DC Movies - 2021

[odessasteps]

if only ... 

[AxB]

Ha ha ha. Keeping failing upwards JJ. You've already fucked up not only Star Trek but Star Wars as well, now you get to ruin DC too? FANTASTIC~!

Edited May 7, 2021 by AxB

[John from Cincinnati]

Maybe after JJ is done with his usual bang-up job, they'll bring in Justin Lin to direct a decent DC movie that nobody will bother buying a ticket to. 

[Casey]

I finished that unnecessary Justice League cut.

There’s a good movie in there somewhere, in between the Whedon cut and Snyder’s. 4 hours of all this extra crap just isn’t needed. Well, to begin with, the entire concept is too soon and rushed, but whatever, we’re here and this is what we have to work with. The first… I dunno, hour and a half to two hours is very, very slow and just… boring. I don’t know that I need to see stuff like Darkseid thousands of years ago or whatever fighting the Amazons and a Green Lantern and whoever else was in that scene. I know, context for everything, but I didn’t need to see Thanos obtaining the first Infinity Stone. It’s just implied some shit happened.

Credit where credit is due, this cut made me care about Flash and Cyborg so that’s a big success. BUT - I still hate Barry’s suit, and holy fuck the CGI is still terrible for Cyborg (and pretty much everything else - Steppenwolf and Darkseid look like shit).

They removed the nightmare scene and replaced it with a different scene in the same future world, but added in five people who weren’t present in the original. Joker and Deathstroke was just random and I don’t know why they were there. At least Mera, Flash and Cyborg made sense, I guess. Was the “we live in a society” scene a deleted one?

Ultimately, the last two hours or so I didn’t hate. But the last two hours was also basically the “original” movie. I guess the previous two hours made me tolerate it better, but if you need that much extra time to expand the story then maybe you’ve rushed this and DC/Warner should have had a better plan in place prior to this originally to flesh it all out. I hate to say it, but… y’know, like Marvel.

For all the talk of “continue the Snyderverse” or whatever… isn’t that already happening kind of? Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman will continue on with the original actors/actresses involved - yeah, the big two are changing, but the Snyderverse lives on in other characters. Admittedly I’m kind of bummed, though - I’d love to see a Batfleck vs Manganiello‘a Deathstroke movie.

WTLDR - This wasn’t necessary, but neither was the original Justice League. There were some bright spots, though. CGI is still god awful even with that insane budget, and none of the movie “pops” unless it’s non-superhero shots like Wayne’s lakeside home (jealous af).

[AxB]

I did see a thing on twitter where someone was doing a side by side comparison  of Wonder Woman standing on the statue in London, and saying how one looked so much better because of the colours and the scope. And then the top reply was "Which is the good one?"

[twiztor]

On 5/2/2021 at 7:01 AM, AxB said:

I didn't like the Tumbler. Well, I do, but it's not the Batmobile to me. I think of the Batmobile as being a very fast sports car that shoots past so quickly you barely even see it. Whereas the Tumbler is all kinds of unsubtle. Like you'd hear it coming five minutes before it rumbled on by.

i hated the Tumbler for all the same reasons. Still call it the Bat-Tank. my favorite Batmobiles are the '60s TV show and BTAS. 

On 4/20/2021 at 10:03 AM, TheVileOne said:

The ending of Hush still went off like a wet fart to me. Same with the animated movie. Like 10 issues or so of the quintessential modern Batman story only to fall spectacularly apart by the end. In my opinion of course, to those who love Hush.

i think of Hush as a Batman "greatest hits" run, since each issue essentially focuses on a different villain. I enjoyed it for what it was. I wouldn't call it an all-time great, but is a great introduction to the character and his world. The two best parts were a returned Jason Todd (still one of my favorite panels with him in the graveyard in a pseudo-modern Robin outfit) and the attempted rehab of Riddler.

Unrelated to Hush, i really liked that they had Riddler become a private detective in the comics back around the Infinite Crisis time period. Unsurprisingly, this was written by Paul Dini as well. A bit of a shame that they reverted him to puzzle villain almost immediately.

[TheVileOne]

2 hours ago, twiztor said:

i hated the Tumbler for all the same reasons. Still call it the Bat-Tank. my favorite Batmobiles are the '60s TV show and BTAS. 

i think of Hush as a Batman "greatest hits" run, since each issue essentially focuses on a different villain. I enjoyed it for what it was. I wouldn't call it an all-time great, but is a great introduction to the character and his world. The two best parts were a returned Jason Todd (still one of my favorite panels with him in the graveyard in a pseudo-modern Robin outfit) and the attempted rehab of Riddler.

Unrelated to Hush, i really liked that they had Riddler become a private detective in the comics back around the Infinite Crisis time period. Unsurprisingly, this was written by Paul Dini as well. A bit of a shame that they reverted him to puzzle villain almost immediately.

Unfortunately that Jason Todd moment was a bait and switch, only to ultimately bring Jason Todd back anyway. They should've just run with that moment and go with it then.

[Casey]

I just realized that the Knightmare scene I thought was cut from this movie was actually in Batman vs Superman and that kind of says a lot about how these DC Snyder movies just blend together.

[twiztor]

i watched Wonder Woman '84 over the weekend. i knew it didn't have a great reputation, but the first WW movie was pretty great, so it was worth a watch.

Narrator: "it was not"

the story wasn't compelling. Diana is mopey about a boy and barely appears as WW. Steve Trevor saves Diana at least as much as the reverse. Kristen Wiig carries the film as Minerva, but the transition to Cheetah spoils it. the final conflict with Max Lord is a joke, and the resolution is a horribly failed punchline.

