed here - instead of Kal El being the government stooge sent to wipe out the renegade Batman, here we seem to have a Batman brought out of retirement and into some very heavy armour to neutralise the new Public Enemy Number One.

 And of course there are some notable omissions - no Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman and (maybe) Flash; Lex and Alfred are there in voice only. I can't wait to see them, but that's obviously being saved for further down the line. Really, if you're going to set up your stall around one of the biggest stand-offs in comic history, then this is a pretty good way of setting the scene. Roll on teaser number two!   

Fourthought

(I wasn’t intending to post another missive about movies, but two follow-ups within 24 hours of the last post tells me otherwise)

I knew we shouldn’t have crossed the streams…

For whatever reasons, call it fate, call it luck, call it karma – no sooner did Al, Jamas and El Guano and I synch our Ghostbusters posts, but Sony Pictures went and as good as announced their new, all-woman Ghostbusters. It’s like they knew!

Or was it because Fox on the same day finally released their first (hopefully there will be more?) trailer for Fantastic Four (Or Fant4stic if you will, though I won’t), suddenly we have eight interesting people to discuss.

Ghostbusters first:

Photomontage courtesy Radio Times

Well, as suspected for a long time, it’s definitely an all-female group, and Melissa McCarthy, a long-time favourite, is a member (a lot of negative noise about this casting, unfortunately.) I can dig it. There’s a part of me that would rather have a new crew than see the remains of the old Ghostbusters shambling around. I quite enjoyed bridesmaids, like Kristen Wiig in it (and McCarthy too, actually) – the rest of the cast I need to acquaint myself with more, although I do recall Kate McKinnon from the rare viewings of SNL I’ve had. We’ll see – I think this will rise or fall as much on its script as its performances anyway. Fingers crossed.  Don’t hate. Hate on the internet is stupid…

…And so to the new, younger, spooked-looking Fantastic Four:

Yeah, this is okay! I don’t have much of a dog in this fight – if there is a fight at all. I’ve seen both Tim Story versions (though one was on a plane, so who knows how much was cut out?) and while the self-aware goofiness of them was jarring at the time I’m still not sure that’s the route the franchise should be taking now, either – for all of the reception Guardians of the Galaxy got last year, it really was a sleeper hit and a gamble by Marvel that really paid off. This incarnation of the Fantastic Four is clearly not bred from the same stock, and its mixture of trepidation and emphasis on science and exploration seem specifically-chosen to separate the heroes from a lot of their screen contemporaries. I haven’t read any of the Ultimate FF comics (which the series is now purported to be based on), so this will be almost new territory for me. And I’d like to see more trailers – not to the extent of the overkill Amazing Spider-Man 2 presented, but perhaps some other POV trailers, given that this one only has one dialogue scene and clearly more reveals up its sleeve. It certainly doesn’t look cheap, though, and in this guise at least I can see a cross-over between Fantastic Four and X-Men easier than, say Spider-Man (as done right now) and Marvel’s superhero roster.

Sadly, like the Ghostbusters news, there was nerd rage. Oh yes, there’s a LOT of over-entitled anger about this from what I suspect to be tribal Marvel fans. Many are, predictably, swearing they won’t go and see it (fine, I don’t care – why are you telling me?) and demanding Fox “give” back the rights Marvel sold them years ago blah blah blah. I hope these guys are a minority, because with Marvel pulling the comic and any chance of merchandising, this franchise will be relying on the buzz its own promotion will generate. Meanwhile, its producer and director want to keep as much of the movie secret as possible. It’s another risky move, and I hope it pays off.