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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
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Aron Toplitsky
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 113
From: Gardena, CA, USA
Registered: May 2012
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posted 04-05-2016 01:00 PM
Saw this at Universal City Walk IMAX Laser 2D this past weekend. I will get to that in a minute.
Going into this movie I was hoping the negative reviews were exaggerated. I did like the film but didn’t love it. I liked the story, but like most I felt the story wasn’t told very well. Will the extra half hour for blu ray make it a better film? Perhaps. I didn’t realize until after I got home and watched an easter egg video on youtube, that there would be so many comic book references. Those went over my head since I never read DC comics. I think that’s also one of the problems with BvsS, too many insider references. I read Zack Snyder made the choice to cut the ½ hour while the studio was all for it. I’m not so sure that was a wise choice, then again could I have endured another half hour, even after the 900 trailers that were shown?
(**Spoiler next if anyone cares**) During opening weekend I saw a different film at the Arclight Hollywood and poked my head in on the 5/70 presentation. It was during the scene in which Superman speaks with his mom before she is kidnapped. I thought it looked really good with the exception of quite a bit of grain. Honestly grain doesn’t bother me, which brings me to the IMAX Laser version. I noticed only some to very little grain during the entire movie and that same scene did not look nearly as grainy in IMAX Laser. It was so refreshing to not be forced to endure a 3D viewing and I’d love to know who was responsible for that choice. Star Wars IMAX Laser 3D at this same theater was a disappointment and since then, I’ve decided unless a film is shot in it, I’m done with 3D and refuse to pay for it! I asked the front desk kid to please let management know and stressed, future 2D IMAX showings would be preferred. I also tweeted AMC thanking them.
So the 2D image looked great but of course the IMAX footage was, as Mike Schulz said….STUNNING! I am truly amazed at how they can project an image that large and look like 15/70, if not better! Those scenes alone were worth the price of admission. As a sound nut, I thought it was a good sound mix/design but not great. I wish there hadn't been so much wall to wall music and the effects were allowed to shine a little.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-08-2016 02:43 PM
I watched this last night with a friend who is a huge Bat-fan, and we both enjoyed it a lot. He thought it was "fantastic," I thought it was "pretty good" which is high praise from me for a superhero movie. I liked the moral questions it raised -- Superman being a save-the-day type of guy WOULD play badly in some situations, especially when people are killed. For once, the base story was believable.
I liked how it gave both of the characters a reason to want to beat down the other one, without it seeming too contrived. (I had been worried about that.) And, I liked the dilemma Supe faced just before the final battle -- it kind of harked back to the dilemma he faced in the first Superman movie in the 70s, and the solution this time made more sense than in the older film.
Seems like most of the reviewers hated the Lex Luthor character. I thought he was kind of creepy/fun. He didn't get on my nerves like I was expecting him to.
The chase scene with the Batmobile was a huge disappointment, partly because I am up to here with indestructible vehicles, and the thing was filmed so chaotically that it was impossible to tell what was going on.
I also don't get the whole "glowing eyes" thing that is now apparently the default for Batman and Iron Man and others. Sure it makes them look more menacing, but it's sort of like those crystal clear computer screens that were all the rage a while ago -- just because you CAN show something doesn't mean you should. The only guy glowing eyes make sense on is Superman since he has the whole heat vision thing going on.
I agree Wonder Woman felt tacked on. I hate that they revealed her presence in the posters, trailers, pretty much everywhere. It would have been SO much better if she'd been a huge surprise.
I was hoping for a few more bits of humor. At one point where Superman throws Batman through a wall, it would have been cool if he'd left a bat-shaped opening. Or, they could have had Batman grumbling, "I promised we wouldn't destroy the city this time!" Stuff like that.
Those gripes aside, the trailers made it look like this movie was going to be a big sludgefest, but it was surprisingly light on its feet. It did not seem overlong to me. The big fight scene was overblown just like they all are, but the story had some good surprises and twists and sets up the forthcoming movies well.
I don't really see the need to make a longer BluRay version, although I might be a customer if they show Lois Lane's boobs in the bathtub scene.
3 out of 5 stars.
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 04-09-2016 06:40 PM
I encountered my first first superhero smackdown in 1991 in the graphic novel Judgement on Gotham, a story which pitted Judge Dredd against Batman. Judge Dredd is a hard-line law enforcing thug and Batman is a righteous vigilante - it was easy to see why the pair would not get along. It was a hero versus anti-hero scenario.
With Batman versus Superman, however, it's not quite so easy to see the conflict as they are both clearly on the "hero" side of the equation. But director, Zack Snyder, does a reasonable job of pulling this together by tapping into a problem which many viewers had with his prior film, Man of Steel.
Batman, like many of us, heavily resents the heavy public toll resulting from Superman's urban clash with General Zod. This is understandable but when Batman determines to kill Superman in response, whoah, that's a whole different level again and Snyder never quite convinces why two honourable superheroes would wish to assassinate each other. Not even a zero tolerant Megacity judge with a penchant for police brutality went there!
In contrast with popular opinion, it seems, I quite like what Snyder is attempting with the Superman tale. It's a fascinating prospect to put this extra terrestrial man of steel into a contemporary setting and look at how, in all likelihood, the public would react to an alien with almost limitless power. In messianic fashion, some would surely revere this figure, but the bulk would treat him with suspicion and fear of what he could do to us were he to turn "rogue".
This is very close to the line Christopher Nolan took with his Batman films, of course, (and it's notable that Nolan is a producer of Snyder's Superman films) but Snyder is not the storyteller that Nolan is and the result is a Superman film which is grubbier than even Nolan's Batman. Indeed, Snyder's rendering of the Batfleck is just plain nasty and psychotic as he steamrolls through Gotham, branding criminals with his hot iron knuckle batdusters. Snyder has taken Nolan's balanced grubbiness - and Watchmen-ified it. Substitute Superman for Mr Manhattan and Batman for Rorschach and you pretty much have it.
But while this tone may be passable in Gotham, it sits a little less comfortably with Metropolis. Superman is a messiah figure and dragging him through a Gotham-like quagmire of corruption and dishonour besmirches his brand to its detriment. It's an uneasy and uncomfortable mix for our Kryptonian white knight and Snyder only narrowly gets away with it.
On the whole, I quite like Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, (I even saw it twice) but I like it more for the ideas that Snyder is attempting to relate rather than his success in reaching that goal.
7 out of 10
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