In Defense of... BATMAN v SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

Delaying it a year didn't help matters.

Spoilerish Warning - there won't be explicit spoilers up in hurr, but I'm also not going to be careful about talking about the broadstrokes of the narrative of this movie. So...you're forewarned.

So remember last week when I wrote that 'Man of Steel' was super divisive? Well, the reaction to that film is basically a group hug while singing Kumbaya compared to the shitstorm that has unjustly descended onto 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice'. I've seen the movie now. And while I do understand some of the criticism leveled at it, I do not understand the hyperbolic vitriol that has been hurled at it from all angles. And so here we are again, talking about a Zack Snyder superhero effort, it's poor reception, and why it's grossly misunderstood. There are no lukewarm opinions here. My stance is red-hot. Like Wonder Woman's bracelets! Let's get started.

Most of what I'll be discussing here isn't the movie itself, but its public perception. And to quote the criminally underrated film 'Sneakers', "the world isn't based on reality...but on the perception of reality." And perception has never been on this movie's side.

'Batman v Superman' is not a bad movie. I'll admit, it's not a great movie. It's a better than OK movie, with some really ambitious and great ideas behind it. It has some final act issues, one really problematic performance, and a few other minor things that just annoy me as a viewer. But the bottom line here is that it's a flawed, but still very entertaining movie. None of its two and a half hour length feels boring or slow at all. In fact, there are distinct periods where I wished it would slow down. There's a three hour cut that's going to be released this summer and that is what I will review when the time comes. For now, let me say that I'll give the movie a 7/10 score, and say that it sometimes has better ideas than it knows what to effectively do with them.

I honestly can't remember another movie (not named 'Star Wars') that was followed so intensely from the moment it was announced through the weekend of its release. And right from the jump off, it seemed like people were suspicious of this enterprise. It was announced at SDCC in the summer of 2013, when Harry Lennix took the stage at the WB presentation and quoted from the graphic novel 'The Dark Knight Returns'. Batman and Superman on the big screen together. And the general audience response? Yay! Happy! Cool, but...DC is just trying to copy Marvel.

Negativity from the outset

And then what was once just mildly dismissive got much worse when Ben Affleck was announced as Batman. Nevermind that he was fresh off two films, The Town (2010) and Argo (2012), that earned him a ton of critical acclaim; in the comic nerd world, his name was still mud because of the ten year old bomb that was 'Daredevil'.* I went to local comic-cons and saw t-shirts for sale that not-so-subtly begged for a recasting. And it struck me because I'd never seen a shirt among the generally happy crowd of nerds that was so overtly negative. Of course there was some defense of him. People mentioned the time the nerds cried out against the casting of Michael Keaton. Against the casting of Heath Ledger. Against the casting of Anne Hathaway. But this was stronger. More hateful. And though logic suggested it was well within the realm of possibility that the nerdy public could be wrong again, I felt a palpable sense that, though it was years away, people were very worried about this movie's chances of being good.

*I've seen Daredevil - both the theatrical cut and the director's cut - it's a bad movie and Ben Affleck is bad in it. But there are a lot of problems with that movie, and his acting is far from the biggest one.

Time passed. The movie went into production, and then got delayed by a year, moved from May 2015 to May 2016. The Marvel Cinematic Universe grew, with hit after publicly beloved hit. And while this should have no bearing on the goings-on of a completely separate movie studio, public perception thought it should. Pressure seemed to mount on WB to compete with Disney/Marvel on a massive scale. "Give us a successful interconnected universe with Batman and Superman, and...wait, what? Wonder Woman?? You're putting Wonder Woman in this movie already? Now you're just forcing it!!"

Jason Momoa was cast. "Great, now Aquaman is in it?" Ray Fisher was cast. "They don't even care about this movie, do they?" Ezra Miller was cast. "Why aren't they using Grant Gustin? Oh no! This movie's going to be too full! Why is the whole Justice League in the first movie???"

Dang, even the extras fought this movie being made.

I saw these questions on movie sites, comic book sites, blogs, YouTube videos. Despite the public's desire for a competing DC cinematic universe, the public felt WB/DC was trying too hard. And here, I think, is the root of the problem. When you view something as a competition, invariably, you're going to view the participants as winner and loser. And though neither party has explicitly stated they're in competition, Marvel's mastermind, producer Kevin Feige (and seriously? who even knows producers' names?? that alone is a sign of their branding success - we know the name of the producer who oversees the MCU) has repeatedly and publicly acted with the confidence of a winner. They've branded themselves as the leader of the pack, the pioneer, the one to be emulated. Marvel used to announce movies at SDCC. Now they have their own event-style press conferences. And when it became clear that Marvel wanted to stick a finger in WB's eye by scheduling the release of the then untitled third Captain America film for the same weekend in May 2016, WB blinked and moved BvS to a March release. Marvel behaved as if they were in direct competition.

The real star of the MCU

When you walk around acting like the winner, by default, people start to look at your competitor as the loser. Every single image, minor production news, or trailer released for BvS was met with mixed reaction. Dubious scoffs. Bloggers complained "It's too dark!" "Great! Zack Snyder's gonna ruin this, too!" "They're never gonna catch up to Marvel!" "Aww! Why would they release their movie teaser the same time as the Star Wars teaser??" "They gave away Doomsday! Why would they spoil that in a trailer?" It wasn't just mild disappointment people expressed. It was pointed anger. And this anger doomed the perception of the production from the start. All because it didn't have the same look as the winning team.