[Dolfan in NYC]

A promotional artwork of The Riddler in next year's The Batman has leaked:

Spoiler

Twitter is complaining because that's what Twitter does for any movie that doesn't feature Tony Stark.  But I think it looks cool.  Whatever. 

[odessasteps]

If Doom was a nerd 

[Eivion]

I hate it for the Riddler, but it probably makes sense for what they are going for with the character here so I can't complain too much.

[JonnyLaw]

3 hours ago, Eivion said:

I hate it for the Riddler, but it probably makes sense for what they are going for with the character here so I can't complain too much.

This is where I’m at. Supposedly, from a brief skim of Twitter earlier today, this Riddler is somewhat based on the Zodiac Killer.

[twiztor]

i don't need my Riddler to wear a gimp mask, thanks.

[Zimbra]

Feels like there's some kind of middle ground in-between Frank Gorshin in a question mark suit and Machine from 8mm that they could have hit.

[odessasteps]

The business suit of the last few years/decades can be either subtle or gaudy as need be. 

[The Natural]

Love the Batsuit.

Edited May 21, 2021 by The Natural

[NoFistsJustFlips]

On 5/19/2021 at 9:56 AM, Dolfan in NYC said:

Twitter is complaining because that's what Twitter does for any movie that doesn't feature Tony Stark.  But I think it looks cool.  Whatever. 

If I had power at WB my pivot off of the DCEU would be to setup an extensive Batverse. Put all the other DC properties on ice. Joker made a billion dollars man. Instead of diving into a Batman film... I would have made singular films about each of the big villains. And in my Bat-villain-verse I always thought turning Riddler into a full on horror movie with elements of Saw was the way to go with the character. It fits. You make a gritty crime drama with Penguin. You make a heist movie with Catwoman (and maybe her team consists of other female villains). You keep Joker in canon. A court drama with Harvey Dent. You build up similar to how The MCU did. But instead of building your hero team, you're building your rouge's gallery. Then BAM you drop a Batman movie with a fleshed out team of heels for him to fight and make all the monies.

All this is to say I really really dig The Riddler character tweak, in theory. The look is not exactly my favorite. *BUT* Ledger's Joker didn't strike me as a good look during promotional images either and I ended up loving it. It's *the* definitive Joker for me. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they pull off the new Riddler tone.

[The Natural]

[The Natural]

Love this Batsuit.

Edited May 23, 2021 by The Natural

[Bustronaut]

Is he wearing hockey pads?!?

[Casey]

Wonder Woman 1984 is back on HBO Max, so I decided to give it a try.

And... I didn't hate it. Still don't like Gal Gadot, like at all - her acting is so wooden and stiff. And I won't get into the other things. But all things considered, she's a pretty good Wonder Woman. And Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal were awesome, too. It's been so long since I've seen the first movie, but this sequel makes me remember how good Chris Pine can be, too. Why did people hate this movie so much?

My only complaint was Cheetah legit blended into the environment during that final fight scene with Diana, so much so that at one point, she's getting ready to leap off a concrete wall and it was hard to tell where she was. Odd color choice for the character in that scene, since she's a fucking Cheetah, but whatever. Not like you can blame the lighting or anything either, since Diana's armor was front and center and was a pretty stark color difference with everything else in that 10ish minutes.

On 5/21/2021 at 6:35 PM, NoFistsJustFlips said:

If I had power at WB my pivot off of the DCEU would be to setup an extensive Batverse. Put all the other DC properties on ice. Joker made a billion dollars man. Instead of diving into a Batman film... I would have made singular films about each of the big villains. And in my Bat-villain-verse I always thought turning Riddler into a full on horror movie with elements of Saw was the way to go with the character. It fits. You make a gritty crime drama with Penguin. You make a heist movie with Catwoman (and maybe her team consists of other female villains). You keep Joker in canon. A court drama with Harvey Dent. You build up similar to how The MCU did. But instead of building your hero team, you're building your rouge's gallery. Then BAM you drop a Batman movie with a fleshed out team of heels for him to fight and make all the monies.

All this is to say I really really dig The Riddler character tweak, in theory. The look is not exactly my favorite. *BUT* Ledger's Joker didn't strike me as a good look during promotional images either and I ended up loving it. It's *the* definitive Joker for me. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they pull off the new Riddler tone.

I'm on the opposite end of what you're saying. Do I want to see the new Batman movie? Oh, yeah, absolutely. But I think they should pivot away from Batman/Superman for awhile and focus on other characters. A goddamn Shazam movie made close to $400 million. I don't care who you are, that's a fucking success in my book.

[John from Cincinnati]

Also just watched WW84. It was rad. Coming in with the big Themyscira set piece and jumping to Diana doing earnest superhero good deed shit and then tossing around some lunkheads set to rousing music was a great one-two punch. Movie started red hot. After that, I'm not in the mood to quibble over wish logic or questionable CGI. Happy to see one of these movies take some big swings without being as heavy and dour and sullen and self-serious as some of these things can get (yes, I'm talking about the guy who tugs it to Ayn Rand). Most I've enjoyed a DC flick since at least Dark Knight Rises. 

Much like Tenet, happy to experience it months removed from the discourse. Both pleasant surprises. Tenet's especially due for a lot of re-evaluation once people get some distance from it.

Re: Gadot's acting, I recently heard it framed as her being a John Wayne type performer: Very limited, but striking and effective in a small window. I think that's about right. 

[The Natural]

This is cool.

[John from Cincinnati]

Todd Phillips is said to be working on a script for Joker 2. One wonders if he'll be riffing on Scorsese's Cape Fear remake or Shutter Island.

I only care if it's about pool hustling.