This blog covers Movies, TV, and other Geeky things...... Movie Reviews (over 3,400 movies rated so far) Countdowns of my top movies by year.... and much more.
I finally got around to seeing Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman was a quality comic book film. A much better effort than DC's Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad. It did suffer to a certain extent from being an origin story. I've railed against stuff like this before when a studio spends too much time telling the origin of a character that is pretty much common knowledge at this point. We were already introduced to the character in Batman vs Superman and for some reason DC still felt the need to tell the origins of the character which slowed the film down. We have to wait about an hour and 15 minutes before we actually get to see Wonder Woman being Wonder Woman. When that moment finally arrives in the trenches of World War II she kicks ass and pretty much kicks ass for the rest of the movie.
Gal Gadot does a good job as Wonder Woman, but doesn't really fit the origin of a character with Amazon origins. Her mother and all the other woman from her homeland seemed to better fit the Amazonian warrior look. Chris Pine does a much better job in his role a spy during the war than he does in the role of Captain Kirk in the new Trek films. The two have a job chemistry which is on display early in the film. Wonder Woman arrives to 1940's London and seems more Ariel from the Little Mermaid than Wonder Woman at first until we get to see her in action.
The reason this film works better than the other two DC effort mentioned above is that the script is much stronger. The film has a good mix of comedy and action and the plot isn't a mess like the other DC films. I just wish we could have got to the real action a lot faster .... it almost took too long.
I'll start by saying that I wasn't among the people dying to see Batman v Superman. I was uninspired by the trailers for this film and was nervous about the director since I didn't really like Watchman. I wasn't dying to see Batman and Superman fight because the Batman and Superman that I remember fondly are the Super Friends cartoon. Plus as far as I was concerned Superman would wipe the floor with Batman. The shot in the trailer where Superman throws a punch and Batman blocked it made me laugh.
(Ok so they explain that in the film).
So I figured that I probably wouldn't see this movie until it came out on Netflix. But this past weekend I found myself in San Diego checking out of a dreadful hotel (that is a whole different story) while the girls were at a cheer competition. After finding a new hotel, my stepson and I needed to kill some time until the girls were done. There were no new movies out worth seeing so I figured that he might want to see Batman v Superman.
I figured it couldn't really be as bad as all of those terrible critic reviews? What to critics know right... And the angry nerd reviews that came out afterwards were just typical angry nerd reviews.
I had avoided actually reading the bad reviews choosing to decide for myself when I finally got around to seeing it. Well I guess critics and nerds were right.
I was over an hour into the movie when I realized that nothing interesting had happened yet. Weren't Batman and Superman supposed to fight at some point? The movie was just very dull and mindnumbingly boring. I started shaking my head in frustration as another dream sequence was thrown in to delay the much awaited throw down. When they finally get to the fight between these heroes, I had kind of stopped caring. The fight itself was good, ubt then the filmmakers destroyed that moment. So basically they are telling us that if Superman's mom had been named Bernice instead of Martha --Batman would have killed him??? Hey our mom's have the same name....let's stop fighting each other and be best friends. This pivotal moment in the film was beyond stupid and ruined any hope of me liking the film. The battle at the end was a nice cartoon superheroes meets the 300 visual moment---but the story up until that moment lost me completely.
Here are 6 Things I hated about Batman v Superman and 1 thing I liked.
6. The reason that Batman and Superman wanted to fight
Batman and Superman wanting to fight each other felt very forced. I get that Lex was trying to set them up --but half the movie was spent with each of them complaining about each other. I wasn't buying it. When Lex held Superman's mom hostage to try and force the fight ---Superman would have addressed that immediately with Batman before fighting him. Instead of cutting to the chase with this important info he ends up almost killed.
5. Superman and Lois get naughty
What was up with the unnecessary Lois Lane in the bathtub scene. Seriously. Not that there is anything wrong with Amy Adams in a bathtub. Batman v Superman is just not the place for it.
4. Lex Luthor
Lex was always a genius in every other version of Superman. In Batman v Superman he came off as more of a psycho. Less genius and more Joker or Riddler. This version of Lex Luthor was terrible.
3. The Kevin Costner Field of Dreams scene:
The dialogue was terrible and I was half expecting Shoelace Joe Jackson to walk out of the cornfield.
2. Batman's parents die again
I'm on the record in the Podcast and many of my movie reviews that I'm not a fan of Reboots and retelling origin stories. For example when they recently rebooted Spiderman in the Amazing Spiderman a few years back, I felt like I was just watching the same movie I had already seen a few years ago......I'm sick of having my time wasted with original stories of characters everyone in world should already be aware of. That goes for the Batman's parents getting gunned down scene followed by him in the cave with bats.....We get it ---we know who Batman is.
1. Martha---Hey that is my mom's name as well moment
This was one of the most contrieved and stupid plot moment.
This was just terribly lazy writing to get from Superman and Batman throwing punches at each each to working together. This was definitely the worst moment in the movie.
The 1 Thing I actually liked
1. Wonder Women shows up mid fight with Doomsday.
Her appearance in the fight was the most epic moment in the movie. Despite the fact that I wasn't happy with the casting of Wonder Woman... her entry into the fight was one of the best moments in the movie.
My final thoughts: Batman v Superman was one of the most disappointing big budget movies I've seen in years. Even going in with low expectations --I can't believe how bored I was watching this movie. The picture below that I saw a friend post on facebook sums up how I felt about the movie.
I would say skip it and wait for Captain America --which will probably be a much better film.