More time passed. The movie was actually completed. March 2016 drew near. This would be it. The public could see and judge the finished product. Then the movie opened. And things got so much worse from there.

Reviews were described as "dismal". "Overwhelmingly negative". The words "critically panned", "boring" "dull" were tossed around freely. Headlines kept the public informed as the Rotten Tomatoes score fell. And yet, by Friday, there seems to be a disconnect between critics and the public. Holding a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, BvS still opened to 166M over the weekend, making it the largest March opening ever. And with it's 240M overseas haul, it's the biggest opening for a comic book movie in history. It's also sitting at a healthy 7.4 user rating on IMDb, which seems to indicate viewers don't hate it as much as critics. Yet despite the undeniable fact that this film has a sizable portion of fans, the negative voice is still crying out. The angry nerds still beg to be heard. But why? Why does it seem like people are actively, even gleefully rooting for this movie to be bad, to fail?

For some websites, they're chasing clicks, so they portray a situation as worse than it actually is to draw in readers. The need for an audience also applies to the movie critic community, which is ever-expanding with web-based journalism. (I mean how many of the reviewers listed on Rotten Tomatoes are actual employees of published periodicals, and how many work for smaller websites like "joeshmoelovesmovies.com"?) But too many reviews seem to be kneejerk reactions based on their expectation of what the movie should be, rather than what it is, or what the director intends it to be. So when you see a criticism that states "this movie is too dark!" that's a subjective opinion, and yes, all criticism is is an opinion, but that states nothing about the film itself. That's a critic dismissing a movie because it doesn't conform to his or her personal preferences. And I don't believe that's what film criticism should be. But the critics are just one aspect of the negative reaction.

In the week since the film's release, more stories have come out. Reputable sites are picking up stories about a very small minority of moviegoers circling a petition to remove Snyder from further involvement in the DCEU. Writers cry out "he's ruined everything Superman stands for!", "he's tarnished Batman forever!". Why? Because this whole circle - critics, bloggers, internet journalists - feeds on hyperbole. It's not enough to just say "eh...it's not that bad, but it's not that good either." It has to be the WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER!!! (which, please... Amazing Spider-Man 2 has far more serious problems than BvS) Then you get a loudmouth like Kevin Smith, who comes out and says that Snyder has a "fundamental misunderstanding of both characters" which is A) not true, and B) irrelevant. To say there's a fundamental misunderstanding implies that there is only one interpretation of Batman. Even if there was only one singular incarnation of Batman, instead of the literally dozens of comic writers who've put their own stamps on the dark knight, even if we didn't have several movies, and multiple TV series' set in Gotham City, Snyder is still making his own movie. He's the director, and he and the screenwriter have not only the freedom, but the duty to bring Batman and Superman to the big screen in a way that differs from most, if not all, of what's come beforehand. If all we got was a straight adaptation, he'd be criticized for that, too. Don't believe me? Read critiques of Watchmen, where Snyder was incredibly faithful to the source material. Nobody was happy with that one, either.

It is increasingly difficult to be both ambitious in your storytelling AND be a universal crowd-pleaser. The MCU may be so popular, its branding so successful that people are willing to forgive and forget its mistakes. (Iron Man 2 & 3, The Incredible Hulk, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron) But they've really only taken a risk on one movie - 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. And the only reason that was taking a chance was because the characters themselves were largely unknown. Story-wise, there was no risk involved, as the film has the same basic narrative of 'The Avengers'. And it still followed the prescribed MCU formula of being lighthearted and broadly comedic. Because Marvel doesn't want to rock the boat. They want to keep making people happy, keep the Marvel brand alive and well. Don't believe me? Why did Edgar Wright quit Ant-Man? Why did Joss Whedon quit making Avengers movies? (don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad he did - I don't personally like his sensibilities).

Look, Zack Snyder didn't ruin anything. He didn't tarnish the reputation of fictional characters. He didn't even make the worst comic book movie ever. He failed at making a perfect movie, but we shouldn't fault him for that. He wanted to give us something different, and something new, and play with these characters in a way we'd never seen before. And for the most part, in that endeavor, he succeeded.

I'm a few weeks into writing for this blog, now. And I'm trying to keep things largely positive. That doesn't mean I won't ever be critical, or I won't ever dislike something. I'm sure I will. It's inevitable. But the one thing I really don't want to do is feed into the Angry Nerd stereotype. I don't want to toss around phrases like "they ruined Superman!" or "so and so ruined my childhood!". I don't want my critiques to turn into nitpicking sessions, wherein I'm never satisfied with the movie, and I can't even enjoy watching stuff I already know I love because the Angry Nerd tells me I'm not supposed to like it. I don't want to be angry. And I don't want to force my angry opinions on whoever reads this blog. The obscenely negative reaction to 'Batman v Superman' is the result of the Angry Nerd mentality run amok. WB tried to make a superhero movie that was thoughtful and subverted typical ideas and expectations, and no one ever seemed willing to give them a chance. The Angry Nerd was against it from the start. And I never want to walk in to a movie theater with the expectation that I will be angered by what I see. Because if that happens, then movies WILL have been ruined for me. And I absolutely never, ever want that.